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Social Theory

A Historica! Introduction

Second Edition

Alex Callinicos

polity

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'lll(. rilllrt ol A. 'l: (' llinicon k) bc idcnlilicd s Author ol lhis Work has hr:cD
irsserlc(l ill:ruorrllncc with lhc UK Copyri8ht. Designs and Patents Acl l9llll.

First publishcd in 2007 by Poliry Press


In Memoriam
Reprinted in 2007

Polity Press Aelda Callinicos


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ISBN-10: 0-7456-3839-2
ISBN-l 3: 978-07,156-3839-3
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CONTENTS

Preface to the First Edition and Acknowledgements x


Preface to the Second Edition and Acknowledgements xi
Note to Readers xiii
Introduction 1

The Enlightenment 10
1.1 Prehistory l0
1.2 The concept of modernity 13
1.3 A moral science l5
1.4 The development of social theory 20
1.5 Inner strains 25

2 Hegel 39
2.1 Reconciling modernity 39
2.2 The labour of the negative 47
2.3 The debate over modernity 54

Liberals and Reactionaries 57


3.1 Post-Revolutionary debates 5l
3.2 Agonistic liberalism: Tocqueville and Mill 61
3.3 Providence and race: Maistre and Gobineau 72

Marx 78
4.1 The adventures of the dialectic 78
4.2 History and capitalism 84
4.3 Class struggle and revolution 92
( ,r lttloill:, (,ottlottl: tx

5 l,ilt' :rrrrl I'owcr' I('o II ' l'lt,':.,x t;tl it\ n('l\\rotks ()t its ttolltilt| .t.t( )

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5.2 'lwo cvolutiorrists: Spcncer ancl Kautsky I0ri I t I'l'lrt'tlclr;rlt' rt'srrnrctl 345
-5.3 Nature as the will to powcr: Nietzschc I l-5

l r r IIt t' t' litr rr I i rt,q 353


Durkheim 123 "r
Itttlt'r, 363
6.1 Social evolution and scientific objectivity t23
6.2 Society as a moral reality 133
6.3 Meaning and belief 139

Weber 146
1.1 Prussian agriculture and the German state t46
1.2 Science and the warring gods 153
7.3 History and rationalization 159
1.4 Liberal imperialism and democratic politics fl0

The Illusions of Progress 179


8.1 The strange death of liberal Europe 179
8.2 Objectivity and estrangement: Simmel 182
8.3 The self dissected: Freud 187
8.4 Memories of underdevelopment: Russian
intellectuals and capitalism 193

Revolution and Counter-Revolution 202


9.1 Hegelian Marxism: Lukäcs and Gramsci 202
9.2 Heidegger and the conservative revolution 214

10 The Golden Age 227


l0.l Theories of capitalism: Keynes and Hayek 227
10.2 Functionalist sociology: Talcott Parsons 237
10.3 Despairing critique: the Frankfurt School 245

l1 Crack-Up? 258
ll.1 The 1960s and after 258
ll.2 Structure and subject: L6vi-Strauss and Althusser 267
11.3 Nietzsche's revenge: Foucault and post-structuralism 276
11.4 Carrying on the tradition: Habermas and Bourdieu 284

12 Debating Modernity and Postmodernity 299

13 Changing the Subject: Globalization, Capitalism,


and Imperialism 323
l3.l Much ado about globalization 3/-3
Preface to the First Edition Preface to the Second Edition
and Acknowledgements and Acknowledgements

I was lucky enough to become intellectually self-conscious and politically Social theory, under pressure from the boom in postmodernism and in cultural
active at the end of the 1960s. This was a time when, among other things, stuclies during the 1980s and 1990s, has been undergoing a significant revival
interest in various heretical brands of social theory associated either with some sirrce the first edition of this book appeared in 1999- There have accordingly
version of Marxism or with an exotic species of Continental philosophy (or bcen a significant number of changes to this second edition. Chapter 11 has
both) was exploding. The excitement I f'elt then has never left me. I hope that hccn updated a little to take into account the further evolution of Habermas's
this book conveys a little at least of that excitement even in what is evidently and Bourdieu's thought. Chapter 12 no longer functions as even a substitute
a much less intellectually and politically invigorating climate. lirr a conclusion but serves to pull together the debates about modernity and
Behind this book, then, is getting on for thirty years of reading, discussing, postmodernity that still have some contemporary resonance.
teaching, and writing social theory. During that time I have of course accu- The most important change, however, is the addition of a substantial new
mulated far too many debts possibly to acknowledge most here. I must, Chapter 13, 'Changing the Subject: Globalization, Capitalism, and Imperial-
however, thank the successive generations of students who have listened to me ism'. This traces the dramatic shift in the focus of debate since the mid-1990s.
with more patience than I deserved, forced me to state what I was trying to first with the proliferating discourse of globalization, which seemed for a
say more clearly, and helped to develop our discussions in stimulating and while as if it would swallow up all discussion in social theory, then with the
il luminating directions. renewed preoccupation with capitalisrn that followed the emergence of the
There are others who cannot go without more specilic mention. David Held new movements of resistance to neo-liberalism associated with names such
has been trying to coax me into writing this book ever since we taught together as Chiapas, Seattle, and Genoa, and finally, in response to the 'long war'
for a short while at the beginning of the 1980s. Since I finally cracked, he has proclaimed by the United States after l1 September 2001, the revived interest
been, as evel, an endlessly encouraging and helpful editor. Everyone else in theories of imperialism. In addressing these reorientations, I feel that one
with whorn I have dealt at Polity and Blackwell - Julia Harsant, Gill Motley, of the distinctive features of this book, namely the stress it places on the role
Jennifer Speake, and Janet Moth - have been equally supportive. played by political economy in the constitution of social theory, has more than
Sam Ashman was heroically kind and patient while I wrote this book. She paid off. But I also try to show how the subterranean rumblings from contem-
has also, in the final stages of production, overcome her earlier (to my mind porary struggles over neo-liberal globalization have also shaken the pinnacles
inexplicable) reluctance about actually reading the draft to help with the awful of high theory, most notably in the recent work of Slavoj ZiZeU.. Finally. the
task of checking the proof-s. For this. and for much else, I am eternally section on Further Reading has been substantially extended and updated.
grateful. As with the first edition of Social Theory,I have drawn on a very wide
I have, however, left my greatest debt till last. My mother died very suddenly spectrum of my writing and teaching in revising the book. A much more
while I was in the early planning stages of this book. Her memory was never detailed exploration of the theoretical realignments of the past decade or so
tar away while I worked on and wrote it. I know very well how much I owe to will be found in another book of mine published by Polity, The Resources of
her. It is therefore only natural that I should dedicate Social Theory to her. Critique. Properly acknowledging all the debts I have accumulated that have
J'tcl;rr:c lo lll() l;o(;ottrl Irltltott

lrllowctl rttc lo rcvisc llrc pt'cscnl lrook wottltl lltkc ttp l:tt'loo tttttt'lr sprtt'r'. lrttl
thcrc arc sonrc Ihat carrnt)t go ur)rllcntioncd. I rrraclc thc rcvisiorrs soon ll'lcr'
starting a new.iob at King's College, London, and I arn grateful to rny col-
leagues in European Studies fbr helping me to ease myself into the job. At
Polity I must express special gratitude to Emma Longstaff, who persuaded rne
to take on a new edition of Social Theory, and subsequently has, kindly but
firmly, made sure that I put in the work on it. Two anonymous readers made
Note to Readers
very helpful and encouraging comments on the revised book in draft. And I
must also thank others at Polity, notably Caroline Richmond and David
Watson, for the role they have played in the book's production.

Irr ortlcr t«r keep the scholarly apparatus supporting my text to the minimum
orrly w«rrks directly cited appear in the footnotes to each chapter. 'Further
l(e ruling' at the end of the book has a section for each chapter in which books
ruttl urticles on which I have drawn or which readers may find useful are listed.
'l'hc lirotnotes also include brief biographical sketches of the thinkers I discuss.
I lravc tried, as far as possible, to cite their texts in good, readily available
ctlilions, and to avoid using sources in languages other than English. Unless
olhcrwise indicated, italics in quotations are in the original. It has rightly
hccome unacceptable to use pronouns in a way that equates humanity with
nlen: most of the thinkers I discuss, however, followed the old usage, and
sometimes, in expounding their views, it would have distorted these not to
have done likewise.

Jt
lntroduction

Sot'irrl thcory, as it has developed over the past two centuries, has concerned
itscll' r))ore than anything else with the three main dimensions of social power -
r't'orronric relations, which have reached their furthest development in the mar-
kt't systern known as capitalism; the ideologies through which forms of special
l)()wcr are justilied and the place in the world of those subject to them defined;
rrrrd the various patterns of political domination. The leading social theorists -
Marx, Durkheim, and Weber above all - have been concerned to understand
thc interrelations of these three kinds of social power, especially in the consti-
tutior.r of the modern world. Such an understanding would seem indispensable
to iuryone seeking to make sense of, or to improve that world. Social Theorr.
traces the development of, and the variations and the conflicts in this under-
standing.
Yet to write an introduction to social theory may seem like a rather old-
tashioned enterprise. After all, social theory is often seen in contemporary in-
tellectual debates as an outdated form of understanding. In the rather apocalyptic
style that has become common during the past couple of decades, the end of
numerous institutions, practices, and traditions - even of history itself - has
been announced. Though, as far as I know, no one has yet announced the end of
social theory, someone is bound to get round to it sooner or later.
This book is in no sense an introduction to, or a history of, sociology as an
academic discipline. Neverlheless, since certain themes in social theory have
provided sociology with one of its main sources of legitimacy, the relative
marginalization of sociology over the last twenty years was bound to have some
impact on the standing of social theory. Sociology has been on the retreat in
part fbr political reasons. The New Right, ascendant in the Western liberal de-
mocracies during the 1980s, effectively regarded sociology as a stalking horse
for socialism. In Britain under the Thatcher government the relevant funding
body for academic research was renamed in order to free it of any association
with the idea of social science.

,ü,
lntrodtr<;lir>n lntroduction

This kind of ideologicllly irrrlrrt'r'rl rrrstittrtional pressure has been reinforced More generally, social theory is best seen as one of the chief heirs of the
by shifts in intellcctual I'rrslriorr. Sot'iology has been thrown into the shade by Enlightenment: it has taken over, and acted out, both the aspirations and the
the new boom stlh.iect ol't'rrllrrrrrl sttrrlics. A visit to any academic bookshop contradictions of the Enlightenment. The influence of postmodernism has made
usually reveals alt cliol:tlt'rl sot'iology section dwarfed, or even swallowed up fershionable the disrnissal of the Enlightenment as an era of illusions when
completely, by cttlltl'rtl slrrtlics. Ol'course, a great deal of repackaging of old numerous tbrms of oppression were forged. This is a profoundly disabling
ntaterial is involl'ctl irr llris rcordering of disciplinary frontiers quite a lot of
- view. It is undoubtedly true that the promise of universal knowledge and free-
l

what used to hc: crrllctl sociokrgy is now pursued within the fiamework of cul- dom off'ered by the eighteenth-century philosoplzes was falsified by the limit-
tl tural studics. Ncvcrlltclcss, changes in academic taste have material conse- ations and dilemmas inherent in their project. Nevertheless, as I try to show in
quences, sittcc lllcy cltrt itl'f'ect the flow of students, research funding, and book this book, the very collapse of the Enlightenment project set an intellectual
contracts. agenda which continues to provide the fiamework within which we struggle
In any cilsc. tltcrc are deeper forces at work here. For better or worse, we to make sense of the social world. The leading social theorists discussed here
live in alt cril
whe re postrnodernism has come to set the terms of intellectual all grappled with the difficulties created by this collapse, neither completely
and cultural tJcbate. The most influential account of postmodernity was pro- abandoning the aspirations of the Enlightenment nor uncritically ignoring its
vided by Jcan-Frangois Lyotard. He deflnes'postmodern as incredulity to- weaknesses.
wards nletanarratives', contrasting it with the modern, that is, with 'any science It does not follow that the history of modern social theory is simply that of
that legitimates itself with reference to a metadiscourse . . . making an explicit cornpeting grand narratives. For one thing, at least one leading character in our
appeal to some grand narrative, such as the dialectics of Spirit, the hermeneutics story - Weber - was extremely sceptical about the ability of scientific thought
of meaning, the emancipation of the rational or working subject, or the cre- t() come up with a totalizing account of human history (though, at least argu-
ation of wealth'.r A grand narrative tbr Lyotard is an attempt to make sense of ahly, his writings nevertheless imply such an account). For another, some gen-
the totality of human history. He makes it clear that he regards this kind of cral theories of society are less compelling than others: fbr example, Comte,
philosophy of history as essentially a child of the eighteenth-cenrury Enlight- Spcncer, and Parsons, all highly influential in their day, do not provide the
enment, and that its most important practitioners were Hegel, for whom insights offered by social theorists of the first rank.
history was the progress of the consciousness of freedom, and Marx, who saw A more irnportant qualification is that the attempts to continue the Enlighten-
in it the development of the productive forces and the class struggle. rttent project outlined in this book were constantly accompanied by, and often
Postmodernity represents the collapse of these grand narratives, the abanclon- in dialogue with, root-and-branch rejections of that entire project. For this
ment of any attempt to cast the entire historical process into a single interpre- rcason, there is little sense in considering the thought of what are generally
tive scheme. regarded as the 'classic' social theorists - say, Tocqueville, Marx, Durkheim,
Acceptance of some version of Lyotard's view is bound to have a negative and Weber - without some attempt to situate them with respect to the critics of
impact on the status and influence of social theory. Social theory, as I argue in rnodernity - for example, Maistre, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. One consequence
more detail in chapter I below, ( I ) seeks to understand society as a whole (as «rt'widening the context in this way is that it becomes clear that the postmodernist
opposed to particular political forms); (2) distinguishes between and makes 'incredulity about metanarratives' is simply the latest episode in a much longer
generalizations about different kinds of society; and (3) is concerned in particu- debate.
lar to analyse modernity, the forms of social life which have come to prevail The fbregoing should underline that my treatment of social theory is wider
first in the We.st and increasingly in the rest of the world over the past couple of than traditionalaccounts of the 'Founders of SociologicalThought'. Few inter-
centuries. Simply to set out this delinition is to indicate that any social theorist esting thinkers lit easily within conventional disciplinary boundaries. Of the
is likely to construct or to presuppose a grand nanative. Marx indeed is gener- lirur 'classic' thinkers listed in the preceding paragraph, only Durkheim ever
ally regarded as a major social theorist. Those usually also included in this occupicd a chair in sociology. Marx and Tocqueville never held any academic
company - for example, To-cqueville, Durkheim, and weber are, whatever
- 1'losts. As lirr Weber, Keith Tribe writes:
their differences both with Marx and among each other in respect of political
perspective, intellectual style, and substantive analysis, thinkers of comparable l)tolt'ssionlrlly Wcher was an economist: his early training and qualification was
ambition and scope. itt l,ltrv. irr wlriclr hc hatl wriltcn a nurnberol'historical c'ssays; he was afounding
tnt'tttlrt'l ol tltc (icrtttlrn Socioltlgiclrl .Socicty. hc w:rs activc in a nurnber«rt'politi-
I J.-F. Lyotard (1919),The Postmodern Conclitirzr (Manchester, lt)li4). pp. xxiii-iv. t rtl issttcs rtntl rtssot'ilrliorrs. so llrrl ltis rlt'lrllr wrrs slritl lo lurvc robhctl Gcrnrany of
lntroduction lntroduction

one of its leading political hgules . . . Although Weber today is commonly re- sical debates. In particular, in chapter l0 below, I consider Keynes's attempt to
garded as a 'founding father of sociological thought', this was neither his inten-
show that the injustices and instabilities identified by Marx could be at least
tion nor the understanding of his contemporaries.2
rcgulated and moderated within the framework of capitalism, as well as the
One virtue of widening the intellectual horizons within which social theory criticisms of free-market economists, notably Hayek.
is considered is that it may make it more difficult to sustain certain prejudices. It should be clear enough by now that social theory is an irredeemably politi-
Thus three intellectual historians seeking to draw attention to some neglected cal fbrm of thought. Weber was far from being the only major figure to have
nineteenth-century British political thinkers echo the Thatcher government's heen actively involvecl in the politics of his day. As a revolutionary socialist,
disdain for social science, which they associate with 'such sociological nabobs Marx sought to realize in his own life the unity of theory and practice which he
as Comte, Durkheim, and Weber'. Indeed: 'the very category of "social sci- tlct'ended philosophically. Tocqueville was an ambitious but fiustrated partici-
ence" has been construed in ways which make it unreceptive and even hostile plnt in French parliamentary politics during the 1840s. Many other examples
to the more traditional notions of the centrality and relative autonomy of poli- cggld be given. More fundamentally, however much Weber may have sought
tics entertained by our figures'.3 This is a strange way of viewing Weber, for te resist this conclusion, social theories at least implicitly evaluate as well as
example, an intensely political thinker who was concerned, other things, irnalyse, and offer political solutions to what they describe.
-among
to vindicate 'the centrality and relative autonomy of politics'. This does not mean that, when we speak of the social world, there is no
My treatment of social theory lays special emphasis on philosophy and oh.icctive way of establishing the truth of a sentence, the validity of an argu-
political economy. The problem of modernity which preoccupied lucnt, or the superiority of an explanation to its rivals. On the contrary, I think it
so many thinkers discussed here poses what is essentially a philosophical ques- is iprportant to resist the idea (encouraged by postmodernism) that social theo-
tion: can human reason make sense of the social world and shape it for the lics 1re mutually incommensurable and equally valid perspectives. Neverthe-
better? Answered generally in the affirmative by the Enlightenment, this ques- lcss, as I suggest below, the thinkers discussed in this book are best assessed
tion is explored far more profoundly by Hegel. As Jürgen Habermas has l.nrnr the standpoint of the problems which implicitly constitute their theories.
argued, recognition that Hegel's solution could not be sustained set the terms llrrt the problems thus identified of-ten concern political and ethical issues.
on which debate about modernity has continued to the present day. Hence Socill theories consequently tend to weave together analytical and normative
the treatment of the Hegelian synthesis in chapter 2 and hence also my inclu- t lirrrcrtsions.
sion of Nietzsche and Heidegger, whose forceful negative responses to the It lirllows that some considerätion of the relationship between social theories
same question are of great significance to, and have had some intermittent rrrrtl political ideologies is unavoidable. Such consideration is familiar enough
influence on, social theory. irr Mlrx's case. But, somewhat more than other treatments of social theory,
It was Marx who highlighted the significance of political economy to social I tnrce the connections between various thinkers and liberalism. Smith's
theory when he decided to focus on 'the material conditions of life, the totality Wcttlth rf' Ncttiotts did not, of course, simply provide Marx with one of his
of which Hegel . . . embraces within the term "civil society" ', and went on to rrurirt unalytical starting-points: it also gave nineteenth-century liberalism its
argue that 'the anatomy of this civil society, however, has to be sought in politi- t.t.onorlric programme. But Tocqueville and Weber in particular represent at-
cal economy'.* The form of civil society which classical economists such as tr.'rrrpls to sustain a much rlore self-aware, embattled, and difficult liberalism
Smith and Ricardo analysed was what we have come to call, since Marx, capi- lllr1 rrt |cast some of its earlier variants. Further, Keynes and Hayek embody
prrr, ol' tftc chief antinomies of twentieth-century liberalism - to regulate the
talism. His master-work, Cnpital, seeks to capture the dynamics of this mode of
production, which he argued was based on the exploitation of wage-labour. rrlr;kct sl scl it liee? I would have liked to have continued the story up to the
'l'lrc pr.rblication of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice tn l97l marked
Marx subtitled Capital 'A Critique of Political Economy'. The relationship lrrt'se rrt.
between their own work and what by then was the academic discipline of eco- tlre bcgirrrrings «rl'a remarkable renaissance in liberal political philosophy in the
nomics was also an important issue for both Durkheim and Weber, as was the lirrglislr-spcakiltg world. But fäced with a vast and complex literature, and the
role played by capitalism in the constitution of modernity. It seems to me, how- lirrrits scl hy tinte. space, and my own competence, I decided not after all to
ever, that the significance of political economy cannot be reduced to these clas- lrro:rc'lr lr strlr.icct which is ilr any case covered by a number of good introduc-
Iiotts.
r 'l'lrr' s1rrlr. lilrrits r:xplirin llilny ol'the other exclusions in any case inevitable
K. Tribe, translator's introduction to W. Hennis, Mox Weber (London, 1988), p. 2.
r S. Collini et al., That Nctble Sr:ience of Politics (Cambridge. 1983), p. 10. nr iuty irrllorlrrt'lory work srrclt rrs lhis ottc. I havc, lilr cxample, not been able
a K. Marx, A Cotttribution tct the Criticlue of Political Econotrty(London, l97l), p.20. Irt.rt' lo t'orrsitlt'r srrl'licicrrlly lltt' t'clltliottsltip hclwccl) s«lcial tlreory and
lntroduction lntroduction

anthropology, despite the importance of Durkheim's later writings for the de- Skinner's approach is undoubtedly a valuable corrective to attempts to iden-
velopment of the latter discipline and the manner in which this process has tify certain timeless issues in social and political thought to which everyone
dramatized the problem of the relationship between social theory, a product of from Plato to Habermas has contributed. But detailed textual reconstruction of
the modern West, and the non-European 'other' of Western thought in Asia, the kind practised by the Skinner school is, however scholarly, quite out of the
Africa, and the Americas. Other exclusions are sometimes rather more arbitrar- question in an introductory work of this nature. I have, rather, tended to follow
ily based. Despite their importance for twentieth-century political sociology, I Lord Acton's advice to historians: 'study problems in preference to periods'.6
have never been able to escape the feeling that there is less to the so-called ln other words, I seek to identify certain specific problems - often in the form
'elite theorists' (Pareto, Mosca, and Michels) than meets the eye, and I accord- of a set of questions tacitly or explicitly addressed - which underlie a particular
ingly largely ignore them in what follows. Such direct expressions of the au- thinker's work and tend to structure his writings. (Alas, almost all the theorists
thor's subjectivity are unavoidable when selecting from so wide a range of clealt with in this book are indeed male.) In doing so I have been influenced,
thinkers as have contributed to modern social theory. albeit in a fairly loose and eclectic way, by some otherwise very different
I have, on the other hand, paid more attention to the idea of social evolution philosophers - Gaston Bachelard, R. G. Collingwood, Karl Popper, Louis
and its relationship to biological concepts than has been usual in works of this Althusser, and Imre Lakatos - who all stressed the importance of identifying a
nature for the past fifty years or so. Evolutionary biology, of course, provided theory by means of its 'problematic' or 'problem-situation'.
many nineteenth-century social theorists - above all, Spencer - with their This fbcus on problems has certain merits. In the first place, it lets history in.
scientiflc model. Evolutionary social theory fell into discredit in part because of The problems which give shape to one thinker's work are usually not the same as
the influence of thinkers such as Weber, who stressed the intentional character thgse which play the same role in another's. The reasons why certain questions
of human action and therefore the fundamental difference between the social are fbrmulated rather than others are likely to have much to do with the specific
and the natural sciences, but also because of the role played by biological rac- intellectual and social context in which the thinker concerned operated. High-
ism in the Nazi Holocaust. There has in recent years been a certain revival of lighting the problems specific to an individual theory may also help to identify
interest in the concept of social evolution, influenced perhaps by the salience c:onnections between different thinkers: one theorist may be best understood as
which modern biology (particularly as popularized by writers such as Steven responding to or reformulating questions left unanswered or unresolved by an
Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins) has corle once again to achieve in intellectual carlier theorist.
culture, at least in the English-speaking world. Moreover, biological reductionism It is worth noting here an important difference between this approach to in-
did not die with Hitler, as contemporary debates about the relationship between tcllectual history and Skinner's. The latter places greatemphasis on reconstruct-
social inequality and genetic differences show. Finally, considering the irrg the intentions of a particular writer against the background of shared
signilicance of evolutionary biology fbr social theory provides an opportunity celvcntions and styles of reasoning: hence the reliance Skinner places on so-
to touch on the problem referred to in the preceding paragraph, that of how clllcd 'speech-act theory' in the philosophy of language, which treats the mean-
Western thought relates to its non-European'other'. irrs gl' an utterance as an expression of the speaker's intentions. By contrast, in
This book's scope having thus been deflned, what about its method? I at- srrying that the identity of a theory is given by the questions it tacitly or explic-
tempt here a historical and critical treatment of social theory. 'Historical' does irly adclresses, I leave open the possibility that a theorist may not be in full
not simply imply that thinkers are treated in (roughly) chronological succes- conrrtrancl of his own writing. To adapt a famous saying of Marx's, human
sion. Further, some attempt is made to reconstruct the context in which their hcipgs nterke theories not in circumstances of their own choosing - and this is
theories were formulated. The problem of setting texts in their context has be- r.cllcctccl in the very construction of these theories. By going beyond the au-
come a prime theme in the history of political thought as a result ol'the work of tlrer''s iltlcntiolts, we run the risk of imposing purely arbitrary interpretations on
Quentin Skinner and those influenced by him. Skinner focuses on 'the more lcxts. Illt this is a risk inherent in the very act of interpreting, since in doing so
general social and intellectual matrix' from which texts emerge, and in partic- wt'rrlwrrys go beyond the available evidence. In making an author's intentions
ular on 'the intellectual context in which the major texts were conceived - the llrt. Scrrch-rrurrk ol'his interpretations, Skinner is seeking to avoid anachronistic
context of earlier writings and inherited assumptions about political society, rt'lrtlings ol'parlicular tcxts which reduce them to 'anticipations' of later works.
and of more ephemeral contemporary contributions to social and political Arprr.lr;1lpisrl is intlcccl to be avoicled, but not at the price of denying the exist-
thought'.s r.rrt'r. ol' :rl'liIi:rtiotts lttttl aI'lirlitics hctwcen different theorists.

5 Q. Skinner,The Foundatiot'ts of Modern PoliticctlThought(2vols, Cambridge, l97lt). I. pp. x. xi. , l rrrrl /\( l()1. Lt,t tltt'.t tttt lltttlt,ttt llitttttt' (l.6ttrl6tt. l()llo1. ;l 17
lntroduction lntroduction I
Identifying the constellation of problems from which a theory stafis also gives which I agree. Nevertheless, it does not sufficiently address the objection raised
proper scope to criticism. I have already made clear my belief that every social hy critics of the sociological 'canon', which is that the 'classics' of social theory
theory implies a distinctive politics. The same is surely true of a historical over- itre not relevant, or only partially relevant, to the problems which concern a
view of social theory. But such an account which continually counterposes to contemporary audience. Thus Parker argues that 'feminism, cultural and ethnic
the theorists considered the truth of the matters under discussion as the author studies' constitute 'fiesh sources of inspiration' which can be used 'to truly
sees it is unlikely to be terribly interesting, unless perhaps these criticisms cul- redefine the core of sociology' and thereby to resituate the 'classics' within 'a
minate in a reconstruction of social theory, as does Parsons's classic The Struc- sharper critique of modernity'.e
ture of Social Ac'tion. (Postmodernists, despite their hostility to the concept of In fäct, Marx, Durkheim, and Weber were engaged in just the kind of debate
objective truth. are just as liable to contrast the writers surveyed with what they ahout the nature of modernity into which their 'multicultural' critics now wish
believe to be the correct view of the subject.) On the other hand, a purportedly to draw thern. Indeed, as I seek to demonstrate in this book, social theory has
neutral, 'positive' account of successive thinkers will almost certainly be hcen constituted by precisely this debate, in which attempts to understand mod-
crashingly dull, as well as misleading, since the author's substantive views are crnity are inseparable from the struggle among those who seek to defend, to
likely to figure, albeit tacitly, for example, in the selection of the theorists rc.iect, or to transform it. The interest of the 'holy trinity', and indeed of many
discussed. oI'the other thinkers discussed here - for example, Hegel, Maistre, Tocqueville,
As far as possible, in what follows my criticisms concentrate on the theo- N ictzsche, Simmel, Lukäcs, Heidegger, Adorno, Horkheimer, Foucault,

rist's relative success or täilure in addressing the questions he posed to himself-, llabcrmas, and Bourdieu - lies to a significant extent in the intellectual quality
or on the internal coherence of his answers. More 'external' criticism is often ol'their attempts to stake out, explore, and refine particular positions in the
unavoidable - for one thing, time passes, and sometimes settles various ques- tlt:h:rte about modernity.
tions (although which questions have been settled, and precisely how, are often Keynes famously wrote: 'Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite
themselves matters of great controversy). All the same, I try as much as possi- cxcrtrpt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct
ble to judge thinkers in their own terms, rather than mine. My own views ob- cconclmist.' r0 Analogously one might say that those who believe themselves to
trude, no doubt, more than I am aware, and emerge more explictly in chapter hc staking out some novel contemporary (or even 'postcontemporary') position
12, but I have proceeded on the assumption that all the theorists discussed are :rrc ull too often repeating familiar moves, concluding perhaps in frequently
worth taking seriously. occultied dead-ends, in the debate about modernity. Attempts to counterpose
This assumption is, as I indicated above, currently disputed. Thus David Parker, tlrc classics and the contemporary create a false dilemma. Social theory is in-
fbr example, attacks the sociological canon with its 'familiar holy trinity of the tlisgrcrrsable to engaging with the present.
founding fathers, Marx, Weber and Durkheim'. He protests:

Paradoxically, a discipline which debunks everything else by socializing what-


ever it studies deifies and reifles a tiny number of individuals at the expense of an
understanding of their historical and institutional conditions of emergence. The
orthodox narrative is enshrined in teaching practices by a move from founders to
classics, a mapping of persons to texts, short-circuiting historicization and in-
venting a canonical tradition of quasi-sacred writings most of which were written
between 1840 and 1920.7

Nicos Mouzelis has responded to this complaint by arguing that, judged by the
standards of 'cognitive rationality' ,Marx, Weber, and Durkheim have produced
both 'conceptual frameworks' and 'substantive theories' which are 'superior to
other writings in terms of cognitive potency, analytical acuity, power of syn-
thesis, imaginative reach and originality'.8 This is a good answer, and one with

7 D. Parker, 'Why Bother With Durkheim'1', Sociological Review,45 (1997). p. 124. l';rrkcr , 'Wlry l}trllrt'r Witlr I)rrlklrt'irrr'l'. p11. l l.l. l.ll.
8 N. Mouzelis, 'ln Def'ence of the SociologicalCanon', ihid.. pp. 245.246. I l\l lr.t'r'rrt",. Ilrt'(;( tt('tttl Ilt,,,tt'rtl l'rrtltlttvtrr, nl lntt'tt'\t ruttl lllorrr't' (l.ortrlott. l()70), D. .j133.
The Enlightenment 11

Of course, one may use a concept without explicitly formulating it. Thus the
grcat medieval Muslim philosopher and historian Ibn Khaldün argues that 'man
is a child of the customs and the things he has become used to. He is not a
prrduct of his natural dispositions and temperament.' Further, 'differences of
corrdition among people are the result of the different ways in which they make

The Enlightenment thcrir living'.'On the basis of these claims Ibn Khaldün develops a systematic
contrast between two basic forms of human civilization - the sedentary, some-
linrcs luxurious, life of town-dwellers and the mobile, austere existence of desert
norrrads. In these respects, his Muqaddinmh (Introduction to History) can be
scL:n as a precursor of the kind of materialist historical sociology developed
lrrtcr by the Scottish Enlightenment (see § 1 .4 below) and by Marx.
Simply to view Ibn Khaldün thus would, however, be misleading, for two
r('rsons. First, his propositions about the varieties of hurnan social organization
rrrc udvanced within the framework of an essentially religious discourse, in-
1.1 Prehistory tleccl of a variant of Islamic theology that seeks to emphasize the limitations of
Irrrrnarr reason. Secondly, he conceives the relationship between the two main
What is a social theory? I have suggested it has three identifying features: social fbrms he analyses as a cyclical one. The martial virtues of the nomads
rrllow them to conquer the cities. The new rulers are, however, gradually cor-
I It is concerned with society, which is conceived as being distinct from ruptcd by the social environment over which they now preside. In particular,
political institutions; Iuxrrri«ruslivingcausestheformernomadstolosethe'groupfeeling'(hsabtyah)
2 tt distinguishes between and seeks to make generalizations about different wlrich gave them the cohesion and self-confidence required to conquer. The
kinds of society; rcgirnc consequently declines until it succumbs to some new invasion from the
3 It is concerned in particular to analyse modernity - the form of society rlt'scrl. 'ln this way, the life-span of a dynasty corresponds to the life (span) of
which emerged in the modern West over the past few centuries and has :rrr irrtlividual: it grows up and passes into an age of stagnation and thence into
come to dominate the world as a whole. r t'll'rurcssion.'3
'l'lris cyclical view of history was not sirnply an empirical generalization from
Social theory thus understood is a historically novel phenomenon, and not tlrc cxpcrience of Islamic polities. Like all medieval Islamic and Christian in-
merely because of condition (3). The great philosophers and historians of It'llt'cluals, Ibn Khaldün was profoundly influenced by ancient Greek thought.
'l'lrc irlcl that human social and political life. like nature itself, moves in cycles
classical antiquity - Plato and Aristotle, Thucydides and Polybius - wrote
compelling analyses of political life. They were, however, concerned with the wrrs tlccply entrenched in the thinking of classical antiquity. The historian
inter-relationship between the constant f-eatures of human nature, as they saw l'olyhirrs, lor example, argued that forms of government tended to follow a
them, and certain forms of government - monarchy, aristocracy, and democ- rrrlrrnrl succession - vigorous invention, followed by maturity, degeneration,
racy - each of which was liable to degenerate into, respectively, tyranny, oli- tk'clirrc. clcath, and renewal. This way of thinking continues to shape Ibn
garchy, and mob rule. The Greeks, in other words, did not conceptualize society Klrrrltltrn's conception of history. Within its framework, it is impossible to for-
as something distinct from the different kinds of political institution they dis- rrrrrlrrtc thc idca of a radically novel forn-r of society which breaks with prece-
cussed. This move had to await the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. Johan tlt'rrl. lrrrl inlrugurates a new pattern of development.
'l'lre sirrnc conception of history still informs much of the political thought of
Heilbron suggests that 'Rousseau was probably one of the first to use sociötö as
a key concept and explicitly to reason in terms of "social" relations.'r t';rr ly nrotlcrn Iiurope in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Historitt magistra
' llrrr Klr:rlrlrrrr. /Trl Mtrtltttldirtttrlr(Svols,NewYork. l9-58). I,pp.258,249.'Abd-ttr-Rahmänb.
I J. Heilbron,The Rise of SocialTheory (Cambridge, 1995), p.88. Jean-JacquesRousseau (1112- l\lrrlr:rrrrrrrt'tl lr Klrlltlrrrt lrl-llarlratni ( l3l2 l-106): leading statesman ancl intellectual of the Islamic
78): writer; born in Geneva, but active in France; according to Lord Acton, 'Rousseau produced \\'t",t , rvrrrlt' I ltt' llltrtltttlitttttrtrlr',rs plrt ol'lr tttuclt lut'ucr Hi:;lor.t'o.f'tlr' ßerber.r during the interludes
more eff'ect with his pen than Aristotle, or Cicero, or St Augustine, or St Thomas Aquinas, or any rr ,r '.1()r nrt,polrlit;rl (':u('('r'spt'ttl lrulclv in lltt't'tttir';tlt's ol Not'tlt All'icl ltntl S;lain.
other man who ever lived';probably a paranoid schizophrenic. llrrrl . l. ;t I l\
12 The Enlightenment The Enlightenment 13

vitae history the teacher of life the Roman politician Cicero had written. This Montaigne was writing towards the end of the sixteenth century when, as a
- -
formula implied a direct continuity between present and past. It is possible to rcsttlt of colonial conquests and the formation of the modern world economy,
learn from history because the past has already revealed the full inventory of so- crrrpirical knowledge of societies often radically different from those in Europe
cial and political forms. No fundamental innovation is possible. As the sixteenth- wrls expanding vastly. He could register this information, using various non-
century political theorist Jean Bodin put it. 'while empires age, history remains liuropean examples in his great essay 'On Habit'. in order to establi.sh that
'tltcre is nothing that custom can and cannot do'.8 In principle, this proposition
eternally the same'.4 The efforts of humanist intellectuals during the Renaissance
accurately to recapture the literature of classical antiquity reflected their belief irnl;lied that human nature was, to some extent at least, malleable, and liable to
that these writings were of direct practical relevance to their own time. hc shaped in divergent forms by different social institutions. But the nature of
This belief can be traced even in those thinkers who go beyond the ancient lltcse institutions could not be properly examined as long as it was assumed that
models. Machiavelli scandalized Europe with the frankness of his political ad- tlrc writers of classical antiquity had already identified the limited range of
vice to rulers inThe Prince (1513). In a famous letter, he describes how, in social forms.
conditions of impoverished rural exile, he composed the book:

At nightfall I return home and seek my writing room, and. divesting myself at its 1.2 The concept of modernity
threshold of my rustic garments. stained with mud and mire, I assume courtly
attire, and thus suitably clothed, enter within the ancient courts of ancient men, 'l'hc significance of the Enlightenment lies in large part in the fäct that it broke
by whom, being cordially welcomed, I am fed with the food that alone is mine, witlr this assumption. It did so by formulating the idea of a new age which no
and for which I was born. and am not ashamed to hold discourse with them and krngcr seeks to derive its legitimacy from principles derived from the past, but
inquire the motives of their actions; and these men in their humanity reply to me, t;tllte r offers its own self-justilication. In Jürgen Habermas's words: 'Modernity
and for the space of four hours I feel no weariness, remember no trouble, no t'rttt itnd will no longer borrow the criteria by which it takes its orientation
longer fear poverty, no longer dread death. my whole being is absorbed in thern.s
ltrrttt the models supplied by another epoch: it has to create its own normatit,ity
ttttt of itself.'e
The same sense of being in direct communication with the ancients is evinced 'l'ltis conception of modernity as a new epoch representing a radical rupture
by Montaigne.6 Commentators often stress Montaigne's modernity, his sense with the past gradually takes shape in the course of the eighteenth century. It
of himself as a particular individual subject: 'My aim is to reveal my own self ', irrrplicd a changed relationship to historical time. Whereas previously Euro-
he writes. Starting from his own mutable and uncertain nature, Montaigne went
pt'rtlt intellectuals had oriented towards the classical past, now they turned
on to explore the variety of human conduct, and in particular to stress the rela-
lowru'tls the future. A critical stage in this reorientation came at the end of the
tivity of social practices to time and place. Nevertheless, his main reference- scvcrltcenth century in what came to be known as the quereLle des anciens et
point, within the framework of Catholic orthodoxy, remains the accumulated (lt',\ tuodernes. Yarious French and English writers argued that the 'new
wisdom of classical antiquity. Thus he writes of 'the Ancients': 'Our powers st'it. r)cc' of physics developed by Galileo, Descartes, Boyle, and Newton was
are no more able to compete with them in vice than in virtue, both of which
tlt'cisivcly superior to anything the ancients had written. In particular, Bernard
derive from a vigour of mind which was incomparably greater in them than in tlt'lirtttcnelle, secretary of the Acaddmie des Sciences, argued that scientific
us.' Montaigne constantly cites ancient precedents to guide contemporary prac- k ttowlcclge had not sirnply progressed, but would continue to do so indefinitely
tice, down to such details as to whether or not to wear heavy armour in battle.7 irrto thc I'utrrre.
'l'lrc irlcu that knowledge progressed was readily extended to the claim that
a Quoted in R. Koselleck, F'trtures Pa,sr (Cambridge, Mass., 198-5), p.239. llte cttlit'c coursc clf human history represented a more or less continuous
5 LettertoFrancescoVettori, l0Dec. l-5 l3,quotedinP.Villari,TlteLiJettntl Tinrcs'tf Nic'tttlit
lorwrrrrl rnovcrne nt. Turgot wrclte of man in I750:
Machiavelli (2 vols, London, n.d.),II. p. 159. Niccolö Machiavelli (1469-1521): filorentine politi-
cian ancl diplomat: heacl of the second chancery of the republic of Florence. 1498-1512: in l5l3
irnprisoned and tortured by the Medicis and then tbrced into exile, where he cornposed his chief I'ossessot ol'Iltc tt'casurc-house olsigns . . . he can assllre himself o1'the posses-
works. s iott ol ltl l lr is lrct;trit'e:tl irlcus, conr nrrrn icate them to other men, and transmit them
(' Michel Eyquem, Seigneur de Montaigne ( I533-92): southern French gentleman u'ho. afier
having fbught on the Catholic side in the Wars of Religion, withdrew fiom public lif'e to composc'
llrrrl . l. ) i. 1r;r l.lJ l() (tlrrollrlron llonr 1t. lJ()l
lris ässzi.rrr, snccessive editions of which were published in 1580. 1588. and l-59-5.
7 M. de Montaigne, The Complete Essays (Harmondsworth, l99l ),1.26,p.167,I.49. p. 33,1: ll. I I l,tlrr't ttt,t:. I lt, l'ltrl,':,,l,lrt, ,rl I )t\t t'ut \t' ,tf ll,trl,'r rrit t ((';rrrrlrrirllt.. l()li7). gt. 7.

9' PP.'153-6.
14 The Enlightenment The Enlightenment 15

to his successors as a heritage which is always being augmented. A continual dominated world economy provided the framework within which certain ad-
combination of this progress witli the passions, and with the events they have vanced enclaves began to experience the process of capitalist industri alization.
caused, constitutes the history of the human race, in which no man is more than
All these factors contributed to a feeling of what Koselleck calls 'the accelera-
one part of an immense whole which has, like him, its infancy and its advance-
Io
lion of history', of participating in a forward movement rapidly cutting Euro-
ment.
pcan societies off fiom their past.r3
Properly speaking, 'the Enlightenment' is the name given to the group of
Like Ibn Khaldün, Turgot compares history to an individual life, but there is
cighteenth-century intellectuals, mainly French and Scottish, who at once ar-
no longer any room for decline and retrogression: the future offers only further
ticulated and (often with strong reservations) championed this sense of a radi-
'advancement'. From the start, then, the concept of modernity was indissociably
cal rupture into modernity. Conditions in the two countries in the vanguard of
allied to the idea of historical progress. It was precisely from the prospect of
tlrc Enlightenment were significantly different. The French philosophes were
infinite future improvement that the new age sought its legitimacy. As Hans
l'irccd with the greatest of the Continental absolute monarchies. They occupied
Blumenberg puts it, 'the idea of progress . . . is the continuous self-justification
tltc increasingly large space provided by the court society for intellectual criti-
of the present, by means of the future that it gives itself, before the past, with
t'istn - provided that it concentrated on the analysis of morals, which, in the
which it compares itself '.rl
tr':rtlition of moralisles inaugurated by Montaigne, consisted in the study of the
What historical conditions provided the context within which the concept of
irrlct'action between human passions and social institutions. As the century went
a new age moving steadily forward into the future could be formulated? We
ott. rttoral critique became an oblique way of highlighting the political defects
tend to think of the modern world as the product of what Eric Hobsbawm calls
ol'thc ancien rögime.
'the "dual revolution" - the French Revolution and the contemporaneous (Brit- 'l'he Scottish Enlightenment,
by contrast, developed in a country which since
ish) Industrial Revolution'.r2 The ideas outlined above took shape well before
170I had been part of the first constitutional monarchy in history. Benefiting
1789, when the French Revolution began (an event which they are indeed ofien
lhrltt one of the most advanced systems of schools and universities in Europe.
held to have caused), let alone the much more gradual socio-economic trans-
ils tttcmbers had before their eyes a striking instance of what Trotsky would
formation through which industrial capitalism began to establish itself in parts
llrlcI call uneven and combined development. In south-western Scotland, around
of north-western Europe.
tlrc city of Glasgow (at whose university Adam Smith occupied a chair), an
Nevertheless, a number of developments in the eighteenth century helped to
irttltrstrial economy was developing, closely integrated into Britain's colonial
encourage European intellectuals to see the world anew. Greater political sta-
bility and domestic peace after the horrors of the sixteenth-century Wars of Pl:rntations across the Atlantic.ra But the Highland clans seemed to the
Religion and the Thirty Years War (1618-48) helped to induce a sense of im- l,lriltt';rtPhes of Edinburgh and Glasgow to belong to the same historical time as
llrt' Nllivc American 'savages'rather than to that of European 'civil society':
provement', as did the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. The
lor,vl111',.1 Scotland joined enthusiastically in the repression of the rebellions of
struggle for supremacy of the European powers increasingly took place on a
171.5 irnd 1145, when the Highlanders emerged as a threat to Great Britain's
global stage: the Seven Years War (1756-63), says Reinhart Koselleck, was
t'onsl itulional progress under the Hanoverians.
'the first world war of our planet', waged in India, the Caribbean, and North
America, as well as in central Europe. The consolidation of a European-
tt) Turgot on Progress, Sociology ttnd Econontics, ed. R. L. Meek (Cambridge, 1913l,p.63. Anne 1.3 A moral science
Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de'Aulne \L727-81'): French philosopher and ecorromist; a leading
ntember of the Physiocrat school, as Inspecteur des Finances in 1774-6 he atternpted unsuccess-
Wlrltlcvcr these and other national variations, the Enlightenment thinkers had
fully to reforrrr the regime of Louis XVI.
rr H. Blumenberg, The Legitimacy oftlrc Modern Age (Cambridge, Mass., 1983), p. 32. ttl'o tlccisivc f'catures in common. First, their model of rationality was provided
r2 E. J. Hobsbawrn, The Age of'Revolutinrz (London, 1973), p. I I . There is a silly fäshion among lrv llrc prirrciples they understood to have been at work in the seventeenth-
economic historians for calling the British Industrial Revolution a myth. Michael Mann's sensible t't'ttlttt'y lirtrrtclittittn of modern physics. Thus Voltaire's Philosophical Letters
comments ought to dispose of the matter: 'By I850, most labour and investment had switched to ( l7 l'l) :tl'c. itltt«lltg other things, an atternpt to prcsent to a French readership the
towns, commerce, and manufacturing. There had never been such a prolonged period of agrarian
growth as over the previous three centuries; nevcr such a comr.nercial expansion as ovcr two centu-
ries; and never the emergence of an urban, manufacturing-centred economy. In world-historical l' l(trst'llt't'k, litrtrrtt'.s /'rrr'l, pp. l-r0. 150
terms, if this combination doesn't count as a social revolution, nothing can". The Sources of So<-iul " ,'\tl:tttt Srrrillr tl7l.) ()o) l't olt'ssor ol l\'lorrl l'lrilosoplry rrl llrt'(lrrivcrsily ol (ilirslow, l7-52-
Power,II (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 93-4. (r I 111,' lot;11,1,', rrl tilorlt.til (.( onrrtilt( lltrrtrr'ltl
16 The Enlightenment The Enlightenment I
new science and philosophy of Isaac Newton and John Locke that he had dis- tlrtrs without intending it, without knowing it, advance
the interest of the society,
covered in England.r5 Secondly, the philosophe,r sought to extend this scientifrc :rtltlaflbrd means fbr the multiplication of the species. When providence
divided
method to the systematic study of what they initially continued to think of as I hc carth among a few lordly masters,
it neither forgot nor abandoned those who
morals, understood broadly to embrace human passions and social institutions. scctlted to have been left out of the partition. These last
too enjoy their share of all
Hence Hume's Treatise of Humun Nature (173940) is subtitled 'An Attempt it produces.re
to introduce the experimental Method into Moral Subjects'. Studied today chiefly
for its contribution to epistemology and metaphysics, it was intended by its Srrr ith here reflects one of the leading preoccupations of the
Scottish Entight-
author as a contribution to 'the science of man'.16
t'lltllcllt' Did the development of modern 'commercial societies'
such as eighr
This science was explicitly modelled on Newtonian physics. Helvdtius ar- t't'ttllt-century Britain and France, with their highly unequal
distribution of
gued that 'we must make morals like an experimental physics'. More specifically, Plo;lcl'ty, represent progress over the more egalitarian but also poorer societies
he wrote: 'The passions are in morals what movement is in physics: the latter
llrt'y strpplanted? His reply in the affirmative involves developing
what later
(''irrrrc to be known as the principle
creates, destroys, conserves, animates everything; and without it everything is that social structures are the unintended
('()rrsc(ltrences of individual actions.
dead. It is the former which gives life to the moral world.'r7 When the workings The rich, through their self-seeking actions,
'willtottt intending it, without knowing
of the passions were analysed more closely, it was ternpting to conceive these it, advance tne interest of society,.
along lines analogous to Newton's law of universal gravitation. Comparing the K:rtrl would later express the same idea more generally
when he argued that
llrt'tttcchanism through which historical p.ogr.r, takes place
tendency for the price level and the stock of money to come into equilibrium is menls ,ttnso-
t ittLt'ot'iability':
with one another with that of water to settle at one level, Hume writes: 'we need
not have recourse to a physical attraction, in order to explain the necessity of
withoLrt these asocial qualities (far from admirable in
this operation. There is a moral attraction, arising from the interests and pas- themselves) which cause
lltt'rosistance inevitably encountered by each inclividual
sions of men, which is full as potent and infallible.'rB as he furthers his self-
st't'king pretensions, man would live an Arcadian, pastoral
Here we see taking shape the conception of an objective social pattern which existence of perfect
t'ortcord, self-sufficiency and mutual love. But all human
talents would remain
somehow emerges fiom the behaviour of individual actors. Its most famous lritltlcn fbrever in a dormant state, and men, as good-naturecl
as the sheep they
formulation is by Smith, arguing (possibly against Rousseau) that the rich play It'tttlctl, would scarcely render their existence more valuable
than that oi th.i.
a socially useful role: ;tttilttitls. The end for which they were created, their rational
nature, would be
;ttr ttttlilled void. Nature should thus be thanked for
fostering social incompati-
They consume little more than the poor. and in spite of their natural selflshness lrility. cnviously competitive vanity, and insatiable desires
fbr possession or even
and rapacity, though they mean only their own conveniency, though the sole end l)()wel" Without these desires. all man's excellent natural.upo.iti., would never
they propose fiom the labour of all the thousands whom they employ be the lrr' r'otrscd to develop.20
gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the poor the
produce of all their irnprovements. They are led by an invisible hand to make Morc cxplicitly than Smith, Kant reveals the theological roots
of the princi-
nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of lif'e, which would have been Plt' ol trnintended consequences. Christian thinkers such as St Augustine
had
made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among its inhabitants, and tlt'r"t'lopctl a philosophy of history in which the selflsh
actions of individual
Ittt tttltlts tlnwittingly serve the purposes of
God's secret plan for the world. Nev-
r5 t't lltt'lcss. in two crutcial respects Smith went clecisively
FranEois Marie Arouet, known as Voltaire (1694-1178): author of a vast body of writing - beyond this providen-
prose and poetry. history and fiction. drama and polenic, philosophy and satire; the central tigure rrrrl Vicw trl'history. First, inThe Wealth of Ncttions (1776),hL
turns the principle
of the Enl ightenr-nent. ,l ttttitrlctttlecl consequences into an analytical tool. Commerciai
rt' See the introduction to D. Hume. A Treatise of Hunrun Nuture (Harmondsworth. I969), esp. society
lrrv,lvt's ittt increasingly complex division of labour which
pp. 12-3. David Hunre (llll-16): his philosophical writings undervalued in his own day. and makes possible
cleniecl an acadetnic position because of his religious scepticisnr. he nevertheless mirde a European ''' '\' sttritlr tl75()). 'l.hc Thcrtrt'o.f the Moral Setrtintettts (lndianapolis. l9g2), lV. l. 10, pp.
reputation through lris Äs.yzr.r'.y ( 114l-2) and Histort' rf Englotul ( 17-54-62 ): secretary of the British lli I\
etubassyinParis. 1762-5, whereher.nadecontactw'iththeleadingFrench philo.sopltes (anclhada '" I lr,;Irt. 1,,1i1i,.,,1 Wriritt,g.t (Canrbridse, 199l), p.45. Imrnarruel
stornry relationslrip with Rnusseau).
Kant 0724_1g04): philoso_
|ltr't ' lr.t rr irr Kiirtilsbe rl (lilrst Prtrssil). at wh<-rse university he spent niost of his life
]' C. A. Hell'dtir,rs. Dc I'e.rprit, abr. edn (Paris, 1968), pp.67-8.40. Claude Adrien Helvütius lrt" llrrr't't'rt':tl ttilitlttt's lht' ('rititltrt'rtf'l'ttt't' Rt,rt.srttt (178 teaching;
(17 l5-7 I ): tax fanner änd philosopher.
l), Critique of prt«.tit.ul Reu,sttrt
tll§§l ;tttrl t titi,lttt,rtf .lrttl,qr,nrr,trt llTt)ll) t.(.1)t,(.s(.nl tltr. s(lrr.tirrg_1t«rint
1' D. Hurne.6.r.srr.r'.r Mttrul, Politit'ul, ttrttl Litcturt'. ecl. E. F. I\4illartlndianapolis. I9tl7). p.3l.i. ',rr( ( llr(. l,rt.rrt lr l(r'r'olrrliorr
ol.Wcsterr.n
philosophy
lrlil

18 The Enlightenment The Enlightenment 19

I
the rising output needed to support a growing population. The diverse activities this propensity itself', he continues, '[i]t is common to all rnen, and to be found
i
of this economy are bound together by the purchase and sale of commodities on in no other race of animals.'2r
the market. Producers and consumers participate in the market purely out of a There were, of course, precedents for thus trying to base concrete accounts
concern for their own individual advantage, yet the outcome is an equilibrium of social institutions and behaviour on generalizations about hunran nature.
between supply and demand. The fluctuations of commodities' prices on the Hobbes had opened his great work Let,iathan, written during the English Revo-
market tend to gravitate around their 'natural prices' at which landowners, wage- lution (1640-60) to justify absolute monarchy, with a first parl entitled ,Of
labourers, and capitalist entrepreneurs all receive an income reflecting their Man'.23 He paints a bleak portrait of creatures driven endlessly to compete by
contribution to the productive process. fear. greed, and envy: 'lif-e itself is but motion, and can never be without desire,
Smith's analysis of commercial society represented a theoretical breakthrough nor without fear, no more than without sense'. Consequently, the state of na-
in a second respect. The economic patterns he identified represented a social ture, where government does not exist, is necessarily a state of war: 'during that
objectivity which could not be equated either with political institutions and the time when men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are
actions of statesmen or with individual human beings and their self-conscious in that condition which is called war. as is of every man. a,gainst every man'.
actions. Earlier economists - for example, Sir James Steuart - had argued that Hobbes then goes on to argue that the only way to avoid this war of all against
government intervention was necessary to bring supply and demand into bal- all, in which 'the lif'e of man' was famously 'solitary, poor, nast), brutish, and
ance at a level at which capitalists could expect to make a decent profit. Smith short', was for men, through a convenant, 'to cont-er all their power ancl strength
denied this: in The Wealth of Natiorzs, he does not rule out all state interference upon one man, or upon one assembly of men" the sovereign.,*
in the market, but nevertheless insists that it is a self-regulating mechanism. Few phiktsoltltes accepted such grim premisses as Hobbes, or clrew sucl-r
This mechanism is, further, beyond the control and, to a large extent, the under- absolutist conclusions. Nevertheless, the model he offered was a powerful one.
standing of the individual actors whom it relates. Like the Enlightenment thinkers Hobbes based his method on the new physics:
In thus conceiving a market economy as a self-regulating system tending - he sought to develop his argurnent deductively starting from clear clelinitions,
provided governnlents left it alone - towards a level where the main social fbllowing the exarnple of geometry ('the only science that it hath pleased Gocl
classes are appropriately rewarded, Smith reflected one of the most widely shared hitherto to bestow on mankind') and of his contemporaries Galileo ancl Descartes,
assumptions of the Enlightenment. Thephilosophes commonly identilied a natu- who were using mathematical reasoning to open the book of nature.2s Many
ral course of events to which things would tend unless intert-ered with. In doing Enlightenment thinkers fbllowed Hobbes in believing that human nature can in
so, they were undoubtedly influenced by the principle of inertia in physics for- principle be established by con.sidering how people woul{ behave in the ab-
mulated by Galileo and Newton, according to which a body tends to move in a sence of political and social institutions. Montesquieu, fbr example, arguecl that
given direction unless acted on by another body. But they gave 'natural' a nor- to know the laws of nature, which 'derive uniquely from the constitution of our
mative connotation, so that the natural course of events was also the right course. being . . . one must consider a man befbre the establishment of societies. The
Thus Frangois Quesnay, one of the French school of Physiocrat economists, laws he would receive in such a starte would be the laws o1, natLlre.,26
offered the following deflnition of a natural physical law'. 'the reguLar course o.f This fornr of reetsoning ofien went together with the view so ruthlessly stated
all physical events in the ntttural order which is self-evitlently the most advon- by Hobbes that huntan beings in this state of nature would each consider their
tageous to the human race'.rr Appropriately enough it was Quesnay who coined own individual interests: coercion or eclucation would be required to persuade
the slogan of free-nrarket economics: 'Laissez faire, laissez passer.'
Applied to society, this approach gave a privileged status to the concept of :r A. Snrith (1776). An lnquiry ittro tlrc Nutrtre utttl
l
Crtrt.t'<,s cf'tlte We«lth rl l1ttritttr.s (2 vols,
human nature. Identifying the natural course of social events depended on lirst Indianapolis, l98l),1. ii. p.23.
21 Thomas Hobbes ( l58ti-l 679): a,parson's
establishing what were the dispositions and capabilities inherent in, and there- son. lifelong depenclent on the patronage of the great
Cavendish fanrily; despite the political turbulence of the age (Hobbes spent the 1640s in
fore common to. all human beings. Seeking to explain the division of labour, exile in
France) and the notoriety of his doctrines (the Jesuits clubbed him .the Dernon
of Malrnesbury,), he
which he regards as the source of economic progress, Smith writes: 'It is the sun ived into his nineties.
2'1 T.Hobbes(1651),
necessary, though very slow and gradual consequence of a certain propensity in Leviathan(oxfbrcl, r996),vI.-5g,p.41:XIII.gancl9,p.g4;XVIlt. 13,p.
human nature, which has in view no such extensive utility, the propensity to I 1.1.
r' lhid.. lY. 12. p. 23.
truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.' However we may explain 16 ('hirrlcs cle Secondat. Baron de
La Bröde et de Montesquieu (li4$. The Spirit of the L,w.s
(('lrtrhrithc. 19t39). l. 2. p. 6. Montesquieu (1689-17-5-5): French nobler»an;
rr presiclent of Ihc.
I

R.1.. N'lcck. cd.. l'lrc lit'ttttorttit'.r of. I'lt.t'.t'iot tucr' (l.r»rttlon. l9(r2 ). p. .5-3. l):tt lt'tttt'ttl r»l llorrrtlctrrrx-

1l
20 The Enlightenment The Enlightenment 21

them to consult the general interest. Would then the liberation of individual Thus monarchies are animated by honour, republics by virtue, and despotisms
desires in commercial society be consistent with the maintenance of a stable by f-ear.

and prosperous polity? Srnith has no doubt that it would, in part because of the These passions, each associated with a specific fbrm of government, in fact
mechanism of 'the invisible hand'. Individuals pursuing their own interests would form part of a wider totality of interrelated conditions, institutions, practices.
interact on the market in a manner devised by no one but nonetheless contriv- and beliefs which underlie and sustain that form. It is this totality which
ing to secure the welfare of the whole. Moreover, in The Theory of the Moral Montesquieu calls 'THE sprRrr oF THE LAws'. Thus he argues:
Sentinrcnts Smith argues that our tendency towards self--love is controlled by
our capacity syrnpathetically to identify with the emotional states of others: They [lawsl should be related to the phv,sit:al aspet't of the collntry: to the cli-
mate, be it fieezing, torrid, or temperate; to the properties of the terrain, its
'And hence it is, that to f'eel much for others and little for ourselves, that to
location and extent; to the way of lif-e of the peoples, be they ploughmen, hunt-
restrain our selfish, and to indulge our benevolent affections, constitutes the
ers, or herdsrnen: they should relate to the degree of liberty that the constitution
perf-ection of human nature.'r7 czrn sustain, to the religion of the inhabitants, their inclinations. their wealth,
If sympathy and interest together form the bonds of social life, its goal is the their nurnber, their commerce, their mores. their manners; linally. the laws zire
general happiness. Bentham gave the most influential formulation of this idea related to one another, to their origin, to the purpose of the legislator. and to the
in his principle of utility (or greatest happiness principle): 'An action then may order of things on wlrich they are established. They nrust be considered frorn all
be said to be confbrmable to the principle of utility . . . when the tendency it has these points of view.rr
is to augment the happiness of the community is greater than any it has to di-
minish it.'r8 But the founding doctrine of Bentham's utilitarianisrn expressecl Montesquieu thus widens political theory to encompass the study of mornle
the general consensus among the philosophes. The priority given to happiness - of what he calls 'rrores lnoeursf and manners'- ilt relation to governmental
implied a commitment, not to atomistic individualism, but to the pursuit of fbrrns. But, since 'the character of the spirit and passions of the heart are ex-
social reform. It could also be used to justify revolutionary measures. 'Happi- trernely difterent in the various clirnates, /rnrs should be relative to the dittbr-
ness is a new idea in Europe', declared the Jacobin leader Saint-Just when he ences in these passions and to the differences in these characters'. He deploys
presented to the Convention in March 1194 the loi ventöse redistributing the this emphasis on clirnate most dramatically in his analysis of despotism, where
property of 'the enemies of the Revolution' to the poor.2" '[rnlan is a creature that obeys a creature that wants'. Asia's torrid climate means
that 'despotisnr is, so to speak, naturalizecl there'.rr Heat enervates men, ntak-
ing them submissive and fbncl of luxury. It also so incites desires that men and
1.4 The development of social theory women cannot be lefi alone touether, making harems and seraglios necessary.
(As Louis Althusser observes, 'Itlhe spring of despotism could be said to be
Decisive though Smith's conception of a self-regulating econonty was ln ar- desire as tnuch as f'ettr.'rr) These circumstances favour the concentration of
ticulating a concept of society distinct from political institutions, the forrnal power in the hands of a single, arbitrary ruler. Colder northern climes, by con-
development: of social theory began somewhi.rt earlier, in the writings of trast, favottr tlre courage and vi-uottr necessiiry to sustain republican and monar-
Montesquiett. The Spirit oJ'the Loyt's in one sense continues classical thinkers' chical fbrrns of governrnent.
concern with different political fonns. Montesquieu identifies three basic kinds Montesquieu had already sought to contrast Oriental and European moeurs
of government: republican, monarchic. and despotic. But his analysis does not in the Per.siun Letters (where it served chiefly as a device fbr throwing critical
focus primarily or exclusively on political institutions. He distinguishes be- light on the France of his doy). [{is approach had classical precedents: the an-
tween 'the nature of the government and its principles: its nature is that which cient Greeks used clirnatic theories to explain why their city-states were so
makes it what it is, and its principles, that which makes it act. The one is its different in structure and ideology fiom the Persian empire. The accumulation
particular structure, and the other is the human passions that set it in motion.'r" of contemporary European tritvellers' tales abclut the great monarchies of the
Near East, India, ilnd China provided Montesquieu with raw material for his
21 Smith, Theort',I. i. 5. 5, p. 25. portrait of despotism. Nevertheless, like rnany other European authors who have
rfi J. Bentharn (17891. An Intrttdtlt'tiott to the Principles o.f Morals antl Lcgislatron (London, l9tl2).
pp. l2-13. Jeremy Bentharn (1748-1832): Legal refbrrner and fbr-rnder of Utilitarianisnr; his
nrunrmified body is on public display at Llniversity College London. 'r lbid., 1. 3. p. 9.
)() Quoted in A. Soboul . Lo Riv,olutktn.frung'ui.re (Paris, l9tt8), p. 349. " Ibid., 14. l. p. 231;3. 10,p.29;5. 14, p. 63.
r" M«lntcscluicu. .\irilil. -3. l. p. 21. " L. Althusser. Politic.s rttul Hi,sktrt'([-ondon, 1972). p. ttl.
fl
I 22 The Enlightenment The Enlightenment 23
drawn such global contrasts between East and West, his concern was less to permanent causes of social and political institutions. Thou gh The Spirit
of the
produce knowledge of Oriental societies than to deepen the self--understanding Lavvs inspired eighteenth-century historians to relatepolitical events to changes
of the Occident. in mores and manners, its own theoretical fiamework is that of a static com-
This can be traced in the tensions detectable in Montesquieu's explanatory parative sociology. John Millar, when setting forth the theory of history devel-
model. He asserts, on the one hand: 'The empire of climate is the first of all oped by the Scottish Enlightenntent, bluntly declared in direct opposition to
empires.' On the other hand, he offers more pluralistic versions of his theory: Montesquieu that 'national character depends very little upon the lmmediate
'Many things govern men: climate, religion, laws, the maxims of the govern- operation of climate.'r8
ment, examples of past things, mores and manners; a general spirit is fbrmed This theory was in f'act more or less simultaneously fbrmulated by Turgot
as a result.' A strict clin-ratic detern-rinism would imply that Europe was saf-e and Srnith around the year 1750, though its proper articulation was one of the
fiom despotism. Yet Montesquieu warns that 'if, by a long abuse of power or main collective achievenrents of the Scottish Enlightenment. It has come to
be
by a great conquest, despotism became established fbr a certain time, neither known as 'the Four Stages Theory'. History is to be understood not as the ac-
mores, nor climate would hold firm, and in this fine part of the world, human tions and conflicts of rulers that are best captured throu,eh a political narrative,
nature would sufTer, at least fbr a while, the insults heaped on it in the other but as a progressive development through fbur distinct stages of society repre-
three'.34 senting qualitatively ditterent kinds of economic organization hunting, pas-
Clirnate is thus not fäte. Montesquieu's lurid portrait of despotisrn is at least
-
turage, agriculture, and colnnterce. This classification intplies that priority should
in part a tacit critique of Bourbon absolutism, which had transforrned the aris- be given in the study of society to economic relations. This view was expressed
tocracy into dependants of the monarchy, and denizens of a court society ruled most succinctly by William R«rbertson in his Hi,stortt of'America (1777): ,tn
by favourites and mistresses. as well as a warning of Lhe future that awaited every enquiry concerning the operations of men when united together in soci-
France unless 'moderate government' were reinstated. Montesquieu insists that ety, the first object of attention should be their mocle of subsistence. Accorcl-
'[i]ntermediate, subordinate and dependent powers constitute the nature of ingly as that varies, their laws and p«rricy nrust be difl'erent.,3e
monarchical governrnent', and the 'most natural' of these powers is the nobil- Millar sirnilarly enrphasizes the 'rnocle of subsistence'. He discerns 'in hu-
ity, so that the 'f undamental maxim' of monarchy is 'no ntonurt'lt, no rubility': man history, a natut'al progress fiom ignorance to knowleclge, and f-rorn rude
tct
no nobilitv-, no monorch, rather, one has a despclt'. 'Moclerate government' is civilizecl lnilnners, the several stages of which are usually accompaniecl with
best secured through the separation of legislative, executive, and.judicial pow- peculiar laws and customs'. Thus the irnprovement in the status of women
which
ers which Montesquieu believed had happened in corttemporary England. Millar claims is a l'eature of the 'refined and polishecl nations' of Europe is
'Among the Turks, where the three powers are united in the person of the sul- 'chiefly derived frtlln the progress of mankincl of the common arts of
lif-e'. The
tan, an atrociclus despotism reins.'r't Althr.rsser suggcsts that this famous doc- same progress is responsible fbr the graclual disappearance of slavery in Eu-
trine, which influenced the fiarning o1'the Constitution of the United States, rope: 'little protit can be «lrawn I'rom l.he labour «rf a slave, who has neither been
reflects less any political radicalism on Montesquieu's part than his def'ence of encouraged to acqLrire that dexterity, n«rr those habits of applicstion, which
are
'an outdate.d order'. his attempt to reinstate the proper powers of the t'eudal essentially requisitc in the finer and more clilficult branches of manufäcture,.
aristocracy under the French monarchy.36 Though' to Millar's regret, slavery continues to flor-rrish in the Anterican plan-
Altlrusser also argues that Montesquieu was 'the.first to propose u positiva tations and even ttl survive anlong the colliers anil salters of Scotland. it cannot
principLe of a universal exltlanution.fbr history', arising liorn the tensions be- long survive the 'inlallible tenclency' which the 'introcluction of personal lib-
tween a fbrm of government's institutional structure ancl its underlying princi- erty' has 'ttl render the inhabitants o1'a country rnore industrious; ancl, by pro-
ple - the distinctive spirit of its laws.rT Yet to the extent that Montesquieu accords ducing greater plenty of provisions, must necessarily increase the populousness,
clirnate a decisive role in shaping this spirit, he denies himself the possibility of as well as the strength and security of a nation'.r0
identifying and explaining historical transformations. Since climatic diff'erences
are (relatively) constant, they can at best ofl'er the basis of an account of the '' J. Millar (lr711),T'he Origirt ol the Di.stinction of'Runt.s, in W. C. Lehmann, Jphn Milur o.l'
Glu'ssot| 1735*1801(Cambridgc, 1960),p. l80.JohnMillar(173-5-180t):apupil
of Srnithald
l)rtrf'essorofCivil LawattheUniversityof Glasgow 176l
-1801;afbllowerof CharlesJamesFox.
'r4 MontesquieLt. Spirit, 19. 14, p. 316: 19. 4,p.3101 8. 8, p. I 18. hc advocated parliamentary reform an<l opposed the slave trade and the
war with Revolutionarv
'rs lbid..2.4, p. lt3; 11.6, p. 157. l;rance.
16 Althusser-, Politics,p. 106. "' Qttoted in R. L. Meek, Er:onomics antl lcleologt, ancl Other Er.srzr'^r (London, 1967), p.37.
17 lhirl.. p. .50. r" Millar, Ori,qin. pp. 176,225,228,2gg.311.
,,i

24 The Enlightenment The Enlightenment 25


The historical pattern outlined by the Scottish philosophes is thus progres-
sive not simply in the sense that it represents a movement from less to more
complex and productive rnodes of subsistence, but in increasing political free-
1.5 lnner strains
dom. What is the motor of this process? Millar puts it down to the presence 'in It is customary to darnn the Enlightenment fbr a naive, rationalist optimism
man [ofl a disposition for improving his condition, by the exertion of which he soon exploded by the experience of events. Examples of such optimism
are not
is carried from one degree of advancement to another; and the sirnilarity of his hard to find. Thus Condorcet opens his Skerclr by prornising 'to iho* by appeal
wants, as well as of those f-aculties by which those wants are supplied, has to reason and fact that nature has set no term to the perf'ection of human fäcul-
everywhere produced a remarkable uniformity in the several stages of his pro- ties; that the perfectibility of man is truly indefinite: ancl that the progress of this
gression.'ar Stimulated by need, human capabilities develop: the breakthrough perfectibility, fiom now onwards independent of any power that might wish to
of agriculture in particular permits the proliferation of occupations, leading, halt it, has no other lirnit than the duration of the globe'. He assures us: .The
over time, to the development of manufacture and commerce. moral goodness clf man, the necessary consequence of his constitution, is capa-
In his version of the theory, Turgot laid a greater emphasis on the role of ble of indefinite perf'ection, like all his other faculties . . . r.rature has linkecl
human ambition and greed in blindly pushing history tbrward: 'The passions, together in it unbreakable chain truth, happiness ancl virtue.'as This faith in
the
tumultuous and dangerous as they are, become a mainspring of action and of firture is all the more remarkable when one takes into account that Condorcet
progress.'ar As we have seen, Smith used the same theory to account for the composed this essay while inrprisoned by the Jacobins cluring the French Revo-
integration of individual interests in the linal stage of the process, comrnercial lution.
society. By contrast, Condorcet's Sketch.for a Historical Picture of'tlrc Progress Simply to identify the Enlightenment with such apparently blin6 oprirnism
of the Huruan Mind (1794) is perhaps rnore representative of the French En- is, h«rwever, facile in the extreme. Voltaire's great novel Carulide wa, p.o,npted
lightenment in making, as the title of his essay suggests, intellectual advance- by the great Lisbon earthquake of I November 175-5. This catastropüe, which
ment the source of more general social development: ideas are thus the motor destroyed two-thirds of the city an«l killed berween 5.000 ancl 15,000 people,
of historical change.*l shocked European society. Voltaire usecl the earthquake, irnd man-nraclc clisas-
Rodney Meek, who has made a most irnportant contribution to winning pr oper ters such as the sul'f'ering caused in central Europe by the Seven years War,
recognition of the significance of the Four Stages Theory, arglles that 'in the systenratically to lampoon all optimistic vicws, and in particular the philoso-
latter half of the eighteenth century the Scottish Historical School developed pher Leibniz's ntetaphysical cloctrine that 'all is tbr the best in this best of
all
this Classical sociology to a stage where it was becoming rernarkably similar, possible worlds'.
at least in its broad outlines, to Marxist sociology'.ar Such claims carry within Mtrreover. as we shall see, nrany philo,xtplt(,.§ expressecl powerful reserv4-
them some danger of anachronism. The leading thinkers of the Scottish En- tions about the sustainability and e ven the clesirability ol the historical progress
lightenment otlen took their questions and even their categories fiom ancient which Condorcet treated as an Lrnalterable law. Thcse ckrurbts were simply one
,
and early modern political thou-eht. Nevertheless, in the answers they give to of a series tlf tensions internal to the systenr of icleas clevelopecl by Enlighten-
i these questions, we see taking shape a theory which distinguisl-res sharply be- ment thinkers' Briefly surveying these sources ol'clil'liculty will heip t11
identify
iitween society as such and the fornrs of government; which formulates a general the agenda these thinkcrs clcfinecl firr later social thc«rrists.
laccount of the successive stages of social development; and
which is particu-
i
llarly concerned to elucidate the nature of the 'commercial societies' of contem- (l) Humart naturc unrl histutrv. The concept of human nature fieqLrently figures
rporary Europe, radically difl-erent as these were fiom past social forms. In other
in the explanaticlns framed by Enlightenment the«rrists. Think, firr example. of
words, it is in the writings of the Sc-ottish philosophes that we see modern social Smith's 'propensity to truck, barter, and excharge', and of Millar's ,disposi-
lirst emerge. tion Iof man] to improve his condition'. But on what grounds could one claim
"lheoU to have identilied charitcteristics genuinely common to all human beings'l Rea-
soning about how humans woulcl behave in the state of nature was often used
1r lbid., p. 116. to
rr provide such grounds. But how plausible was the idea that men and women
Meek, ed., Turgot on Progress, p.70.
'r'1 Marie Jean Antoine de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet (1743-94): sought to develop a 'social could somehow exist, as Montesquieu put it, 'befbre the establishment of
nrathematics' anticipating r.nodern game theory; a Girondin deputy durirtg the French Revolution,
lre was rrrcslcrl hy thc.lac«lbins antl p<lis«rncd Irirnselt'in grrison. {: Mrrrr;rristlt'('otttltlrcü (1796). A
! Mcr.k. 1,.'t rttrt,ttrit .t ttttrl ltltolo,qr'. ;tP. .3-l .5. Skcrch.frtrtt Hi,vtoritttl Pit.ttre t»f'thr pro.grr,,s.s of tlt, llrrtrrtttt
Mitrtl ll ottrl,rrt. lr)55). pp..1. 19.1.

I
[' i

The Enlightenment 27
26 The Enlightenment

In the later decades of the eighteenth century, as the diffrculties of the Bour-
societies'? The more engaged philosophes became with the historical particu-
bon regime grew more acute, the criticism of the French Enlightenment be-
larities of social life, the more doubtful the concept of the state of nature be-
came more explicitly hostile to the Catholic Church, and more oriented towards
came.
political reform. While the Scottish philosophes drd not have to confront what
Thus Adam Ferguson, one of the most influential figures of the Scottish En-
turned out to be a pre-revolutionary crisis, demands for parliamentary reform to
lightenment, directly attacked the concept as it was used by Rousseau and
make the Hanoverian state more representative became a running theme in British
Helvdtius:
politics. [n the early nineteenth century, among the strongest advocates of
If we would know him [man], we must attencl to himself, to the course of his lif'e, reform were Bentham and his fbllowers, the Philosophical Radicals, many
and to the tenor of his conduct. With him the society appears to be as old as the of whom were strongly influenced by the Scottish Enlightenment.
individual, and the use of the tongue as universal as that of the hand or the foot. If What direction should political refilrm take'/ One of the great achievements
there was a time in which he hacl his acquaintance with his own species to make, and of early modern political thought, in the writings of Hobbes, Bodin, and others,
his faculties to acquire, it is a time of which we have no record, and in relation to had been to tbrmulate the modern concept of sovereignty, according to which
which our opinions can serve no purpose, and are supported by no evidencc.a6 the state is conceived as a distinct entity fiom which all legitimate political
power derives. At least initially, this line of thought provided a justification for
Rousseau himself, though he is widely presented as the author of a sentimen-
the centralization of power in the great Continental absolutist states. It coex-
talized portrait of a virtuous 'natural man', expressed much the same difficulty
isted, however, with another powerful strand in early modern thought, what
at the start of the Ser:ontl Discourse: 'how can man come to know himself as
hist«lrians have come to call the classical republican tradition. Drawing inspira-
nature made him once he has undergone all the changes which the successitln
tion fi'orn the political theory of the ancient Roman republic which had been
of time and things must have produced in his original constitution, and so dis-
rediscovered by Renaissance humanists, this tradition asserted that political lib-
tinguish that which belongs to his own essence fiom that which circumstances
erty consisted in participating as it citizen in a sel[governing republican com-
have added to, or altered in, his primitive state'/' The answer he gives to this
question, relying on 'hypothetical and cclnditional reasttnings' rathcr than on
munity. A flourishing polity thus depended on the virtr,re of the citizens. As
Bolingbroke put it, 'Ial wise and brave people will neither be cozened nor bul-
anything purporting to be historical enquiry, depicts the original man as a n1ute,
lied out ol'the ir liberties.'r') The nrost irnportant exponent of classical republi-
asocial, unreflecting animal, living in solitude and reproducing as a result of
canisrn was Marchiavelli, whose originality lay in arguing that civic virtue (virtü)
chance encounters with members of the opposite sex.a7 This zero degree of
did n<lt necessarily consist in observing the ordinary canons of individual con-
human existence serves Rousseau as a bench-mark by means of which to evalu-
duct, but in being willing to do whatever was recluired to nraintain the state,
ate the historical development of the species, but, in highlighting the changes
however brutal rlr dishonest this rnight bc.
men have subsequently undergone, he opens the dtlor to the suggestion that
Montesquieu spoke tor rnany philosopltcs in expressing doubts about the
human nature is in fact historically variable, bearing the imprint cll-the social
viability ol'republican government in the relativcly large and complex states o1'
relations prevailing at any given time.
early nrodern Europe. Yet the republican tradition firund a powerful exponent
(2) Sovereignty emtl Libe.rty. These analytical difficulties did not prevent many in Roussczru. In The &x'iul Corlruct (1162), hc takcs over the concept of sover-
phitosophes counterposing an idealized image of society, which they conceived eignty elaborated by Hobbes and Bodin, but relocates it in the people. Legiti-
of as corresponding to human nature, to existing social and political institutions. mate governrnent is created when individuals corne together and agree to fbrm
Thus the Abb6 Raynal wrote in lTlO:'society is a product of the needs of peo- themselves into'an artificial and collective body', the sovereign. The people
ple, and government a product of their shortcomings . . . society is in essence thus constituted akrne has the right to rnake laws, which may not be delegated
good; government can be evil, aS we well know, and all too often iS so.'48 to elected representatives: 'the sovereign, which is simply a collective being,
cannot be represented by anyone but itself - power may be delegated, but the
.16 A. Ferguson (lj6j). An Essay- on the Histor-v rf Civil Sot'iety (Farnborough, 1969), p. 9. Adam will itself may not'. This arrangement realizes the republican ideal of liberty as
Ferguson (1i23-l816): principal chaplain of the Black Watch regiment, 1146-54l. Professor of self-government: 'rnan acquires with civil society, moral freedom, which alone
pneumatics and Moral Philosophy, Edinburgh University, 1164_.85 the Essay was translated into
l
French and German and widely read throughout Europe. r'' Lord Bolingbroke, Political Wrirings (Cambridge, 1991), p. 1 I l. Henry St John, Viscount
'11 J.-J. Rousseau (1755), Disc:ourse on the Origins ttntl Fountkttions of Inequcrlitt'tuttong Men
lSolingbroke ( 1678-17-51): British politician, whose practical failures were compensated tbr by the
(Harm«rndsworth. I c)t34). pp. 61. 18.
i n ll uerrce ol' lr is lvri t i nts on eighteenth-century pol itical thought.
'rri Qtrttlctl irr Ilcilbrorr, /?i.rr', 11. 92.

lli
T 28 The Enlightenment The Enlightenment 29

makes man the master of himsell'; for to be governed by appetite alone is slav- understanding that religious toleration represented the only acceptable solution
ery, while obedience to a law one prescribes to oneself is freedom'.s0 to the historically novel coexistence of rival versions of the same 'salvationist'
Rousseau's vesting of sovereignty in the people constituted one of the main religion each demanding unconditional commitment.s3 But it was the experi-
starting-points of modern democratic thought. But the exercise of sovereignty ence of the Jacobin Terror which encouraged post-Revolutionary liberals
involves the assertion of the sovereign's will. How do the people express their directly to attack the republican idea that political freedom is the property
will, according to Rousseau? He distinguishes between the private wills of in- of a collective agent.
dividual citizens, which reflect their particular interests, and the general will, Thus Constant systematically contrasts two kinds of liberty, those of the an-
which articulates the common interest of society. Laws are the declaration of cients and the moderns. The active public lif-e of the citizens of the Greek and
the general will. But this general will is not necessarily expressed through the Roman city-states presupposed a narrow and confined private life, reflecting
majority vote of the citizens gathered together in assembly. Rousseau famously the very limited role of commerce in antiquity. In modern times, however, com-
declares: 'There is often a great difference between the will of all and the gen- merce is 'the normal state of things, the only aim, the universal tendency, the
eral will; the general will studies only the common interest while the will of all true lif'e of nations', filling individuals'private lives with hopes, projects, and
studies only the private interest, and indeed is no more than the sum of indi- activities. Consequently, 'we can no longer enjoy the liberty of the ancients,
I
vidual desires.' This drives him to propose a variety of devices - fbr example, a which consisted in an active anil constant participation in collective power. Our
lawgiver to devise the initial constitution, the suppression of factions articulat- freedom must consist of peaceful enjoyment and private independence', that is,
ing sectional interests, and state-instituted civil religion - which will inculcate of individual liberty guarranteed by political rights. Rousseau's attempt to reha-
in the citizens republican virtue and encourage them to consult the common bilitate ancient liberty merely 'furnished deadly pretexts fbr more than one kind
interest rather than their private desires. He also advocates minimizing stlcial of tyranny'.sa
inequality: 'Do you want coherence in the state'/ Then bring the two extremes Yet, while thus championing individual fieedom against the republican tra-
as close together as possible; have neither rich men nor beggars, for these twir dition, Constant ackn«rwledged: 'The danger of modern liberty is that, absorbed
estates, naturally inseparable, are equally fatal m the common good; fiom one in the en joyment ol our private independence, we should surrender our right to
class come fiiends of tyranny, fiom the other tyrants.'sl share in political power to«r easily.'ss Rousseau's liberal critics therefore con-
Such a solution would hardly commend itself to those philosophes such as tinued to grapple with the problem that had confionted him of how to reconcile
Smith and Hume, who believed that modern comrnercial societies, despite the what they w«ruld increasingly acknowledge as democratic citizenship with the
growth in social inequality they involved, were producing a generally beneficial assertion of privatc interests encouraged by cornrnercial society.
increase in living standards. Rousseau's struggle to subordinate the assertion «lf
individual interests to the requirements of republican citizenship in any case (3) Rutiorrulity ttntl ,sub.jectivit.y. Rousseau's political theory posed a further
involved more than conceptual tensions internal to his political theory. Thc problem. His clistincti«rn bctwecn slavery to appetite and the fieedom that comes
radical Jacobin regime which held power at the clirnax of the French Revolu- from sclf'-rnastery, frorn'obedience to a law one prescribes to oneself ', sug-
tion in 1192-4 explicitly appealed to Rousseau's ideals of republican virtue ttr gested that the sell'was a conrplex entity. Part of me is ruled by the private will,
justify the Terror to which it subjected its opponents. Benjamin Constant wrtlte and driven by sellish clesires; but in another aspect I partake of the general will,
of the Jacobins: 'They believed that everything should give way before collec- at once sharing in law-rnaking and ruling rnyself. Rousseau's critics were quick
tive will, and that all restrictions on individual rights would be amply collrpen- to detect here a doctrine ol'a 'higher self in whose name (and that of the collec-
sated for by participation in social power.'s2 tive liberty in which it participatcd) thc actual self could legitimately be re-
Liberalism as it began to take shape in the aftermath of the Revolution could pressed. But the problem raised here of how to conceptualize the self raised
draw on older sources. As John Rawls has emphasized, this tradition's origins much larger difficulties fbr the Enlightenment.
can be traced to the sixteenth-century Wars of Religion, and the developing The human individual was not simply, for the philosophe,r, the object of so-
cial analysis and the subject of political lif-e; it provided the underpinning of
their claim to knowledge. At the beginning of the seventeenth-century scientific
50 J.-J.Rousseau,T'heSociulContrac't(Hannondsworth, 1968),1.6,p.61;ll. 1,p.69;1.8,p.65.
sr Ibid., lI. 3, p. 72;lI. I I, p. 96 n.
52 B. Constant, PoliticalWritings (Cambridge, 1988), p.320. Benjamin Constant (1767-1830): 5r J. Rawls, Politicul Liberolism (expanded edn, New York, 1996), pp. xxvii ff.
of Protestant Swiss origins, but active chiefly in France; a critic of Napoleon's regime, he became 'r Constant, Political Writings, pp. 314, 316, 318.
a Icader of the liberal opposition under the Bourbon Restoration. " Ibid., p.326.
l

30 The Enlightenment The Enlightenment 31

revolution Ren6 Descartes imagined the subject isolated from all its physical ol'human knowledge against Hume's challenge involved a high price. In mak-
and social circumstances. In what Charles Taylor calls this ' "punctual" or "neu- irrg the structure of the world of everyday experience dependent on the activi-
I ics of the transcendental subject, Kant opened the door to the idealist doctrine
tral" conception of the self', 'the self is defined in abstraction fiom any consti-
tutive concerns and hence from any identity . . . Its only constitutive property is lhat the world is the creation of mind. or consists in ideas. He resisted this
self-awareness.'56 The self thus conceived, Descartes argued, would be certain irrrplication, distinguishing between the world of appearances, formed by the
at least of the contents of its own consciousness. From this secure resting-point, lpplication of the categories to sense-impressions, and that of things in them-
the entire edifice of scientific knowledge could gradually be constructed. John sclves, beyond the limits of experience, and therefbre of human knowledge.
Locke offered a more empirical version of the same idea, arguing that sense- llut by making ultimate realities unknowable Kant seemed to many to have
experience as well as ralional reflection was the source of knowledge. But em- ruracceptably restricted the scope of human reason.
piricists and rationalists alike tended to treat the individual subject, with the
self-certainty which derived from its secure access to its own conscious states, l"[) IJ niversality and the other. Kant's philosophy also highlights the Enlight-
('nnlent's preoccupation with the universal. Thus, his doctrine of the categori-
as the foundation of all knowledge.
This secure resting-point did not survive Hume's subversion in the Treatise t'irl itnperative requires as a necessary condition of any moral principle that it is
of Hrunan Nature. Beneath all the apparently secure structures of both the so- strict ly universal in its application. The philosophes concerned themselves with
cial and the physical worlds he discovered the effects of the hunran mind. It was tlrc conditions and prospects of humankind as a whole. But was this concern
our mental activity, and in particular our tendency to project regular patterns lrt'rr u i nely universal?
( )ne of the great documents of the Enlightenment is the American Declara-
onto the world even where their existence could not be rationally demonstrated,
that was responsible for most of what we took to be natural laws. Even the self, liorr of Independence of 4 July 1116. Drafted by Thomas Jeff-erson, it is im-
supposedly the pivot of knowledge, turned out to be 'nothing but a bundle or ;rrcgttated with the ideas especially of the Scottish philosolthes.ss The universal
collection of different perceptions. which succeed each other with an incon- clrrints they made have never been better stated than in the Declaration's open-
ceivable rapidity and are in a perpetual flux or movement'.57 ttrg liltcs: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all merl are created equal;
Kant's response in the Critique of Pure Rea,son was not to deny that the llrrrl llrcy are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among
world we experience is the product of our mental activity. But he identified as lltt'sc rights are life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness.' Yet Jefferson hin-rself
w,rsi il Virginia gentleman who throughout his life owned black slaves. Indeed,
the source of this activity. not the ernpirical self which under Hume's exami-
nation had disintegrated into a mass of sense-impressions, but a transcenden- ur llrc Notes on the State of Virginict (1181), originally written to present the
tal subject underlying these irnpressions. The very possibility of conscious trt'wly irtdependent American republic to an enlightened French audience, he
experience. Kant argued, required that we presuppose a 'transcendental unity \\'('nl irs tar as to express the 'suspicion' that 'the blacks, whether originally a
of apperception' to which our sense-impressions could be attributed but which rlrslittcl race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the
was not itself present in experience. Presupposing this unity further implied rvlritcs irr the endowments both of body and mind'.se
that certain categories inherent in the human understanding were applied to .lt'l'll'rson was far from being the only Enlightenment figure to express racist
'srrspiciorrs'. Hume, for example, declared: 'I am apt to suspect the negroes. and
organize and give structure to our sense-experience. The world of ordinary
life and Newtonian physics. with its bodies and causal relations. was the re- ttt 1tt'ttct'ul all the other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds)
sult of the application of these categories to sense-experience. Kant further lo lrt' turlrrrally int'erior to the whites.'60 Despite such views,the philosophes were
extended the role of the transcendental subject in his moral and political writ- ltrrrt'r'llly strongly critical of both the institution of slavery and the Atlantic slave
ings. which were heavily influenced by Rousseau. This 'noumenal self', be- It;rtlt'. wlrich during the eighteenth century tore millions from their homes in
yond but presupposed by sense-experience, was the source of the universal r\ltit'rr lo toil in the plantations of the New World. Jefferson himself took up
moral laws which regulated individual conduct and provided the foundations
of political life.
" l ltontrrs .lclli'r'sott (l,143- ltl26): Governor of Virginia, 1119-81 ; American minister to France,
Kant's critical philosophy represented the pinnacle of the Enlightenment's l/liI (): (lS Sccrctar.y ol'Slutc. ll9(t.4:- Vicc-President, 1797-'180l; President, 180l-9: an ex-
intellectual achievement. But his vindication of the rationality and objectivity Ir,rrrrlrrr;rrt t orrrlrirrrliorr ol'gcrrlle rn.ut I)liultcr. intellectulrl Polyrnath, crankish inventor. and astute
polrltt t:rtt
s6 '' I lt'llr'rson. Il'rilirr,r3r. t'rl. IVl . l) l)t'tt'r'son (Nr'u,\'ol k. l()li'J).
C. Taylor. Sourt'es of the Self (Cambridge, 1989). p. 49 1t1t. 19.21O.
57 I ltttttt'. /'rrrrr'.r. ;rp (r.)() {o
Hume, Trecttise.l. iv. v, p. 300.
The Enlightenment 33
32 The Enlightenment
Irrclians' 'backwardness' apparently made them an appropriate object of such
a highly ambivalent attitude towarcls the issue. On the one haud, he advocated the
social engineering.
abolition of slavery; on the other, he quailed at the disruptive economic and po-
Irinally, racial slavery as it developed in the Atlantic economy in the seven-
litical consequences of freeing the slaves. A f-amous letter well expressed this
tccnth and eighteenth centuries challenged any sirnple understanding of histori-
attitude: 'we have the wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely
t':rl progress. Robin Blackburn has pointed out:
let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self:preservation in the other.'6r
The case of racial slavery raises the question of the extent to which the pro-
Its li.e. American slavery's] development was associated with several of those
claimed universality of Enlightenment thought was qualified by tacit limitations.
l)r'ocesses which have been held to define modernity: the growth of instrumental
Were rationality and liberty the property of all human beings, or were the major- rationality, the rise of national sentiment and the nation-state, racialized percep-
ity of humankind in fact excluded by their race, their gender, or their class? This tions of identity, the spread of market relations and wage-labour, the develop-
quesrion highlights three other issues. First, how could a body of thought devel- rrrcnf of adrninistrative bureaucracies and modern tax systems, the growing
oped by a naffow group of European intellectuals claim genuine universality? sophistication of commerce and communication, the birth of consumer societies.
Could, indeed, any theory achieve the objectivity on which such universality thc publication of newspapers and the beginnings of press advertising, 'action at
might be thought ro depend? Might not thought be necessarily parochial, the ;r tlistance', and individualist sensibility.66

expression of the time, place, and circumstances of those expressing it'/


The second issue concerns the elitism of the philosophes, within Europe as l\l'l'ltc antbiguities of'trtrogress. Many Enlightenment thinkers were them-
well as without. On the face of it, their writings were addressed to everyotre. rt'lvcs willing to cast doubt on the meaning of the progressive development
Typically, however, their audience was a nruch narrower one, comprising those rlt'picled by their theories o1'history. The most radical challenge came from
in the upper ranks of society who were at least potentially capable of becoming l{orrsscau. [n the Second Discourse he portrays the evolution of civil society,
enlightened. 'What does it matter', Voltaire wrote to Helv6tius in 1763, 'that r r rr rt irrg the process, in a manner not dissimilar to Millar's account, in 'the
fac-
our tailor and our cobbler should be ruled by Father Kroust and by Father ttltt' ol'sclf-improvement - a faculty which, with the help of circumstance, pro-
Berthier'J The main point is that those with whonl you live should lower their 1'rt'ssivcly develops all our other faculties, and which in man is inherent in the
eyes before the philosopher. It is in the interest of the king, that is, of the State, '.pt't'ics a.s in the individual'. Yet. Rousseau argues,'this distinguishing and
that the philosophers should rule society."" ;rlrrrosl Lrnlimited faculty of man is the source of all his misfortunes'.6i The
Probably the closest that Enlightenment philosophers carne actually to ruling r'rprrrrsion of productive powers rnade possible by man's innate capabilities
society was in Inclia as it was incorporated into the British empile. Bentham's lr('rlcs the circumstances in which the institution of private property and grow-
close collaborator James Mill was a senior official, and ultimately examiner rrrl' tlivisions between rich and poor take shape: established fbrms of govern-
(chief executive) of the East tndia Company, which ruled British India till I 858.63 rrrt'rrl scrvc to sanction and reinforce these social inequalities. Out of this process
Mill was perhaps the {irst leading European intellectual explicitly to advocate llrr'r t' r'nlcrges in contemporary Europe a protbundly inauthentic society, in which
democracy, in his Essa,- on Government (see §3.1 below). Yet he believed In- nr('n iu'L: governed not by their own sense of self-worth but rather by others'
dians incapable of ruling themselves, and sought to impose on them Bentham's lrrtl;',t'rrrcnts of them. Artificiality and luxury reign supreme, and the primitive
legal and political doctrines and Ricardo's political econolny on the basis of nur()c'cncc of the original undeveloped man is lost beyond recall.
what amounted to the dictatorship of a handful of suitably enlightened offlcials IVorc nrt>derate versions of this critique found a resonance among other
backed by British military power.6a 'Mill will be the living executive - I shall l,ltil,,,srtltln,.s. The influence of classical rnodels continued to make itself felt on
be the dead legislative of British India', the ageirtg Bentham declared.bs The nr;ury lrrrlightenrnent thinkers: many were still influenced by the idea of a his-
lo;iq';11 cyclc ol'l'rirth, youth, tnaturity, and decline. The hold that the collapse of

6r r'lrrssir'rrl anticyuity cxcrcised on the eighteenth-century imagination - expressed


Letter to John Holmes, 22 Apr. 1820, in Jefl'erson, Writings, p. 1434.
6r trrosl gtowcrlirlly in the Enlightennrent's greatest historical narrative, Edward
Quoted in G. Besse, introduction to Helvdtius, De I'es1trit p. 30.
63 James Mill ( I 773- I 836): assistant examiner of the East lndia Cornpany. 18191 examiner. 1830; ( itlrlrotr's l)t't'litrt' rrntl l;rrll of'lht Romrur Empire reflected in part the fear that
-
a key link between the Philosophical Radicals and the Scottish Enlightenment, whose influence is rttorlt'rrr lrrrrolle wottltl ltlso cclrsc to ittlvitttcc and sink intcl decadence.
evident in his mc'rst influential work. the History of British Indio (1817): other importatrt works Sut'lr lr':rrs wcrr'cxl)r'cssctl. lirrcxrrrtrplc. hy s()nrc <ll'the lcading figures of the
include Elements of Political Economy ( 1821 ).
6r Davicl Ricar.do (1772_1823): successful London stockbroker (of Dutch Jewish origin); scll-
" li lf l;rt l'lrttttt. //r, lllrtl'ttr.ri ltl Nt'.r ll'ttrltl ,\'lrtvt't t'(l.otttkrtt, 1t.1t,l'l1, P .1.
eclucated economist; Member of Parliament, l8l9-23.
'' ltott.'.r';ttt /)tr, rrrrl rr' lr SH
65 Quotecl as the epigrirph rc E. Stokes. Tlrc ütglish Lltiliturions «nd Inditt (Delhi. l9tt9t.
34 The Enlightenment The Enlightenment 35

Scottish Enlightenment. Thus Ferguson writes: 'We observe among nations a mankind'. Even if the philosophes were to found a society 'with benevolence
kind of spontaneous return to absurdity and weakness.' He argues that to the for its moving principle', it 'would, from the inevitable laws of nature, and not
traditional causes of the decadence of states identified by classical thinkers from any original depravity of man or of human institutions, degenerate in a
(luxury, corruption, political faction, etc.), the development of commercial so- very short period into a society constructed upon a plan not essentially different
ciety adds new dangers. His particular concern is with the effects of the divi- from that which prevails in every known state at present; a society divided into
sion of labour, which Smith treated as the motor of economic progress: a class of proprietors and a class of labourers, and with self-love for the main-
spring of the great machine'.7r
The separation of the prof-essions, while it seems to promise improvement of skill The most important of these 'inevitable laws' Malthus claimed to have dis-
and is actually the cause why the productions of art become more perfect as com- covered himself. Population tends to rise in a geometric ratio (i.e. doubling
merce advances; yet in its terminations, and ultimate effects, serves, in some every twenty-five years), while the production of food only grows arithmeti-
measure, to break the bonds of society, to substitute mere forms and rules of art in cally. While human desire is unlimited, investment in agriculture is subject to
place of ingenuity, and withdraw individuals from the common scene of occupa- what latereconomists would call the law of diminishing returns: given unchanged
tion, on which the sentiments of the heart, and of the mind, are most happily technique, each additional unit of investment applied to a unit of land will pro-
engaged.6s
duce a smaller quantity of output. The interaction of these f'actors produces a
constan[ 'oscillation' whereby periods of prosperity and high wages encourage
More specifically, the division of labour may erode the kind of civic commit-
poor households to have more children, thus causing population to increase at a
ment which healthy states demand of their citizens. 'Commercial nations' tend
rate which soon overtakes the rate of growth of agricultural production. The
to separate the roles of 'the senator, the statesman, and the soldier', Ferguson
increase in population lowers wages and increases tbod prices, thereby tempo-
argues, and 'to place every branch of administration behind the counter,
rarily reducing f'ertility rates, but encouraging higher levels of investment which
and come to employ, instead of the statesman and warrior, the mere clerk
recreate the conditions of prosperity which started the cycle off in the first place.
and accountant'. Reliance on a purely professional army, common in 'polished
This 'constant eflbrt in the population to increase beyond the means of subsist-
and mercantile states', makes 'a cowardly and undisciplined people' vulner-
ence . . . as constantly tends to subject the lower classes of society to distress
able to invasion or insurrection.6e Behind such concerns, we see the classical
and to prevent any great permanent melioration of their condition'.72
republican ideal of the ancient polis, of an active, armed citizenry as the basis
Where Rousseau had treated inequality as a consequence of particular social
of the state. This ideal helps to explain the hold which the image of Sparta, the
institutions, Malthus thus argued that it arose fiom the laws of nature itself;
most martial of the Greek city-states, whose warrior elite practised a sort of
where Condorcet conceived human perf'ectibility as in{inite, Malthus sought to
crude communism and subjected themselves to a rigorous moral code, had on
demonstrate the necessary physical limits to which progress was subject. In the
eighteenth-century thinkers as diffbrent as Rousseau and Ferguson, as well as
process, he sought to demolish the model of antique republican virtue, dismiss-
on the Jacobin leader Robespierre.
ing 'Itlhe preposterous system of Spartan discipline, and that unnatural absorp-
The further development of the Scottish Enlightenment's most important crea-
tion of every private f-eeling in concern fbr the public' as a 'strong indication of
tion, political economy, involved the destruction of this ideal. A key step in this
the miserable and almost savage stage of Sparta, and of Greece in general at
process is taken by Malthus in his Essay on the Principle of Populcttion.To Fitst
that time'.73 Similarly, where Ferguson had worried that the division of labour
published in 1798 (and subsequently much revised), the Essay is a powerful
would undermine citizens' martial virtues, Constant argued in The Spirit of
polemic against the democratic egalitarianism of the French Revolution, as ex-
Conquest and Usurpution ( l8l4) that modern commerce drew nations into so
pressed in particular by Condorcet and by the English radical utilitarian William
close a network of mutually beneficial relations as to make war a dangerous and
Godwin. Malthus argues that Godwin's 'attributing of almost all the vices and
unprofitable disruption which could only benefit those (above all Napoleon)
misery that prevail in civil society to human institutions' ignores 'those deeper-
who wished to reintroduce the anachronism of despotism to Europe.
seated causes of evil, which result from the laws of nature and the passions of

6n Ferguson, Essay,pp.347,364.
6e lbid., pp. 366-1 ,380-1 .
/r T. R. Malthus, An Essoy on the Print'iple rf Populotion(2 vols, Cambridge, 1989),1, pp.3l7 n.
70 Thomas Robert Malthus (17 66_1834): Anglican clergyman; Prof'essor of Political Economy at 5. 32.5-6.
the East Inclia College at Haileybury, 180-5-34, his correspondence with his fiiendly opponent
/r lhid., l, p. 20.
Ricard«r is onc of thc richcst trcasure-troves of classical political economy.
/' Ibitl.. I, pp. -5tl ().

lli
I

36 The Enlightenment The Enlightenment 37

(6) The limits of civil society. Malthus's attempt to naturalize social inequal- among the classes. To achieve this aim, he sought to devise a 'measure of value'
ity raised sharply the question of the character of the societies taking
shape in which would not be affected by changes in this distribution. In doing so, he
the West at the end of the eighteenth century. The emergence of this issue can became the first rigorously to formulate what would later be known as the
be traced by the transfbrmation of the concept of civil society. Enlightenment labour theory of value: 'The value of a commodity, or the quantity of any
thinkers, like their early modern predecessors, regarded civil society as coex- other commodity.for which it will exr:hange, depend,s on the relative quantity
tensive with the state. Thus, for those of them who believed that governments of labour which is necessary.for its production.'16
were created by a social contract, what this contract established was civil soci- Smith had tended to see the natural price of a commodity as a sort of com-
ety. It was Hegel who first contrasted civil society with the state. For him, 'the posite of profit, rent, and wages. According to Ricardo, however, the natural
creation of civil society is a product of the modern world': it is the outcome of price was independent of changes in these forms of income, since it depended
a historical process, not something that arises whenever men come together to simply on the labour necessary to produce it. The different class incomes repre-
form a government. 'In civil society, each individual is his own end, and all else sented a division of value created antecedently in production. Since therefore a
means nothing to him.' But since the individual needs others, he has to co- rise in, say, labourers' wages would not lead to a commensurate increase in the
operate with them to achieve his goals: 'through its ref'erence to others, the price of their product, the income of at least one other class - landowners or
particular end takes on the form of universality, and gains satisf-action by simi- capitalists - would have to fall. Ricardo indeed suggested that profits and wages
larly satisfying the welfare of others'.7r were inversely related, so that if wages rose the rate of profit would fall. Class
Hegel's civil society is thus Smith's commercial society, where'[ilt is not conflict was thus built into the basic economic mechanisms of civil society.
from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect Ricarrdo, through his fiiend James Mill. was closely associated politically
our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.'75 In thus isolating the with Bentham and the Philosophical Radicals, who in their programmes for
distinctive socio-economic structure analysed by the political economists (whom political refirrnr targeted especially the privileges of the landed aristocracy in
he read attentively), and contrasting it with the political furrns of the state, Hegel the British state and society. But his economic analysis had considerably more
highlights the novelty of the social logic at work in this structure. This logic has subversive irnplicatiorts at a tirne when the new working class created by the
two features worth noting here. First, as we have already seen, this society is Industrial Revolution was heginning to engage in political and social agitation.
integrated less through self'-conscious political regulation than as a result of the Like rnost nineteenth-century ec«rnornists, Ricardo accepted Malthus's theory
interactions of self'-interested actors on the market. Secondly, these relations ol'population. This did not sirnply inrply what carne to be known as 'the iron
give rise to a distinctive set of class relations. In identifying three main fbrrns of law of wages' - the tendertcy filr population to or.rtstrip tbod production would
income of which the 'natural price' of a commodity is composed - rent, profit, keep wages liom rising abovc a bare nrinimum of physical subsistence. Dimin-
and wages - Smith was isolating a specilic class-structure. In pzrrticular, he was ishing returns in agriculture further implied that the cost of producing a given
the first political economist systernatically to treat capitalist entrepreneurs as a quantity «rf food would tend to rise, and so consequently would the wage
specific economic grouping who could expect, in the nrlrmal workings of a rcquired to bLry even the subsistence minimum, thereby causing profits tr>
market economy, their own distinctive income in the shape of profits. lirll.'The natural tenclency ol'pnrlits is to lall', Ricerrdocilncluded;'Ibr, in the
The next generation of political econonrists concerned themselves with the progress ol- society and wealth, the additional quantity of food required is
relationship between capitalists and the other main classes of commercial soci- obtained by thc sacrifice of morc and nrore labour.'77
ety, landowners and wage-labourers. Proposals to repeal the Corn Laws pro- Ricardo believed that the operation of this 'naturaltendency'could be slowed
tecting British agriculture fiom competition frorn imports provoked intense d«rwn by technological innovations which increased the productivity of labour.
debate at the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, and led m more general Cenerally cornrnittetl though he was to Smith's conception of the market as a
discussion of the impact of changes in relative prices and taxes on the price self--equilibrating system (thus he def-ended Say's law, according to which sup-
level and the distribution of income. The key figure in these debates was Ricardo. ply and demand necessarily come into balance, against Malthus's criticisms),
In his great work, On the Principles rt'Political Econom.v ond Taxation (1817), he nevertheless came up with specific arguments which cast doubt on whether
he set out '[tlo determine the laws which regulate' the distribution of income this system actually maximized human welfare. Thus in the third edition of
the Principle,s, published in 1821, he added a chapter 'On Machinery' which
71 G. W. F. Hegel (1821), Elentenrs of the Philosopht of Righr(Carnbridge, l99l), §182 Addi-
tion, p. 220. 16 D.Ricardo,WorksondCorrespondence (l0vols.Cambridge, l9-51-2). l,pp.-5, ll.
75 Smith, Wealth, l. ü,pp. 26-7. ]t lhid., I. p. 120.

itl
38 The Enlightenment

suggested that, under certain conditions, the introduction of machines would


reduce employment, and that therefore 'the substitution of machinery for hu-
man labour, is often very injurious to the interests of the class of labourers'.78
Corning at a time when groups of workers known as Luddites were sabotaging
machines on the grounds that they destroyed jobs, this argurnent was political
dynamite. His follower J. R. McCulloch protested furiously to Ricardo: '[f your
reasoning . . . be well fbunded, the laws a-eainst the Luddites are a disgrace to Hegel
the Statute book.'7')
Perhaps not entirely coincidentally. Ricardo's successors retreated frorn some
of his most distinctive themes: the labour theory of value, in particular, was
soon dropped, becoming instead the property of socialist publicists who used it
to prove that profits were an unjust deduction fiom labour. His chief influence
on subsequent mainstream economists was to set new standards of rigorous
analysis based on theoreticarl abstraction. But his wurk raised questions which
would not go away, both about the future prospects firr civil society and about 2.1 Reconcilingmodernity
its conflictual sclcial basis. These questions would become a large part of the
agenda fbr later social theorists. The Enlightenment, as even as brief and selective a survey as that offered in the
previous chapter should indicate, did not constitute a simple and homogeneous
body of doctrine. The thought developed by the eighteenth-century philosophes
was conrplex, internally riven. riddled by tensions. This condition was not sim-
ply a conscqucncc: of lhc fact that individual thinkers took differing positions
on various issues, though of course they did. Much more intportant was the fact
that there were otien strains internal to these positions. The reservations many
leading figure s of the Scottish Enlightenrnent expressed about the development
of cornmcrcial socicty. cvcn though they had played a decisive rclle in fbrmu-
lating an articulated theory of this as the latest progressive stage clf world
history, are a case in p«rint. Clricalural rcadings of the Enlightenment
as a sinrplc-rnindcd 'grand narrative' «rl'in{inite progress simply represent an
obstacle to its understanding.
T'he philo,sophc,s,l suggestecl, sought to offbr an account of the modern age
which did not appeal to classical anticprity lbr rnodels and justifications, but
rather sought to legitinrize it by rneans ol'the very frlrms of rationality which
represented its clairn to niark a distinct phase in Europeun history. These forms
were, «tl'course, the kind of reasonirr-{ ernbodicd in the seventeenth-century
revolution in physics and the Enlightenntent's own attentpt to extend it to the
understanding of society. But, as we saw in § l.-5 above, this attempt produced a
series of tensions and cloubts internal to Enlightenment thought itself.
The resulting sense of confusion and uncertainty was more thzrn merely philo-
sophical. The eighteenth century concluded in the Great French Revolution ( 1789-
94) and a series of wars which pitted France, first under Revolutionary regimes
and then under Napoleon's ultimately imperial dictatorship, against the other
7ri Ibid., I, p. 388. Great Pcrwers. The liberal historian Augustin Thierry wrote in l82l:'There is
7') Ibid.. VIII, pp. 384-5. ttol ottc luttrlttrlsl trs chilrlrcn «lf the ninelccnth centtrry who tklt:s rrol know rrrorc
40 Hegel
Hegel 41

on the score of rebellion and conquests, of the dismemberment of empires, of the any metaphysical "other" or set of "natural constraints" that would underwrite
fall of monarchies, of popular revolution and the consequent reactions than did these practices'.8 In other words, the development of European thought culmi-
Velly or Mably, or even Voltaire himself [all Enlightenment historians].'r nates, according to Hegel, in a form of consciousness which involves the
While attempts to treat these upheavals as a straightforward consequence of explicit recognition that modernity is characterized by the attempt to justify
the Enlightenment might be simplistic, the revolutionary slogan of 'Liberty, itself from its own intellectual resources without any attempt to appeal to
Equality, and Fraternity' was only intelligible against the background of the anything outside itself.
philosophes' writings. 'C'est la fäute de Rousseau' - it's Rousseau's fault - The tror.rble with this attempt is that, as we have seen, it issued in all sorts of
Napoleon himself said of the Revolution.2 Whether the Jacobin Terror (1792- tensions and uncertainties. The second respect in which Hegel is so important
4) and the Napoleonic regime and its wars had discredited the ideals of the here is that he does not flinch fiorn the conflicts internal to Enlightenment thougl-rt
eighteenth century was one of the main themes of the debates which unfolded (or indeed thought generally) but positively welcomes and embraces them. 'Con-
in Restoration France (see §3.I below). tradiction,' he says, 'both in actuality and in thinking reflection, is considered
The significance of Hegel in this context is twofbld.'r In the first place, as an accident, a kind of abnormality or paroxysm of sickness which will soon
Jürgen Habermas has argued, 'Hegel was the first to raise to the level of a pass away.' But in fäct 'Contradiction is at the root of all movement and life,
philosophical problern the process of detaching rnodernity fiom the suggestion and it is only in so far as it contains a Contradiction that anything moves and
of norms lying outside of itself in the past.'a Hegel's transfbrmation of the con- has impulse and activity."r Such assertions are expressions of Hegel's peculiar
cept of civil society as he found it in the writings of the Scottish Enlightenrnent, philosophical method, the dialectic, which I consider in the lbllowing section.
which I mentioned in § 1.5 above, is illustrative of his general philosophical At present what matters is that. filr Hegel, the self-understanding of modernity
approach. He sees himself as articulating the principles irnplicit in the develop- involves fully articulating its internal conllicts so that their nature can be prop-
ment of European thought befbre him, and fbrlning them into a coherent, intel- erly assessed, and that the insights they oller can help achieve their ultimate
lectually cornpelling, theoretical whole. reconciliation in the state of conscir)usness he calls'absolute knowing'.
Perhaps his greatesf work, Tha Phenomerrtktg,- fi'Spirit ( 1807). is an enor- Hegel's ability to conceptualize the c«rntradictions of modernity was at least
rnously rich and complex rational reconstruction of the entire prior movement to some extent a reflection of his own experience. Like many young European
of European thought fiom the Greeks onwards. [t concludes in a condition which intellectuals of'his day. Hegel, along with his two close fiiends and t-ellow stu-
He_eelcalls 'absolute knowing', or 'spirit that knows itself as Spirit'.t This dents, the poet Hölderlin ancl the phikrs«rpher Schelling, had initially rallied
development represents the culnrinati«rn of 'the culture of rnodern titttes, the enthusiastically to the French Revoluti«rn. They hoped it would sweep away the
thought of modern Philosophy', where 'the universal principle by means of Germany o1'petty principalities against whose intellectual and political back-
which everything in the world is regulated, is the thought that proceeds ti'clm wardness they chal'ed. Hegel's early writings of the 1790s counterpose the arr-
itself.'6 Modernity is inaugurated by the Protestant Refbrnration of the sixteenth cien r(gitnz,, and in particular thc 'positivity' of established Christianity,
century, whose 'essence' is: 'Man is in his very nature destined ttl be fiee.'7 acceptance of'whose teachings is enfirrcetl by the authority of the state, to, on
Thus part (although only part, as we shall see in §2.2 below) of what Hegel the one hand, thc city-states of ancicnt Creece and Rome, where 'in public as
means by 'absolute knowing' has to do with the idea that, as Terry Pinkard puts well as in private alrcl clomestic lil'e, every individual is a fl'ee ntan, one who
it, rnodernity is 'sef grr»nding': absolute knowing is 'the set of practices through lived by his own laws', and, on thc other hand, Christ himself, whom Hegel
which the rnodern cornntunity thinks about itself without attempting to posit depicts as a Kantian figure, thc teacher of universal moral laws 'based on the
essence of reason alone and not on phenornenil in the external world which for
I Quoted in D. Johrrson, Gui;-.ot (Londott, 1963), p. 32-5. reason are mere accidents'.r" This conllict between 'positivity' and the univer-
r Qtroted in K. Löwith. Fnttrt Heg,el to Nit't-.st'he (Londort, 1965). p.2jtt. sal dictates of reasor-r wt>uld overturn the old order: 'From the Kantian system
r Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel ( l11}-l83 l): born and raised in Stuttgart; studied at Tübingen
and its highest completion I expect a revolution in Germany', Hegel told
Theolggical Seminrry, I 7tt8-93; private tutor. 1793- I U00: taught at the Llniversity ot Jena, ltiOl-
6: editor of Banberger Zeitung, 1807-8; headmaster of the Nürnberg Cvmrutsiurn, lt{0t3-16; Pro- Schelling in l795.rl
f'essor of Philosophy at the University of tleidelberg. llll6-lti; Professor of Philosophy at the
n T. PinkarJ. Hegcl's Phcn<tnerrctlr.,r,.y (Cambridge. 1994), pp. 188,262.
University of Berlin, ltj l8-3 I ; died in a cholera epidenlic.
* J. Haberm as, The Phib.vryhical Discour:;e of Modernit)' (Cambridge, 1987), p. 16. ' G. W. F. Hegel (1812-16), Tlte Science o.f Lctgic (2 vols. London, 1966),11,p.67.
5 G. W. F. Hegel (1807), T'he. Plrcnomenolog\ of'Spirit (Oxforcl. l97l),§798, p.48-5. "' G. W. F. Hegel. Eorll,lllg.lrgiculWriring.r (Chicago, 1948), pp. 154,79.
II l6 Apr. 179-5, in G. W. F. Hegel, The Letters, ed. C. Butler and C. Seiler (Blo«rnrington.
' G. W. F. Hegel ( I 833-6), Let'tures on the History of Philosoph,y (3 vols. London, 1963 ). III, p.217 . 19134).
7 G. W. F. Hegel (1837). Lec'tures on the Philosophv ofHi.storv (New York, 1956). p.411. p..1.5.
42 Hegel Hegel 43
Subsequent experience - in particular, the Jacobin Terror and the defeat of trouble and confusion. Indeed. '[t]he history of Philosophy is a revelation of
various movements for political reform in Germany - disillusioned Hegel. One what has been the aim of spirit throughout its history; it is the world's history in
consequence was to encourage him to become increasingly critical of the En- its innermost signification.' rs
lightenment, and in particular of what he came to think of as its essentially What philosophy revealed in the realm of politics was most fully outlined in
abstract conception of reason. In one of the most striking sections of the Phe- the Philosophy of Right ( lS2l). Here Hegel sought to disringuish his views
nomenologv, 'Absolute Freedom and Terror', Hegel argues that the Enlighten- sharply from the views of the contemporary Romantic movement, strongly as-
ment culminates in the conception of an absolutely undifferentiated and sociated in Germany with the early rnanif'estations of nationalism, which sought
unconditional universal freedom. Under the Jacobins, this absolute freedom. in to found political allegiance on the emotional enthusiasm of the people for the
the shape of Rousseau's general will, claims its right to rule society. state (he often made biting comrnents about 'dumb Teutonism fDeutsch-
Rather than give itself substance by creating a diffbrentiated set of social and dumml').r6ThestatefbrHegel is'an inherentlt, rutioneil entiqi.But'thisrefined
political institutions, the general will seeks to rule directly. [n doing so, it en- structure' cannot be understood on the basis of the abstract conception of rea-
counters as 'the greatest antithesis to universal fieedorn . . . the fieedom and son characteristic of the Enlightenment in general and of Kantian philosophy in
individuality of actual self-consciousness itself '. By refusing itself 'the reality particular: 'since philosophy is erytloration of the rational, it is for that very
of an organic articulation', absolute fieedorn 'divides itself into extremes equally reason the comprehen,vkm rf'the present untl the at:t11sl, not the setting r-rp of a
abstract, into a simple, inflexible cold universality, and into the discrete, abso- world bet'ond which exists God knows where - or rather, of which we can very
lute hard rigidity and self--willed atornism of actual self-consciousness'. This well say that we kn<lw where it exists, namely in the errors of a one-sided ancl
opposition is resolved through the Terror, where the resistance of private wills empty ratiocination.' |7
to the general will (or rather to the political faction which rules in its name) is It is in this context that Hegel makes the notorious clairn: 'What is rational is
overcome by the guillotine: 'The sole work and deed of universal f)'eedonr is actual, and what is actual is rational.'r8 This rernark has been usecl by his critics
therefbre death, a death too which has no inner significance or filling, tor what to clairrr that the Philo,sopltv of' Right is rnerely a philosophical def-ence of the
is negated is the empty point of the absolutely fiee self. It is thus the coldest and Prussian absttlute monitrchy whose servant, as a university prof'essor, Hegel
meanest of all deaths, with no more significance than cutting off a heacl of after all was (indeed, he clainred as lnuch in a tawning letter presenting the
cabbage or swallowing a mouthful of water.'rr book ttt it Prussian minister). But such views are unsustainable. For Hegel actu-
This critique of Jacobinism did not represent Hegel's rejection of the princi- ality (Wirklichkcil) is the unity o1'the «rutward appearance of things and their
ples of the French Revolution. He came to think of Napoleon as the agent of inner essence: the confused ways in which the world presents itself are there
these principles, famously describing him as 'this wrlrld soul . . . astride u hrlrse' integrated into a rittional structurer. It firllows that not everything that exists is
when he saw the emperor riding through Jena, where he had.just def'eated the actual: 'even Experience . . . has sense enough to distinguish the mere appear-
Prussian army (Hegel clairned to have cornpleted the Phcrutmcnologv 'in the ance, which is trattsicnt iurd nrcurringless. tioln what in itsell'really deserves the
middle of the night before the battle t>f Jena').r:rHis L:orrespondence is tull ol' name of actr"ral'. 'What is actual is rational' is therefirre more or less a tautol-
sardonic comments about the European reaction which firllowed Napoleon's ogy. On the other hand, 'what is rational is actual' challenges the belief, which
tall in l8l4-15. Hegel attrihutes chielly to Kanl, that 'ldeas and ideals are something far too
Yet, while his sympathies rernained with the Revolution, Hegel becarne in- excellent ttl have actuality, or sornething too ilnpotent to procure it for them-
creasingly lirmly conrrnitted to the belief that the decisive tirrce behind the selves.' l"
extraordinary political events through which he lived lay in philosophical Reastln lor Hegel is not a set «rf principles inherently separate fiom the world
reflection. Thus he wrote in 1808: 'l anl daily ever rnore convinced that theo- which may at best itct as a means ol'critically orienting ourselves. It is actively
retical work accomplishes more in the world than practical work. Once the at work in the very organization of the social world. Hegel seeks to demonstrate
realm of representation IVorstellurzgl is revolutionized, actuality lWirklichkeitl this in the course of the Philosophl' of Right He takes his cue from the oppo-
will not hold out.'ra Philosophy, he claimed much later in lit'e, is'the true sition, central to Rousseau's political philosophy and taken over by Kant,
theodicy', which uncovers the thread of reason running through all the world's
I5 Hegel, Historv of'Philoxtphr, III, p. 547.
r(' Letter to Paulus, 9 Oct. 1814, in Hegel, Letters, p. 312.
r2 Hegel, Phenomenologl'. §590. pp. 3-59-60.
lr '7
rE
G.W.F'Hegel(1821), Elementso.fthePhitosctpt:o.f Righr(Cambridge, l99t),pp.2l ,16,20.
Letter to Niethammer. 13 Oct. I 806, in Hegel, Letters, p. I I4. lbid., p. 20.
la Letter to Niethammer, 28 Oct. 1808. ibid, p. 179. l" (;. W. lr. Ilq,t'l tlli I71. llt',qrl's /.o,qir.(Oxlirrtl. I97-5). §(r. pP. li ().
Hegel 45
44 Hegel

between the general will and the private (or particular) will. The general will is, individual in public life characteristic of the classical polis was inconsistent
as Hegel's critique of the Jacobins had shown, inherently abstract. Its realm is with the assertion of individual subjectivity characteristic of modern freedom.
that of Abstract Right, of the formal legal principles frrst systematically devel- He nevertheless believed that a form of Ethical Life capable of providing this
oped in ancient Rome. Here the subject is a person, the bearer of certain rights, freedom with its appropriate social setting was taking shape. This Ethical Life
for example, to own property and to make contracts. His freedom derives from has three moments. The first,,the family, has a natural basis and function, but, at
these rights, and is dependent on the external arrangements of persons and things least in modern society, it is the outcome of the tiee choice of two individuals
to which their exercise by him and others gives rise. It is for this reason that to bind themselves into a new person. Family relationships cannot, however,
Abstract Right is inadequate as the basis of a state, at least in the modern world: serve as the basis of social lif-e in general, since each family dissolves as the
it does not give expression to the freedon-r of the particular individual subject. children attain adulthood and r-naturity and the parents die. 'The family disinte-
Where this subject becomes self-conscious, we enter the sphere of Morality, grates', therefbre, '. . . into a plurality of f amilies whose relation to one another
the realm of the particular will, and of Kant's critical philosophy. Here the right is in general that of self--sufflcient concrete persons and c:onsequently of an
and the good depend on the self'-conscious choice of the individual subject to external kind.'rl
adopt them - paradigmatically in the form of the Kantian categorical impera- This plurality of self'-sufficient persons constitutes the second moment of
tive, that is, of moral laws adopted as universally binding. 'This subjectivity, as Ethical Lit-e, civil society. Hegel derives his conception of civil society fiom
abstract self-determination and pure certainty of itself alone, evaporutes into the writings of the British political economists (see § 1.5 above). It includes 'the
itself all determinate aspects of right, duty, and existence.'r0 Everything now system of needs' - the market economy proper, and the fbrms of public regula-
depends on whether its intentions are good or not, on whether the particular tion which arise directly fiorn these economic relationships - the legal system,
will embraces the universal moral law. There is nothing to prevent it choosing the police (a term which Hegel uses broadly, following common eighteenth-
evil. This can take indirect forms, for example the dissimulation of evil inten- century practice, to ref'er to all state activities concerned to secure public wel-
tions characteristic of hypocrisy, or the kind of casuistry practised by the Jes- fare and donrestic stability), and the corporations (updated versions of the
uits ('the end justifies the means').Or the arbitrariness of individual choice medieval guilds through which specific socio-economic groups govern their
may lead us to take refuge in irony, and the denial that there are any objective internal affhirs).
grounds on which to determine the right and the good. [n any case, the self- On their own, howcver, these relationships cannot generate a stable social
assertion of individual subjectivity is unable to provide the universal with se- order. 'When thc activity ol'civil society is unrestricted, it is occupied inter-
cure foundations. nally with e-rpunding it,s populution ttntl industr\'.' As a result, 'the uccumulu-
These considerations do not lead Hegel to despair of reason, and perhaps t«r tion of' wculth increases . . . But on the other hand, the ,speciaLiz,otion and
embrace relativism, denying that there is any fäct of the rnittter about the social limitution ol'particurlar work also incrcase, as do Iikewise the dependence and
world. Rather, he seeks to achieve a reconciliation of particular and universal, want ol-the class which is tied to such work; this in turn leads to an inability to
of subjective and objective. The possibility of this reconciliation depends criti- feel and cnjoy the wider fieedorns, and particularly the spiritual advantages, of
cally on recognizing that the individual subject does not exist in isolation (Hegel civil society.' Further. 'ltlhe irrner dialcctic: of society drives it - or in the first
is contemptuously dismissive of the idea of a state of nature), but derives its instance this spacific sot'icty - to go beyond its own confines and look tbr con-
existence frorr, and can only flourish in, a concrete. historically specific social sumers, and lrence the nreans it requires tor subsistence, in other nations which
context rooted not in abstract principles. but in custom and tradition. The name lack those means of which it has a surplus or which generally lag behind it in
Hegel gives to this context is Ethical Life (Sittlic'hkeit). His rnodel of Ethical creativity, etc.' This process leads to the development of international trade,
Life is provided by the city-states of the ancient world. Here citizens derived with all its 'fluidity, danger, and destruction', and to the establishment of colo-
their social existence, not from a set of abstract, timeless moral principles, but nies fbr the surplus population of civil society.22
through participating in definite institutions which specified the roles from which Thus, while acknowledging his debt to Smith, Ricardo, and other classical
individuals derived their identities, laid down the duties expected of them, and economists, Hegel does not fbllow them in conceiving modern commercial
promoted the virtues on which the welfare of both the state and its members society as a self'-equilibrating system which. by means of an 'invisible hand',
depended. integrates the diverse projects of individual agents in a manner that maximizes
The mature Hegel came to the conclusion that the kind of immersion of the
" Ibid.. §181. p.2lt).
2{) Hegel, Philosophy of Right, rr lhid.. s\l-l l. pp )66. )6J t3: ss247. p. 26t3.
§138, p. 166.
46 Hegel Hegel 47

the general welfare. On the contrary, unrestrained civil society generates a series we see adumbrated themes which would later be developed by Durkheim and
of systemic dysfunctions - growing divisions between rich and poor, a shortage by Weber - respectively, the restoration of corporations to overcome the dys-
of markets, and a tendency towards external expansion which is both liberating flnctions of industrial society, and bureaucracy as a decisive distinguishing
and destabilizing. It is against this background that Hegel argues that the state - f'eature of the modern state. However unsatisfäctory Hegel's arguments and
the third moment of Ethical Life - is necessary, in part, to-contain and harmo- solutions may be, they represent an attempt to conceptualize a fbrm of state
nize the conflicts of civil society. One can lind plenty of precedents for Hegel's capable of harmoniously reconciling the contradictions of modernity.
reasoning here - the early modern Cameralist school of German economists
had, for example, argued that the proper functioning of markets depended on
state regulation. But Hegel is the first major post-Enlightenment thinker, in the 2.2 The labour of the negative
aftermath of the French Revolution, and as the lndustrial Revolution began
to make itself felt, to challenge classical political economy's conception of a Hegel's account of Ethical Lif-e offbrs an illustration of how he believes reason
self-regulating market. It is not wholly absurd to see his arguments here as an is at work in the world. Two apparently starkly counterposed moments develop
anticipation of Keynes's critique of laissez.faire a hundred years later. in succession. The first, the larnily, is based upon the affbctive relations be-
Hegel's conception of the state, however, goes well beyond these considera- tween husband and wif-e and between parcnts and children; the second, civil
tions. The state is for him the highest fbrm of social reason, 'the ldea made society, is constituted by the purely external and instrumental relationships be-
manifest on earth'.2r As 'the actuality of the ethical Idea' it has 'its imrnediate tween competing agents on the market. Each of these rnoments is presented as
existence in custom and its mediate existence in the ,selt''-7'1111rf iousnc,ss of the inherently lirnited and llawed. The state. however, reconciles them. It is a genu-
individual, in the individual's knowledge and activity, just as self'-conscious- ine political conrrnunity: its members interact not simply filr what they can get
ness, by virtue of its disposition, has its substuntiul.frecdorn in the state as its out of each other, but because they participate in the common 'substance' of the
essence, its end, and the product of its activity'.ra The thought, then, is that the state - to pr-rt it in rnore contemporary terms, mernbership of the state is consti-
state integrates the self-interested individuals of civil society into a political tutive of their identity. At the sarne tirne, the state has a diffbrentiated structure
community by means of social institutions which allow them to realize their which allows thc various interests <lf civil s«rciety political expression: these
freedom. It does so by means of a diffbrentiated and internally articulated po- interests, and the individuals whose ec«rn«rrnic relationships produce these
litical structure of the kind that the Jacobins refused to construct in their head- interests, are not sirnply subnrergecl in the state.
long pursuit of absolute fieedom. In particular, the modern state ctllnbines a The rational structure ol'Ethical Lit'e thus has three stages. In the first two,
constitutional monarch, the executive power which hc heads but which ctlnsists apparently sharply opposccl rn«lntcnts arc countcrposcd; in the third, they are
primarily of a permanent bureaucracy, and a legislature through which civil reconciled. (lncidentally, contrary to legend, Hcgel docs rrol call these three
society gains political representation. stages respectivcly 'thcsis', 'antithesis', and 'syrrthcsis'.) This triple structure,
It is the detail of Hegel's analysis here which has tnade him most vulnerable Hegel believes, is present everywhere: cornprchcnding it is r prerequisite of
to charges of serving as an apologist tbr Prussian absolutistn - he enrploys gaining a proper unclerstanding ol'the wrlrld. This cornprehension depends cru-
fairly specious arguments in support of the hereditary principle, and def-ends cially on grasping the positive and prodr-rctivc nrlc ol-contradicti«rn. Thus in the
the kind of corporate representation of social groups characteristic of the Es- Phenonrcrutlogv and thc Pltilo.soltltv- o.f'Hi.ttor.v Hcgcl analyses a succession of,
tates which was one of early modern Germany's legacies to the nineteenth cen- respectivcly, lilrms o1'conscioLrsness and political systems, eilch of which is
tury. But even here we lind him responding to what he sees as distinctively undermined by tensions inherent in it. C«rntradiction is thus the moving princi-
modern problems. He thinks that corporations can help to overcotnc the isola- ple of hist«rry.
tion of the individual in civil society, and allow the better-ofTto help the poor in In seeking tcl justify this conception of contradiction, Hegel directs consider-
a way that does not humiliate the latter. Similarly, the bureaucracy, as 'the able criticism towards what he calls the Understanding, which 'sticks to fixity
universal estate - or more precisely, the estate which devotes itself to the serv- of characters and their distinctness fiom one another: every such limited ab-
ice of the government',has 'the universal . . . as the end of its activity'.rs Here stract it treats as having a subsistence and being of its own'. Understanding is
21 that mode of thought which is most fully developed in the Enlightenment and
G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures onthe Philosophv o.f World Hi,story: Introduction(Cambridge, 1975),
above all in the philosophy of Kant. Hegel acknowledges its positive function,
p. 95.
21 Hegel, Philosophy of Righr, §257 , p. 215. since he is strongly hostile to any doctrine (for example, German Romanticism
2s lbid., §303, p.343. rrrrtl Schelling's irlcalisrn) which reduces knowledge to a vagLrc intLrition of thc
ii
I

48 Hegel Hegel
49

oneness of things: 'apart from Understanding there is no fixity or accuracy in relations, but it represents a truth implicit in the nature of the farnily. So nega-
the region of theory or of practice'.ro The Understanding, which we see at work tion is a process of difrbrerttintion in which the starting-point is enriched and
in the physical sciences, plays an essential role in distinguishing between things complicated. But it is not the end of the story. Thought comprises a third stage,
and identifying the causal regularities by which they are governed. But, at the after Understanding and Dialectic, the 'speculative stage, or stage of Positive
same time, it treats the distinctions it makes as absolute. As a result it is inher- Reason, [which] apprehends the unity of the terms (propositions) in their oppo-
ently abstract. Just as Rousseau's general will necessarily found itself in conflict sition - the affirmative, which is involved in their disintegration and in their
with the particular wills of the citizens, so the scientific laws of the Understand- transition'.2')
ing t'unction as abstractions, unable to comprehend and to integrate all the con- The third stage of the process thus re-establishes the unity of the counterposed
crete variety of the world that falls under them. moments. This unity wirs present from the start. But the starting-point, the first
The limitations of the Understanding are overcome only by the Dialectic, moment of each dialectical movement, is only an immediate that is. an un-
-
thought as 'negative reason', where 'these finite characterizations or formulae conscious and undifferentiated - unity, just as the farnily is bound together by
supersede themselves, and pass into their opposites'.17 Here Hegel challenges the strong but narrowly focused and unreflecting emotion of love. Negation is
what is generally seen as the most basic law of logic, both ancient and modern. necessary to draw out the content implicit in this unity. But it is only what
the law of non-contradiction. Formally expressed as -(1t.^p), this law forbids Hegel calls first negation: it brings hitherto implicit content to the surface, but
the affirmation of a proposition and its negation. We cannot, in other words, in the form of an opposition between separate and conflicting elements. just as
simultaneously say that it is raining and that it is not raining. A proof dating civil society is ruled by the atomistic competition of self-interested indivicluals.
back to the Middle Ages shows that a contradictory sentence implies every The third stage of the process overcomes this opposition; it is second necation
other sentence. So to affirrn a contradiction is to say everything, and theretbrr - or, as Hegel sometimes puts it, the negation of the negation. Unity is restored.
since the point of speaking is to say something definite - to say nothing. but it is a unity enriched and ntade self-conscious by the experience of contra-
Hegel believes that this reasoning is fundarnentally mistaken. Contradictions diction. just as the state is, like the family, a cornrnunity, but one which offers
do not vaporize content - they actually produce it: proper scope fbr the inclividuality and self'-assertion of its rnembers. Hegel
often seeks to bring out the character of the negation of the negation by appeal-
The one and only thing for set:uring scienti.fic progr(.\.\ . . . is knowledge of the ing to the Gernran word uu.f'heben, which means both to cancel and
logical precept thaf Negation is .ir-rst as rnuch Affirnrzrtiorr as Negation. or tlrat to preserve. The final stage of every dialectical mclvement does not merely
what is self-contraclictory resolves itself not into nullity, into abstract Nothing- trauscend the tw«t previous moments: it incorporates their content with a new,
ness, but essentially only into the negation of its purtit'uLur content, that such self-conscious unity.
negation is not an all-ernbr acing Negation, but is lhe ncg«tirtn rt.f'u dc.finitc sottte-
It is irnportant to understand that Hegel regards this dialectic (unclerstood
u*ltttt whichabolishes itself, and this is a definite ncgation, ancl that thus the result
broadly so as to incorporate both what he re-{ards as the properly Dialectical
contains that from which it results . . . Since what results. the negation. is ttlafinite
and the culminating Speculittive stages of thought) as more than a fbrmal method
negation, it has a content.lt is a new concept, but a higher richer collcept than that
which precedecl it; for it has been enriched by the negation or opposite clf the which can be used to understancl various aspects clf the world: 'the rnethod is
prececling concept, and thus contains it, but contains also more than it, and is the not an extralleous fbrm', he says, 'but the soul and notion of the content'.10
unity of it and its concept.2' Here we return ttt the issue, touched on in the previous section, of Hegel's
idealism, of his belief that thought rules the world. This in turn raises the ques-
Negation thus draws out what was implicit but utt:lrticulated in the starting- tion of the development of Gern-ran philosophy after Kant.
point. It is, for example, inherent in the concept of the tamily that, though its Kant argued that the world of everyclay experience and nrodern science
internal unity derives fl'om the love its members teel towards one ilnother. its depended on the activities of a transcendental subject (§ 1.5 above). He also
relatiolship towards those outside it will be an instrumental one governed by insisted that we were forced to presuppose the existence of this subject (or
whatever use they are to family members. Civil society therefbre is the nega- 'transcendental unity of apperception'), but that, beyond that. we could say
tion of the family, since it is based on self-interested rather than af'tbctionate nothing about it. Subsequeut German idealists found, on the contrary, nruch to
say about the transcendental subject. Schelling in particular took the crucial
26 Heg,el'.s Logic', §80. p I l3l §ttO Zusat:. p. 81.
)1 lbid.. §79, p. I l3; §81, p. I 15. "' Ilcgrl's Logic', §82, p. ll9.
rlt Hegel, Science of Logic.I, pp.64-5. "' lhid., §243, p. 296.
Hegel 51
50 Hegel

and equating it with God' l'lcked into this dense and obscure passage is the essence of Hegel's philoso-
move of treating it as essentially supra-individual, phy. He conceives the subject (to borrow a fbrmulation of Marx's) as a relation,
of traditional Christian theology' a distinct
This was not, however, the God rrot ä thing. The subject is not a discrete focus of conscioLlsness, as Western
who creates and rules the world, but who remains
(though mysterious) person philosophy since Descartes had conceived it. Rather, '[i]t is the process of its
the Absolute, identical with its creation' with
ü"yoria it. Schelling', God was own becoming.' But this process has a structure which is that of the dialectic
nature (inclucling ils highest development, flnite human minds) - less a per- outlined above. The subject is 'the doubling which sets up opposition, and then
the world' There thus emerges
sonal creator than the impticit principle that moves ;rgain the negation of this indifferent diversity and of its antithesis'. It breaks
the world as the expression of this impersonal
absolute idealism, which treats rlown the first 'original or intmediate unity' . counterposing the self to an other
God. rvhich it conceives as quite distinct from this. But then this opposition is can-
for example' that 'the
Hegel followed Schelling along this road, afflrming, r'clled in the 'self-restoring sameness' that is the negation of the negation.
being opposed and
Absolr.rte itself is rhe i<Ientiiy of identity and non-identity; Not only does subjectivity have a dialectical structure - the dialectic is inher-
incorporates everything'
being one are both together in it'.rr The Absolute thus t'rrlly a dialectic of subjectivity. The movement of internal differentiation and
tii
'self-grounding'. it is so partly because there is noth-
If it is, as Pinkard puÄ it. r cstoration of an enriched unity which Hegel analyses in his logical writings is
with the idea of
ing outside it. guiHegel beoame increa'singly uncomfortable tlrc process thror"rgh which consciousness becomes aware of itself as Spirit, that
the Absolute as sorne t ina or undifferentiated
whole knowable only through a
he takes aim at rs. hecomes 'conscious of itself as its own world. and of the world as itself'.
vague intuition of the oneness of things. In the Phenomenology ( 'orrsciousness starts ofT in a mute and undifferentiated unity with nature. First
single insight' that in the
Schelling's version of absolute idealism: 'To put this rrcgation breaks up this unity. It is a process of alienation: nature is now set up
Absolute everything is the same. against the full body
of articulated cognition
;rs irn other separate from and opposed to the conscious self. The Speculative
the night in which. as they say. all cows are
. . . to palnr off the Rusolute as
rrrorrlent comes when consciousness now recognizes nature as irs other, and
black - this is cognition recluced to vacuity''I tlrcrcby recognizes their inner unity. The immensely complicated transitions of
its total rejection' The
Hegel's critiqrie of the Enlightenment did not imply tln Phenomenolog\t ultirnately display this structure. The final mornent of 'ab-
denronstrated' not
identity of the Absolute and the world had to be rationally '.olrrte knowing' is the point at which Spirit looks back at the entire preceding
emotion' This rational dem-
simply affirmed or celebrated in vapid effusions of
of the nature of subjec- l,r'()eess and comprehends it as nothing other than its own self-development, the
onstration. further, depends on o piop"r understanding nr()vcnlent which allowed it to attain its present pinnacle fiorn which the struc-
the True' not only as
tivity, for 'everything turns on grasping and expressing Irrrc t>f reality is transparent to reason. Theretbre. '[o]f the Absolute it must be
Sub.stcutc'e. but equat,y u. Subie:ct'. This
claim reflects Hegel's understanding
',:rirl that it is essentially a result, that only in the end is it what it truly is.'34
of moclernity as ,f," pt",r.. of world history where subjectivity comes into its
profoundly, a particular I'lrilosophical knowledge is thus necessarily retrospective: as Hegel lärnously
own (see §2.1 above). But it also involves, more prrt it. 'the owl of Minerva begins its flight only with the onset of dusk'.rs
accouttf of the structure of the subject: Strch is the power and richness of Hegel's thought that many of the best
( onlnrentators or1 his work are strongly tempted to find ways of toning down
or, what is the same' is in
tlre living substance is being which is in trurth sttbiect,
positing itself' or is the rnedia- lrrs rrbsolute idealism. Thus Robert Pippin suggests that Hegel's project involves
truth actual only in so far as it is the movement of
This is. as Subject, pute, 'timple ;r kind of expansion of the Kantian idea of a transcendental subject. Kant's
tion of its selt'-othering with itself. Substance
very the bil'urcation of the simple; it is the lonnal way of considering "what any subject" must think in representing an
tleg(rtivity, and it is for this reason
negation of this inditferent ulrjt'ct'.rt' How, then, does Hegelgo beyond Kant? Terry Pinkard thinks that in
cioubling which sets up opposition. ancl then again the
«liversity and of its antithesis. Only this sef-re's tttring
sameness' or this reflection tlrc l'ltctromenoloct, 'we . . . move away from a picture of ourselves represent-
original or itnmediare unity as such - is the nr.q llrc wrlrld to an unclerstanding of ourselves as pnrticipartts in various his-
in otherness within itself - not an
circle that presr'rpposes its end as
True. It is the process of its own beconting' the Ior it'llly clcterrninatc social practices'.17
also its beginning; and
its goal, having its end also as its goal. having its end
as
Norv il is urrtlouhtcdly true that Hegel seeks to undermine the conception,
onty Uy being worked ollt to its end' is it actual'r3 , h rrrriruutl since l)cscurlcs. ol'tltc suh.iect as an isolated centre of consciousness.

' llrrrl . r\ I1ti. |r .)tr l; 1111. ,,. ; L


, and Sc'helling"s^S.r'^s1t'rrt of Phil<t'sopht
G. W. F. Hegel (lg0 l), The DiJference bchteert Fir-hte's Ilt'rr'1. I'lrtlot,,ltlry ,,1 lii,tilrt.lt .1 \.
(AlbanY, NY. 1977). P. 156' I( l'r;rgrrrr. ll,',lt'rrritrtr ,tt,r I'lttlt,tul,lttr',tl l'rt,ltlt'ttr (( )rlorrl. ltlt)l l. P.
(r./.
'r Hegel, Phenomcnolr,,g'u. §16' p' 9' ['rrr[.;rt,l ll, t', l t l'lt, rr,,trt,.tt, r/1r1'1. I I
I

" Ibid.. §§17-ltt. P. l0'


52 Hegel Hegel 53

In one of the most celebrated sections of the Phenomertology, the so-called cnrichment. The original unity of its starting-point is broken down and differ-
Dialectic of Master and Slave, he analyses the desire for recognition, that is, the cntiated, but this serves only as, ultimately, a confirmation of that starting-point.
desire of each self-consciousness to be acknowledged as an autorlomous sub- At the conclusion of the process, in the negation of the negation, that unity is
ject by another subject: 'Self-consciousness exists in and for itself when, and rcstored, but as a higher, more developed unity, one that has been rendered self-
by the fact that, it so exists fbr another; that is, it exists only in being acknowl- conscious by discovering that it contaitrs determinate contents of which it was
edged.'38 Subjectivity is thus inseparable from inter-subjectivity: the self only unaware at the beginning.
exists as socially situated, as a member of a historically specific community of The form of reasoning that Hegel employs is thus teleological in that it
self-conscious human agents. t'onceives the dialectic as moving towards a predetemrined end (1elos is the
Hegel's conception of Absolute Spirit is, however, more than a socialized ( ireek word for goal). The peculiarity of this end is that it is not a purpose
version of Kant's transcendental subject. Such an interpretation is hard to which a conscious subject (even God conceived as a person distinct fiom his
square with statements such as Hegel's affirmati«rn that the content of Logic t'r'cittion) has selected and arranged things so that it can be achieved. The goal
'shows Jbrth God as he is in his eternal essence. before the creation of Na.ture ol'the dialectic is an objective purpose, implicit in the process fiom the begin-
and of a Finite Spirit'.3e Logic for Hegel is thr"rs also ontology. revealing the trirtg. The dialectical process itself is nothing but the attainment of that goal,
structures of the world, and indeed theology, since those structures are of Abso- which consists in Absolute Spirit's coming to self-consciousness, which takes
lute Spirit coming to self-consciousness. These apparently extravagant claims tlrc lbrm of 'absolute knowing' , of the retrospective survey of the entire proc-
cannot be separated from Hegel's critique of Kant. Hegel unremittingly con- ('ss as the way in which that mornent of rational self--transparency has been
demns the critical philosophy tbr its fbrmalism, its conception of the categories rrclricved.
of the understanding as subjective forms imposed on and external to the content 'l'he teleological character of Hegel's thought is most clearly evident in his
provided fbr them by sense-experience. This separation of form and content plrilosophy of history. 'World history is the progress of the consciousness of
leaves the conception of an objectivity independent of the human understand- Itccclot.t-t', he claims, a process which culminates in the ntodern European
ing as unknowable things-in-themselves, 'the coput tnortuut'n., the dead abstrac- rr;rlion-state. Intbrming this progress is a deeper meaning: 'World history is the
tion of the "other", the empty undetermined Beyond'.4o But: 'it appears that, on r'\l)r'cssion of the divine and absolute process of the spirit in its highest forms,
the contrary. Content has itself Forrn, indeed it is only through Form that it has ol llrc progression whereby it discovers its own nature and becomes conscious
Soul and subsistence, and that it is Form itself which changes only into the show .l ilscrlf.' The succession of political fonns which reaches its climax in moder-
of a Content. and also into the show of a something external to this show'.ar rrl.y Ittust thus be understood as specific contributions to the self-realization of
Thus Hegel overcomes the tbrn-ralism of Kant's philosophy not sirnply by \lrsolute Spirit. Indeed, the conflicts of nren moved by particular interests and
seeking to demonstrate the unity of form and content, but by advancing a concep- p;rssions are merely the instruments of 'the universal Idea', which 'keeps itself
tion of philosophical method in which form generates its own content: 'it is Form rrr lltc background, untouched and unharmed, and sends forth the particular
itself which changes only into the show of a Content, and also into the show of a nrlr'r'csts to fight and wear themselves out in its stead. It is what we may call
something external to this show'. This show is the rlovement of the dialectic, in tl,l. t'rtrrtting oJ' reason that it sets the passions to work in its service, so that
which Spirit cornes to self-consciousness by positing a world alier-r from it and tlrt' ;rgcrtts by which it gives itself existence rnust pay the penalty and suffer the
then coming to recognize that world as itself. Thus the negation of the negation loss.' ll
rn which the dialectic conclndes is 'the innermost and most objective moment of 'l'lris is as much a providential view of history as that developed by Christian
Lif'e and Spirit, by virtue of which a subject is personal and free'.I tlritrlicrs such as Augustine zrnd Bossuet (see §3.3 below). Self-interested hu-
Further, this dialectic of (absolute) subjectivity has a circular structure. Hegel rrr;rtt rclions serve a hidden purpose of which those perfcrrming them are quite
says that Logic is 'a circle which returns upon itself-, for mediation bends back unirw:u.c. 'l'hc cliffbrence between Hegel's version and the orthodox Christian
its end into its beginning'.*3 The dialectical movement is a process of self- (,n('is tltlt irt lris philosophy of history the purpose human actors unknowingly
'.('r \'(' is nol llrr: plan firrrnulated fbr mankind by a personal God; rather, it is
1r Hegel, Pltenorttenolog.l, 178, p. I I I
§
re Hegel, Science of Logic',I, p. 60.
.
rrrrplit'il irr tltc strttcturc olthc historical process itself-, and comes to conscious-
't0 Hegel, Hi.stctrl' o.l' Philosopht'.lll. p. 472. trt"'s in tltc trotlct't't agc. as philosophy finally grasps the meaning of'this
'r Hegel, Scien<'e of' Logit:. l. p. 47. lrl( r( ('\\.
1r tbid., II, p. 478.
.rr tbid.. II. p. 48.1. " llr'1,r'l. I'lrrltttr,l,lrr'1,1 ll,,rl,l llrtt,,rt lrrltt,,lrrr 1j1'r1.1t1t \'1. (r\. lit).
54 Hegel Hegel
55
historical' since it shows one fbrm of consciousness is replaced by another
2.3 The debate over modernity because of tensions internal to the lirst form. This is
a much weaker rneaning of
'dialectical' than what Hegel himself would have acceptecl.
Hegel's philosophy is the most powerful single attempt to dcnronstrate that since it does not
entail that the conclusion of the process consists in the definitive
modernity contains within itself the intellectual resources rationally to justify rational under-
standing of that process.
its break with the past. [n doing so it seeks also to show, according to the same lt is not clear how diff-erent this reading of the Phenomenologt, is frorn
standards of rational justitrcation, that the modern state is in principle capable that
ofTered by the postmodernist philosopher Richard Rorry.
of providing the kind of political community that can hold together the conflicts
who writes: .What
Hegel describes as the process of spirit gradually beconring self-conscious
characteristic of commercial societies. The result is one of the great philosophi- of
its intrinsic nature is better described as the pro."r, of
European linguistic prac-
cal enterprises of Western thought. tices changing at a f-aster ancl faster pace.'ol The self-realiiation
Yet, as Habermas points out, 'as absolute knowledge, reason assumes a form oI Spirit then
becolnes a succession of what Rorty calls 'redescriptions'.
none of which can
so overwhelming that it not only solves the initial problem of a self'-reassurance be shown to be ratitlnally superior (in the sense of of1'ering
us a better insight
of modernity, but solves it too well' .as For example, if by the time of the French into the nature of reality) to any other. Such an interpretation
Revolution we have reached the stage where it is philosophically possible to of Hegel sacrifices
his ernbarrassingly ambitious conception of the dialectic,
comprehend the n-reaning of the historical process, what happens now? Many but at o nigf, price:
modernity's claint to be able to demonstrate its superiority over
commentators believe that Hegel regarded his own age as marking the End of the polr..ur",
to be rationally clef'ensible.
History: once the conditions for 'absolute knowing' were established, every- Habermas suggests that, clespite these tlifficulties, 'Hegel inaugurated
thing subsequeut could only be an afterthought. The evidence that Hegel seri- the
discourse tlf m<ldernity. He introducecl the theme * the self--critical
ously entertained the idea of an End of History is at best anrbiguous, but the reassurance
of ntodernity.' He thereby set the terms fbr subsequent debate, in
problern posed by the concept is at least arguably a consequence of his overall which .ltlhe
relation t>f history ttl reasott rem:lins,constitutive'. The
basic positions towards
conception of the dialectic. modernity were staked out during the clebates among German philosophers
A more fundamental difficulty is posed by Hegel's absolute idealisn"r. As we which
followecl Hegel's death in ltt3l, in particularr as ii result
saw in §2.2 above, he conceives the dialectic as a self-justifying process whose
olthe attlrnpt of the
Young (or Lefi) Hegelians to clissociate his concept of dialectical
conclr:sion is implicit in its starting-point, and whose course involves thought reason fiom
the Absolute. and ttl tritnslirt'nr it into an instrument for
generating its own content fiom itself. Stated so baldly. this is an almost mega-
criticizing the existing
political order (see also §4.I below). In these debates, three
lomaniac hyper-rationalism, in which thought by virtue of its rational structure basic stances
towards rnodentity were taken:
produces the world. Many later thinkers have been influenced by Hegel, but
they have usually tried to water dclwn his absolute idealisrrl, or, as in the case of Le.fi Hegelirrrr critique. tttrnr'cl towurd the practical ancl
anlusetl firr revoluti.n,
his greatest tbllower, Milrx. explicitly re.iected it. airlted at nlobilizirlg the historically accunrulafcd potential
ol'reusgn (awaiting
One might pose the problem in the fbrnr of a dilernrna. We can. on the one releitsc) agaittst its rtttrtilation. ugailrst lhe one-siclc'd ratiorurlization
of the bour-
hand, take what Hegel actually says seriously. In this case, we lrave a philo- gerri's world. The Äi3lrr Ht'gcliutt.; followed Hegel
in the crlvicti.n that the sub-
sophical systenr which, if valid, does succeed in demonstrating the rationality stance tll'stitte arld rcligiott would corlrpensate lirr the
restlessness of bourge,is
of modernity and. as a consequence, in identilying the solution to its social and society, as s(x)n as the sub.iectivity of the revolutionary
consciolsness that incitecl
political problerns. But who would seriously def-end the claim that the Hegelian restlessness yiclclecl to objective insight into the ratirinality
sf the stltLrs quo . . .
Finally. Nict:'r<'he wttttted to unrnask the dranraturgy «rf the
system is valid'? We can, on the other hand, try and preserve whatever we re- entire ,tage-piece in
which both - revoltttionitry hope and the reuction to it * enter
gard as what Marx called the 'rationalkernel within tlre mysticalshell' of Hegel's on the scene. He
removed the dialectical thorn ti'orn the c:ritique of a reason
philosophy by trying to play down his speculative hyper-rationalism.r'- centred on the subject
and shrivelled into purposive rationality; antl he relatecl
Pinkard, tbr example. writes: 'The Phertomen<tlog1, off'ers a dialectical- to reason as a whole the
way the Young Hegelians dicl to its sublimations: Reascln
is tttthing e1.se than
historical narrative of hclw the European community has come to take what it power, than the will to power, which it so racliantry concears.r,)
does as authoritative and definitive for itself.'r'This narrative is'dialectical-

'15 Haberntas, Phiktsolthicul Di.tcourse, p. 42.


16 Marx, C«pitctl (3 vols, Harrnondsworth, 1976-81), I, p. 103. I' Ilorty. (-otttingenr..t', lrouy, trntl S<tlidttriö, (Cambridge,
I9g9), p. 7.
1t' Pinkard. Hegel's Phenomutoloer,, p. I3. '" [J:rlrcrrrrits, Pltilrt,topltit.ttl Di.tt.ttttlir(,,
[)l). -50. 392 n. 4.
56 Hegel

This description of the three basic positions taken up lowrrnls rrrodernity af-
ter Hegel provides a useful framework for considering thc srrbsctltrcnt develop-
ment of social theory, provided we are willing to interprct tlrc positions a bit
more broadly than Habermas does. The first stance towarrls rrrotlo'lrity is repre-
sented above all by Marx, the greatest of the Young Hcgclirrns. He rejected
Hegel's absolute idealism, but kept his concept of history as a rlialcctical proc-
ess motored by the contradictions inherent in specific social lonnations. Civil Liberals and Reaction anes
society, or rather bourgeois society (the sarne phrase, bürgarlicltc Gesellschaft,
covers both concepts in German), is not the End of History, br-rt sirnply a his-
torically transitory social fbrm whose claims to realize individual fieedom are
belied by its roots in capitalist exploitation. The Enlightenment aspiration to
create an authentically rational society requires a further social revolution.
The second position is best seen as ernbracing all those who accept modern
bourgeois society as it takes shape in the wake of Hobsbawm's 'dual revolu-
tl
tion' as the closest we can hope to get to a rationally ordered social world. 3.1 Post-Revotutionarydebates
Il Modern liberalism is a prime exemplar of this kind of stance, though its most
sophisticated exponents, such as Tocqueville and Mill, show a complex aware- Fritnce after the fall of Napoleon, uncler first the restored
Bourbon monarchy ( lg l5-
ness of the tensions and dangers of modernity (see §3.2 below). The same aware- 30) and then the orleani.st regirne of Louis Philippe (1g30--4g),
.*p..i.nced a
ness is also displayed by Durkheim and Weber, who both make clear their period of extraordinarily rich and wide-ranging
inteliectualancl culturalclebate.In
emphatic belief that the hope of a social revolution that will radically improve part, this was a consequellcc of the firct that. as
Johan Heilbrcln puts it, ,around the
on actually existing modernity is the merest illusion. Later sociologists operate year ltl00' Paris was the centre of the scientific
wrlrlcl'., A series of refbrms made
within the same fiamework, thclugh sometimes (as in the work of Parsons: see during the last ycars ol-the: utrcietr r(ginte ancl under the
Revolution ancl the Napo-
§ 10.2 below), the kind of critical charge that is found, say, in Tocqueville or in leonic Elnpire transftlrlnecl the status «lf'scientific teaching
ancl research in France.
Weber is defused. Thus French researchers rnacle a clcrcisivc contribution
to the frtrrnation of the new
Finally, Nietzsche stakes out a third position - the radical rejection of mo- science of hiology at the beginning of the nineteenth
century.
dernity (see §5.3 below). His attack overlaps with that of the reactionary oppo- At the sal.lle tinle' h«lwever, thal the physical sciences acquired
a new sali-
nents of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution discussed below in chapter ence in French culture, they carne uncler clirect challenge.
Romantic writers
3, but goes much further. In particular, he develops a root-and-branch critique sttch its Chateauhriand attackccl the prirnacy o1'scientifi.
,.u.on, championing
of the kind of scientific rationality which the philosophes took to be the source instead tlrc e ttltlti«rtls and intuition. Thc phiklsophers
of the Enlightennrent hacl
of the modern age's legitirnacy. All firrnrs of reason, he argues, are simply attachcd great irrlptlrtance ttl the senses ancl tlre pa.ssions,
but thc'y had n.t usu-
particular expressions of the will to power that is the firndarnental tendency in ally cotlnterptlsed thctn ttl reason. ln cl«ling so, Rt»nantici.srn
tencled also to treat
both the physical and the social worlds. Nietzsche's critique of Western reason art and liter:tttlre a.s it privileged sourcc of experiences
cleniecl to a merely
is a f undamental point of ref-erence both firr Weber and firr Heidegger (see §9.2 scientific Llttderstanding. The skrgan l'urr
ltot.rr l'urt _ art firr art's sake - was
below); his influence is evident also in conternporary theorists associated with probably coined by Bcnjantin Constant in lti04.2
In the hancls of Baudelaire
postmodernisrn, most notably Foucault (see § I 1.3 below). and Flaubert irt the lti40s ancl ltl-50s the iclea becarxe
a systernatic icleol.gy of
In a sense, Habermas suggests, 'we remain contemporaries of the Young Aestheticisln which treated art as a clistinct practice
cletachecl fr.om the social
Hegelians'.50 Yet if the firndamental positions towards modernity were staked world and liberated lioln any attempt to require writers
and painters to respect
out between the 1830s and the ltJ80s, they have been greatly enriched, and prevailing religitlus ancl political belief,s or to procluce
work that was socially
sometimes clarified, by the subsequent development of social theory. Or so I usef'ul or even, by conventionar stanclards, beautiful.
hope to show in the rest of this book. The resulting debates concerned more than merely
aesthetic or philosophical
issues' At stake was the historical ancl political
meaning of the French Revolution.
I J. Heilbron,The Rise oJ'SocialTheorl, (Cambriclge,
so Ibid., p. -53. I lbirl.. p. l-57.
1995).p.132.
5B Liberals and Reactionaries Liberals and Reactionaries 59

Chateaubriand and some other early French Romantics werc lrristocnrts who had largely destructive event ('Saint-Simon's great teacher was M. de Maistre',
been driven into exile by the Revolution. Their critique of scicntilic rationality Flaubert declareds), and of the unjustified class privileges which had survived
was associated with a nostalgia tbr what the arch-survivor Tlllcyrrrnrl called the it. Saint-Simon saw society divided between industriels - those who produced
douceur de vivre - the sweetness of life - under the old regimc. ( )l'tcrr this attitude society's wealth, including not merely workers and other producers but also a
took the form of a straightfbrward political rejection of the Rcvolrrlion, rnost rig- growing number of scientists and other experts - and oistf.s - the iclle parasites
orously expressed in Maistre's claim that '[t]here is a satanic qLrality to the French who lived ofT them. Fourier denounced the competitive egoism encouraged by
Revolution that distinguishes it from everything that we have, cvel scen or any- existing 'Civilization'; he advocated the fbrmation of co-operative communi-
thing that we are likely to see.'r After 1820 the royalist'ultras'who d«rminated ties (or phalun,störe,r) whose example would graclually lead humankind into the
French ministries seemed determined to turn back the clock to bclirrc 1789. new social condition of 'Harntony'.
The Revolution did not, however, come under attack rnerely tiorn the right. The intellectual climate of post-Revolutionary France was furthermore one
The years after l8l5 made the impact of the 'dual revolution' increasingly clear. in which the upheavals of the previous generation hacl inculcated a vivid sense
Following Britain's exaunple, other parts of north-western Eur<lpe, notably in of both the contplexity of social structures arrcl the transfbrmations they hacl
France and what in 1830 became Belgium, were being transformed by the spread recently undergone. This sense was expressed with extraorclinary s«-rciolclgical
of factories capable of mass-producing cr>mnrodities. It became increasingly in.sight in the novels of Balzac, one of whose nrain thenres is the subversion of
clear that a new fbrm of social polarization, between the wage-labourers work- aristocratic values and traditions by the unrestrained pursuit of self'-interest,
ing in these f.actories and their erlployers. had emerged. By the end of the 1830s typically in the firrnr of money-making. In seeking to construct a 'physiology,
Chartism, the first mass political movement based on the new industrial work- of the human types specific to the new commercial order, Balzac portrays sgci-
ing class, was spreading through Britain's mernufacturing areas and threatening ety as a distinctive kind of objectivity. As one of his characters cleclares: 'Yes.
the stability of ELrrope's leading power. Society is another kind of Nature!'(,
As early as l8l3 these developments lecl Francis Jeffrey, editor of the great Liberalisnl as a distinctive political current crystallizecl in Restoration Frzrnce
Whig journal the Edittburgh Reviclr,. to question the optimistic view of the against the background of the assault on the heritage of' 1789 fiom both right
development of commercial society otfered hy Adam Smith and his followers: and lett. Its representatives, who came fiom a mainly Protestant background,
sought ttl dissociatc tlre Revolution flom the Jacobin Terror. Thus Constant, as
The effbct then which is produced on the lower rlrclers of society, by that increase we have seen (§ I .5 above), distinguished the 'ntr)dern liberty' of the incliviclual
of industry and retinement, and that nrultiplication o1'conveniences which are
froln the classical republican conception of collective Iiberty clef'encled by
commonly looked Llpon as the surest tests of increasing prcsperity, is to convert
Rousseau and R«rbcspierre. The liberals del'endecl as the authentic legacy of the
the peasants into rnanutircturers, and the manutircturcrs into paupers; while thc
chanccs of thcir ever enrerging fiorn this condition becolt-rc constantly Iess, the
Revolution thc individual l}eedonrs and thc parliarnentary institutions which
nrore complete and Inatlrre thc system is which originally produced it.a they regarded as the distinctive strengths of thc British systern of government
and which hacl been grudgingly ancl partially concecled by the restorecl Bourbon
The development of industrial capitalisrn ol't'ercd a diff'erent angle on the rnonarchy in the Constitutional Charter of I tt 14.
question of the French Revolution's political legacy. The slogans of 1789 werc The threat ptlscd to liberal constitutionalisnr by the 'ultra' ministries ol'the
liberty, equality, and fl'aternity. But while the Revolution had swept away thc I tl20s prtlv«lked what Larry Siedentop calls the 'Creat Debate', in which a group

old f'eudal privileges and hierarchies, and institutionalized legal equality, pro- of liberal intellectuals known as the ekx'trinuire,r sought to respond to their
found class divisions renrainecl, and were indeecl beirrg widened thanks to the reactionary opponents. Sieclentop writes: 'Liberal.s hacl to clemonstrate that what
Industrial Revolution. The first socialist thinkers - ntost notably Charles Fourier the ultras proposed was not only unjust but irnpossible that even if ultras
-
and tlre Comte de Saint-Simon - emerged in France under the Erlpire and the could temporarily contmand politicalpower, long-standing social and economic
Restoration. They were liercely critical of the Revcllution, which they saw as zr changes in France ntade their aristocratic progrilmme of hardly more than anti-
quarian interest.'7
I J. de Maistre (1197), Cottsiderutiou.s'on Fr«nt'e (Cambriclge, 1994), p.41. Joseph, comte de The required historical analysis of long-term socio-economic processes was
Maistre ( I 753- 182 I ): of Savoyard background, though his writings had their main impact in France;
servecl the Hor.rse of Savoy as a diplornat, notably as anrbassador to St Petersburg, 1803 l7; his
most celebrated work is The Suint-Petersburg Dirtlogues ( l82l ). s Quoted in P. Bourdieu,,The Rules of Art (Cambridge, 1996), p. gl.
a Quoted in D. Winch, 'The System of the North', in S. Collini et al., That Noble Scianca o.f "? H. de Balzac, A Harlot High ctnd Low (Harmonclsworth. 1970), p. 152.
Politic.r (Cambridge, 1983). p. 55. L. Siedentop, Tocquet'ille (Oxfr»-d. l9g4). ch. 2 (quotulir>rr ll.r>rn
1.».22).
iil
Liberals and Reactionaries Liberals and Reactionaries 61
60

provided by one of the leading doctrinaires, Guizot, in a se t'it's


ol t'clcbl'ated lec- for Guizot the most distinctive feature of European civilization, its pluralism -
by thc 'sPiritrrllist' critique 'verried, confused, stormy; all forms, all principles of social organization co-
iures betw een lg2l and 1830.s Guizot was influenced
exist therein; powers spiritual and temporal; elements theocratic, monarchic,
of eighteenth-century empiricism developed by phil«rsgplrct's sttclt as Maine
de
ottly lhlln the ef- aristocratic. democratic: all orders, all social anangements mingle and press
Biran and Victor Cousin, who argued that knowleclge cal))c ttol
on senses such as sight and touclt, bttl ltlso li'tlm man's upon one another. There are infinite degrees of liberty, wealth, and influence.'rl
fect of external bodies
'internal sense', which provided thought with content, notrll)ly hy way tlf
intro- This confused diversity, reflecting the inability of any one class to conquer
cltatrgc. 'social' all the others, is the source of Europe's dynanrisrn and creative energy. The
spection. He theretbre identified two mechanisms of historicill
The lirst involves 'the extensit>tl, tltc grcatcst activity, peculiar virtue of representative government, Guizot believes, is that, as
and 'moral' developtnent.
hand. att ittcrclsing produc- demonstrated by British political experience, it permits the articulation and rec-
the best organization of the social relations: on the one
tion of the means of giving strength and happiness to society; ,tl thc
6ther a more onciliation of diverse and conflicting interests.
hallpirlcss prt>duced'' Guizot's History of Civiliz.tttfutn in Europe is an exalnple of what one of the
equitable distribution, u,rong individuals, of the strength and
internal last representatives of the Scottish Enlightenrnent, Dugald Stewart, called 'theo-
The second, by contrast, consists in 'the clevelopment of the individtral,
retical history'. Like the Scottish philosolthes and Hegel befbre him, Guizot was
development of man himself, of his täculties, his sentiments' his
ideas''e
lif-e. the
'external' able to integrate theoretical enquiry and histclrical narrative into a single coherent
Having thus distinguished between changes in the 'internal' and
latter, on 'the discourse. But nineteenth-century intellectuals found this synthesis increasingly
condition of man. Guizot proceeds in täct to concentrate on the
of the hard to sustain. Another debate of the 1820s, this time among British advocates
history of external events, of the visible and social world'. The centrepiece
is a description of of parliamentary refirrm, illustrates this dilficulty. This pitted Whigs against Radi-
detailed analyses he ofl'ers of social institutions and processes
to win local cals. The Whigs det'ended the existing British constitution as a system of 'mixed
the struggle through which the burghers, or town-dwellers, began
'The formation government', judicir-lusly c<lmbining the three classical pcllitical fbrrns of monar-
politicaitiberties fiorr the feuclal lords in twelfth-century France.
chy. aristocracy, and dernocracy; they fitvoured an extension of the vote. but only
tf u g1..o, social class, the bourgeoisie, was the necessary result of local en-
t[-re
produces of the most lirnited kind (as was actually implemented by the Great Reform Act
fianchisemelt of the burghers.' The rise o1'the bourgeoisie in turn
of ltt32). The Raclicals advocated a rnuch more thoroughgoing assault on 'Old
the contest of the classes, a contest which c«tnstitutcs the
fäct itself, and which Corruption', the whole systern of patronage which fuelled the Hanclverian state.
fills modern history. Motlern Europe was born frotn thc struggle of the various In I tt I 7 Benthaln and his firllowers rallied to the Raclical programme of universal
led ttl very difl'erent results: in
classes of society. Elsewhere . . . this struggle male sufkage, annual parliarnerrts, itnd the secret ballot.
completely tritrrnphecl, and the government of castes
Asia, fbr e^artrpl.. tlne class Jarnes Mill's Ä-,rsc.\, on Governnt(nt ( ltt20) sought tt>.iustity this programme.
to thlt of classes, ancl society sank into inrrnobility. Thank God, none
succeedecl
conquer or Its premisses were provided by two of the leadin-t doctrines of Bentham's utili-
of this has happenerl in Europe. None ol the classes has been able to tarianism, narnely that 'the l«rt of every hurnan being is determined by his pains
subdue the others; the struggle. insteacl of being a principle of imrnobility' has
principal clitsses ltmong themselves' ancl his pleasures'. and that 'the c«rncern of Governtnent . . . is to increase to the
been a citLtse o1'prqgress: the relations of the
and yielding by uttn()st the pleasures, ernd dirninish to the utmost the pains, which men derive
the necessity underl which they tbuncl thenrselves ol' cotllbating
to conqucr witl-rout the fl'orn one another'. Mill agrees with Hobbes that the fäct that hurnans are guided
tut.ns, the variety of their interests and passions, the desirc
power to satisfy it; from all this has arisen perhaps the most energetic and f'ertile by their individual interest in their own pleasures itnd pains makes government
principle of the development of European civilization.r" necessary. But the same tact also implies that any firrrn of government which
vests power in any group nerrrower than the pcoplc themselves, as both monar-
Marx in
This class struggle (depicted in ternts which seenl to have influenced chy and aristocracy do. will lead to the exploitation by the rulers of the ruled.
tbr what is
the opening lines of the communist Mttni.feslrr) is thus responsible Mill dismisses the Whig doctrine of the rnixed constitution and the connected
idea (def-ended also by Guizot) of parliamentary government as the representa-
8 1787-1874): born in Nirnes. grandson of a Protestant pas- tion of interests as liable to produce nrerely 'a motley Aristocracy'. Only demo-
Franqois-pierre-Guillaunre Guizot (
l8l2-30; cratic government, based upon the regularelection of representatives by universal
tor:hisfhtherguillotineclinApril 17941 Prot'essorof MoclernHistoryatthesorbottne,
of olficial p,.',rrr, l8l4-20:the lea<Jing politician of the Orleanist mtlnarchy afierthe male suffrage, could secure the greatest happiness of the greatest number.12
heltj a series
brought clown by the
lg30 RevolLrtion; Minister of Education, 1832-7, Prinre Minister 1840-8;
writirrg.
1848 Revolution; clevotecl his lengthy retirement to historical rr
, F.-P.-G. Guiz.t ( 1828), Histort'o.l'Cit'itiztttiort in Europe
(Lonilott' 1997)' pp' l6-18'
lr
Ihid., pp. 29-30.
ro .1. l-ivcly trrttl .1. l(tcs. c<ls. lltilitrtritrtr ltt,qit'tttrtl l'ttlilit's (Orlirnl. l()7ti). pp..55 6. li(r.
Ibid., pp.23,129, 130.
62 Liberals and Beactionaries

'l'his deductive proof of the necessity of democracy was subjected to the


Liberals and Reactionaries
organic growth embodied in tradition and established practice: to attempt to
63 !

*T
i,t
j.l

il
tamper with this complex and delicate f-abric on the basis of a preconceived {*
rnosl devastating attack by Macaulay in a series of sparkling essays in the Edin- T

ltur,qlt Review, which also effortlessly parried counter-thrusts made by the Philo- l)rogramme of radical refbrm, as the French Revolution did from the very be- Id
I

sophical Radicals.ri Macaulay makes much of Mill's inconsistencies - fbr ginning, was to invite disaster. Savigny, the founder of the German Historical 1
r:xample, his opposition to female suffiage - while at the same time making School of Law, took this thought further when he opposed refbrmers' attempts,
i
clcar the reason why Whigs like him objected to the political conclusions drawn starting with the post-Revolutionary Code Napoldon, to founcl the entire legal I

llrrm the premisses of the Ersa.y on Government: 'How is it possible for any system anew. Denouncing the Enlightenment's 'blind rage for improvement',
person who holds the doctrines of Mr Mill to doubt that the rich in a democracy itnd announcin-e the emergence of a new 'historical spirit', Savigny argues that i
i

such as that he recommends. would be pillaged as unmercifully as under a Turk- 'lhe indissoluble organic connection of generations and ages' means there can i:

he no escaping the influence of legal tradition. This, however, 'will be injurious

r
ish Pacha?' But Macaulay's objection to Mill's political theory is methodologi-
cal as well as political. He denounces his opponent's attempt, which he compares lo us so long as we ignorantly submit to it; but beneficial if we oppose to it
to the rnethods of the medieval schoolmen, to arrive at political generalizations rr vivid creative energy - obtain the mastery of it by a thorough grounding
by means of deductions fiom a few abstract truths. To this he counterposes, as irt history, and thus appropriate to ourselves the whole intellectual wealth of
the basis of 'that noble Science of Politics', 'the method of Induction', which llreceding generations' .
8 I

generalizes from carefully established facts. ra Thus for Savigny the study of history does not serve to trace modern soci-
The contrast between Mill's method, abstract and deductive, and Macaulay's, cty's progress by comparison with its predecessors: rather, it is a way of appro-
historical and inductive, is all the more striking since the fbrmer's great Historv priating the accumulated wisdom of a particular nation expressed in its law,
rf British India is, as John Burrow puts it, 'not only the last, it is also the most which, bearing 'an organic connection . . . with the being and character of the
elaborate and detailed example of Scottish conjectural history'.rs The Scottish Pcople', evolves according to an 'inward necessity'.'' This privilegin,e of tradi-
Enli-shtenment had combined a general conception of hunran nature with a theory tion dovetailed with the Romantics'nostalgia for the past. The nineteenth-
of history in which society passed through a succession of 'modes of subsist- ('r:ntury cult of the Middte Ages, increasingly seen not, as the Enlightenment
ence' (see§ I .4 above). Mill managed to hold the two together in his History by tcrrded to, as a benighted age of barbarism and superstition, but as a harmoni-
declaring: 'Exactly in proportion as Utilin is the object of every pursuit may ottslY integrated society in which every individual was allocated a meaningful
we regard a nation as civilized.'r6In other words, societies were to be identified role, must be seen against this background.
as more or less progressive historically to the extent that they realized Bentham's lndeed, treating the past as a source of values and models to be used in as-
greatest happiness principle: pre-colonial India, according to Mill, turned out scssing the present could serve as the basis of a critique of industrial capiterlism.
very badly when measured by this bench-mark, thus justifying British rule. But !.ukacs coined the phrase 'Romantic anti-capitalism' to refer to this tendency
the tension between abstract social science and concrete historical enquiry ol'tnodern Western thought. Michael Löwy and Robert Sayre define 'Romantic
became increasingly hard to manage. ;rrrli-capitalism' as 'op1tositiort to capitolisnt in the fiatne of pre-capitolist val-
In part this was because history was now becoming identified with the cri- rrr',r'. This is a protean ideological current, which could take 'restitutionist' or
tique of the Enlightenment and the Revolution. Burke was among the very first t'otlservative forms, seeking respectively to restore sorne version of feudal so-
to make this move.rT In his Reflections on the Revolution in France (1190),he cicty or to preserve the status quo, but which could also articulate revolutionary
portrayed social and political institutions as the product of slow. unconscious, ttttpulses by using some ancient model as the inspiration for creatin-q a more
t'girlitarian society, as in the case of the more radical of the English Romantics
rr ThomasBabingtonMacaulay(1800-59):WhigMernberof Parliament, 1830-,1, 1839-47, 1852- tllyron and Shelley) and of Fourier's Utopian socialism.20 In any of its forms,
7; mernber of the Supreme Council of India 1834-8: also held junior ministerial posts; given a
barony in 1857; a supremely accomplished essayist. but chiefly retnembered fbr his History of
Englund Jrom the Accession of Jutnes the Secorul ( I 848-61 t. '' Ii. K. von Savigny (1814). Of the Voctttiott ofOurAge.ftir Legislarion untl Jurisprudence (New
Ia I-ively and Rees, eds, Utilitarian Logic cmd Politics, pp. 120, 128. York. f 975), pp. 20,22,132-3. Friedrich Karl von Savigny (1719-1861): born in Frankfurt am
15 J. W. Burrow, Et,oLüiott and Society (Cambridge, 1966), p. 4tt. l\l;rirr: stuclied at Marburg. Jena, Leipzig. and Halle universities; appointed Professor of Roman
16 J. Mill. The Historl of Briti,sh lrdio.ed. W. Thomas (Chicago. 1975),p.224. I ;tw ;rt tlrc ttcw University of Berlin, l8l0; Gror.skttn:.ler, i.e. head of the Prussian juriclical system,
r7 Ednrund Burke ( 1729-97): Irish politician and writen author of Philosophical Encluirv into thc lri l.) l{.
Origirt ot''Our ld«s of the Sublitne and thc B<,uutiful {1157); mernber of the British Parlilrtrcrrl. ''' llrrtl , p. 27.
ll66 t)4:lrcriticol'BritishnrisruleinArnerica, India,andlreland.ancl aclcl'cntlcrofthe«rlcl lcgirrre lvl. l.iiwy lrrrrl l(. s:ryrt'. 'liilrrrt.s ol llorrrirrrlic Anti ('lrpitlrlisrrr', iVr,rr, (i<,t.rtrtttr Crititltrc,32
irr Irtrropr'. t l'),\i ll. l)(1.\\utt (rlttol;rltorr lrotrr P lar)

J
64 Liberals and Reactionaries Liberals and Reactionaries 65

Romantic anti-capitalism challenged modernity's claim to be self-legitimating, consequence of the pursuit of wealth. It makes abstraction of every other human
and judged it wanting by the measure of an idealized past. passion or motive; except those which may be regarded as perpetually antagoniz-
The polarization between history and theory was also encouraged by ten- ing principles to the desire of wealth, namely, aversion to labour, and desire of
the present enjoyment of costly indulgences.23
dencies towards the professionalization of academic life. The early nineteenth
century saw the emergence of modern historiography as an empirical disci-
Before Marx, Comte was the major figure who sought to resist this process
pline based in the universities. The injunction of one of its founders, Leopold
ol'scientific fragmentation and to seek to preserve social theory and historical
von Ranke, to show the past 'wie es eigenlich gewesen' - as it actually hap-
pened - was an attempt to liberate historical enquiry fiom its classical role of
t'nquiry as an integrated intellectual project.2a His basic framework was pro-
vided by a philosophy of history recognizably derived from that of Turgot and
providing practical guidance and to distance it frorn philosophies of history
('ondorcet. Comte claimed to have discovered 'a great fundamental law, to
such as Hegel's. In fact, the new historiography was never as theoretically
which the mind is subjected to by an invariable necessity', namely that 'every
innocent as it claimed - Ranke, for example, conceived modern Europe as an
lrranch of knowledge passes in succession through three different theoretical
organic unity of competing nations each endowed with its own unique char-
slates: the theological or fictitious state, the metaphysical or abstract state, and
acter whose conflicts were regulated by the mechanism ofthe balance of power,
and the rest of the world as barbarous or decadent. Nevertheless, the insist-
lho scientific or positive state'. In the theological stage, phenomena are ex-
plained by imagining fictitious beings - gods and the like; the metaphysical
ence in particular that professional historians should base their studies on ar-
:ilage replaces these with more abstract but still imaginary entities such as
chival research helped make the old Scottish style of 'conjectural history'
('ssences and causes.
seem obsolete.
Economics also evolved into a professional academic discipline, especially
Finally, in the positive state, the human mind, recognizing the impossibility of
after the 'marginalist revolution' of the 1870s, which finally disposed of the
obtaining absolute truth, gives up the search after the origin and hidden causes of
remnants of Ricardo's labour theory of value. Smith had conceived political
the universe and a knowledge of the linal causes of phenomena. It endeavours
economy in broad terms, as 'a branch of the science of a statesman or legisla- now only to discover, by a well-combined use of reasoning and observation, the
tor' .2r The Wealth of Natiorzs contains as much history as it does abstract analy- actual laws of phenomena - that is to say, their invariable relations of succession
sis. But, by the late nineteenth century, the dominant definition of the subject, and likeness.2s
especially as given by British and Austrian economists, conceived economics
as a formal and deductive science based on certain abstract propositions about Comte is thus the founder of positivism, broadly understood as the idea that
human nature (arrived at, in fact, with the help of Bentham's utilitarianism). tlrc modern sciences constitute the only valid form of human knowledge. More
This move, which was strongly contested by the German school of historical irrterestingly, as Heilbron points out, he was 'the first to develop a historical
economists, who preferred a much more inductive and descriptive approach, md dffirential theory of science'.26 Comte conceives his 'positive philosophy'
had already been justified by James's son John Stuart Mill in his 1836 essay rs 'the observation of the rational methods that actually direct our various
'On the Definition of Political Economy'. 22 scientific researches'. He therefore proceeds to a detailed classification of the
Here he calls economics 'an abstracl science' and compares it to geometry: sciences, whose development he conceives as a process of progressive differen-
tl(ion. The sciences constitute a definite order - what he calls an 'encyclo-
What is commonly understood by the term 'Political Economy' is not the science pacdic series' - starting with the most abstract and complex, and proceeding
of speculative politics, but a branch of that science. It does not treat of the whole
of man's nature as modified by the social state, nor of the whole conduct of man
'' 'l-he Collected Works of Jolm Stuart Mill,lY (London, 1967), pp. 325,323.
in society. It is concerned with him solely as a being who desires to possess wealth, I
'
Auguste Comte ( 1798- 1857): expelled fiom the Ecole Polytechnique in I 8 l6 fbr political ac-
and who is capable of judging the comparative efficacy of the means for obtain-
trvity, worked as Saint-Simon's secretary befbre seeking to formulate his own theoretical system;
ing it. It predicts only such of the phenomena of the social state as takes place in
tlrc (-ourse of Positive Philosophlt ( 1830-42) (in which he coined the term 'sociology') originated
rrs lcctures delivered to an audience which included many of the leading French scientists of the
rr Quoted in D. Winch, 'Higher Maxims', in Collini et al., Noble Science, p. 65. r lrry: str
f
'l'cred
fiom mental illness in his later years; the System of Positive Polit_v" ( I 85 I *4) sought to
22 Mill ( I 806-73): his intensive cducation by his fäthcr and Bcntham drove him to a
John Stuart r'orrslrrrcl a'Religion of Humanity'.
nervous breakdown, described in his Autobiography; like his father he worked at the East India ' A. ('rrrrtte, Cours de philosophie positive (2 vols, Paris, 1915),l,pp.2l,2l*2; Introduc'rion kt
Company; assistant examiner, 1828-56; examiner, 1856-8; the first leading liberal to champion l'r,.titirt' l'hilosoltlt.t' (Irrdilnlpolis, 1970), pp. |, 2.
the emancipation of women. '' llcillrrrrrr. /li,rr'. p. .r(X)
lr
(i(i I rlrcr;rl:; ;urrl Ilc;rr:lrr)n;ut(!:i
I tl rr.t;tl:, ;rtrrl I llirr.lrorr;u ro:, (;/
I
ill

accol'ding to tlrc gr.ctrlcr.spr.t.ilir.ilv lrrrrl t.orrr;llt.xit-y ol


lllr t.:rclr sut.t.(.\stv(.(lts(.i
pline: thus 'the six l'Lrtttllrtttctttitl scit'ncr's' lrre nurllrurrlrtir.s,
lli

ics, chemistry, physiology, arrd's.ci.r Prrysics'.,r. s.cirr()gy.,


rrslr.rrrrnr-y,
/
;llrys 3.2 Agonistic liberalism: Tocqueville and Mill
I

Comte's conception of the sciences in gencral rurtl ol' 'social


physics' wirs No ont' nr()r'c clcirrly cx;rrcssctl thc dilertrttas of the post-Revolutionary epoch
deeply influenced by the formation of moclern biology in
the carly ytr., .l'r6c tluur .lolrrr S(uurt Mill. Hc sought to remain täithful to Bentham's and his fa-
nineteenth century. Cuvier and other researchers
sought to characterize the clis- tlrt'r''s trtilitarianisnr, and indeed was the major British thinker most receptive to
tinctiveness of living organisms by means of the concept
of organization: every ('()nrtc's positivism; at the same time, however, he showed a painful awareness
organisrn was a self--regulating system oriented on
certain basic functions such ol tlrc llrrnantic critique of the soulless scientific rationality of modern Europe.
as f-eeding, breathing, and reproduction. Comte
closely analysed this concep- llis cconomic writings helped to lay the basis of modern economics as the ab-
tual revolution and sought to translate it into the study
of the social world. stnrct cleductive science of self-regulating markets. But, in the penultimate book
Following Condorcet, he sees the fundamental cause of
his:orical change as r rl' lris Principles ofPolitical Economt' ( I 848). he predicted that the tendency of
lying in 'the general and necessary progress of the human
spirit,: the law of the rlrc rate of profit to fall which Ricardo had attributed to the law of diminishing
three stages thus provides the basis of 'the science of
social development,. This rc(urns (see §1.5 above) would reach a'minimurn' where investment and out-
'idea of the continuous progress, or rather of
the gradual development of hu- prrt would no longer increase. Mill thought this 'stationary state' might in cer-
manity' distinguishes sociology from biology. gut in the
study of .social stat- llrin circumstances represent an improvement on the present, and further
ics" the laws o1'coexistence of social phenämena, the biological
concept of rrrrticipated that 'the relation of masters and workpeople will be gradually su-
consensus, that is, of 'the fundamental solidarity of
all the poisible aspects of pe rseded by partnership' in the fbrrn of either 'associations of the labourer with
the s<lcial organism', plays a critical role. Indeed, 'the
,.ot ,ätion, of orO., unO the capitalist' or'association of the labourers among themselves'.3r
progress must' in social physics, be as strictly indivisible
as in biology are those The ambivalences endemic to Mill's thought are an example of what John
of organization and of life, from which indeed in the eyes
of science they cle- ( iray has felicitously called 'ugonistit' liberali.sm', by which he means 'a stoical
rive'' The 'revolutionary crisis of modem societies'arises
frorn the way in which, itnd tragic liberalisrn of unavoidable conflict and irreparable loss among inher-
since 1789, otderand progress have been counterposed,
so that ,uil th" great cntly rivalrous values'.r2 Regarding modernity as the highest possible social
efTorts in favour of order have been guided by
a retiograde spirit, and the prin- cxpression of human rationality - what Haberrnas calls the 'Right Hegelian'
cipal eflbrts fbr progress by raclically anarchicalcloctrines'.28
The positive phil- position on modernity (see §2.3 above) - does not imply that one is necessarily
osophy rnay thus help to overcome this crisis by removing
'the actual confusion blind to the costs and tensions involved in achieving and maintaining this tbrm
of men's minds' caused by 'the simultaneous employment of
three radically of society. Weber is the later social theorist who most fully embodies this com-
incompatible philosophies
- the theorogicar. the metaphysical, and the posi- plex view. But the most interesting representative of agonistic liberalism in the
tive'.2')
p<lst-Revolutionary period is undoubtedly Tocqr-reville.33
This first encounter between biology and social theory
in Comte's writings Tocqueville's roots in the Norman nobility rnight have turned him against
was to be of great moment. By explicitly fbrmulating
the concept of social the French Revolution. Indeed, his great-grandtäther Malesherbes, previously
evolution and associating it with the processes of growing
compl.*iry that con- a prominent critic of the ancien rögirne, perished on the guillotine fbr serving as
temporary biological scientists were seeking to
conceptualize, Comte exerted a Louis XV['s def-ence lawyer when the latter was tried befbre the Revolutionary
powerful i,fluence on rater trreorists, notably Spencer (see
§5.2 berow) and Convention; only Robespierre's fall saved Tocqueville's parents from a similar
Durkheirn' But his own substantive social theäry and
-
tion that consensus would be re-established thiough the
in particular his predic- fate. Nevertheless, early on he identified himself with the liberal def-enders of
vesting of -o.ul and
intellectual authority in a 'spiritual Power' moclelled
on the Catholic Church
caused even admirers such as fhe younger Mill
- 3t The Collected Works ofJohn Stuart Mill,lil (London, 1965), p.169.
to quail.r0 Those seeliing a aeeper 'r2 J.Gray, IsaiahBerlin (London, 1995),p. l.Graycoinsthephrasetoref'ermoreorlessexclu-
understanding of modernity after the Revolution
would have to look elsewhere. sively to Berlin's versior.t of liberalism (though he cloes recognize Weber as a precursor: ibid., p.
Comte. Cours,l, pp. 4l ,64; Introtlut.tion, pp.20,66-7 (rranslation 58). But the expression seems to admit wider application, particularly since Gray's claims fbr
:2n Comte, mo<lificcl,l. Berlin's originality are somewhat overstated.
Cour.s,lI. pp. I 01, 112, 123, l6;5. Anclreski, ed., The
pp. 137, 138, 162, t50,12j (rranstarion modifiect).
Es.senrial Cr»rtte(l,onclo., lg74), r'r Alexis-Charles-Henri Clirel, comte de Tocqueville ( I tt0-5--59): born into the old Norman no-
bility; trained as a lawyer and employed briefly as a magistrate; toured the United States and Canada.
-'r0 J'Comte, Cottrs.I, p. 3B; Introtluc.tion,p. 29.
s. Mill ( 1865). Auguste C.mte ancr pr.sitit,isnr (Ann l83l-2; parliamentary deputy, I 839-48; nrember of the National Assembly. I 848-51 : Minister of
Arbor, l96l). Foreign AfTairs, 1849: retired from politics after Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte's l85l coup d'ötat.
68 Liberals and Reactionaries Liberals and Reactionaries 69

the Revolution under the Restoration, writing later: 'I have broken with part of rtrain contribution to social theory, in the two volumes of Democracy in Americct
my family, with beloved attachments and precious memories, to embrace the ( 1835, 1840). Since, 'sooner or later, we shall arive, like the Americans, at an
cause and ideas o1"89.'34 Confronted with Gobineau's theory of racial inequal- irlmost conrplete equality of condition', the point of studying the United States
ity (see §3.3 below), he expostulated: 'Do you not see inherent in your doctrine is to acquire a better sense of the direction in which Europe is moving.
all the evils engendered by perrnanent inequality - pride, violence, scorn of 'focqueville is struck by the Americans' success in organizing a republican
fellow men, tyranny and abjection in all their forms?'35 Iorm of government on a continental scale, and at the same time sustaining a
Nevertheless, Tocqueville's aristocratic background may have allowed him high degree of decentralization, reflected not simply in the federal constitution,
to consider the problematic condition of contemporary society with a greater but especially in the vitality of New England township meetings. He neverthe-
detachment than, say, the troubled Mill. The intellectual framework of his writ- less discovers a new version of the old dan-ser in the shape of 'the tyranny of the
ings is, in many respects, an eighteenth-century one reflecting particularly the majority'expressed both in the operation of political institutions and the power
influence of Montesquieu. He systematically contrasts aristocracy and demo- of public opinion:
cracy, but relates this less to political institutions in the Iirst instance than to the
entire complex of ideological and social conditions associated with these dif- The authority of a king is physical and controls the actions of men without subdu-
ferent forms of government. In doin-e so he was fbllowing the example of Guizot ing their will. Br-rt the ma.jority possesses a power that is physical and moral at the
and the other doctrinuire,l'durin-u the 'Great Debate' of the 1820s (see §3.1 same time, which acts Lrpon the will as much as Lrpon the actions and represses not
above). As Larry Siedentop puts it, only all contest, but all cont«rversy.
I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real
freedom of discussion as in America.rs
Restoration liberals called the emergent society 'democratic', whereas eighteenth-
century Scots had called it'commercial'. The difference is revealing. The Scot-
tish usage made the 'mode of subsistence' perhaps the crucial f-actor in social Tocqueville's diagnosis of the threat to individual fieedom represented by
change, whereas French liberals ernphasized the ditierent belief\ or norms which the tyranny of the majority, particularly in the shape of public opinion, heavily
helped to constitute aristocratic and democratic societies - the fbrmer nrarked by influenced Mill in his best-known work. On Liherty ( l8-59). Characteristically
inequality of rights and conditions, the latter by eqr.rality of rights and condi- he there seeks to square the circle by reconciling a right of individual self-
tions.16 developrnent with utilitarianisrn's concern with the greatest happiness of the
greatest number, appealing to 'utility in the largest sense, grounded in the per-
Tocqueville also took one of his leading themes fiom the doctrinuires. They manent interests clf man ärs a progressive being'. Meanwhile, Mill warns tlrat
feared that the bureaucratic and centralized state developed under the absolute Europe is 'decidedly advancing towards the Chinese ideal of nraking all people
rnonarchy, further strengthened by the Revolution and the Empire, and inheri- alike'.r" This f'ear that the West was declining into a stertic Oriental despotism
ted by the Restoration regime represented a fundamental threat to individual obsessecl many nineteenth-century liberals. Tocqueville himself saw such a
lieedom. In 1822 their leader, Royer-Collard, warned that greater social equal- condition as a consequence of centralization: 'China appears to me to present
ity was producing an 'atomized society' (xtciötö en poussiör'c) vulnerable tcl the most perf-ect instance of that species of well-being which a highly centrerl-
bureaucratic despotisrn.rT This concern infbrms Tocqueville's writings. His Iast ized administraticln may f'urnish to its subjects. Travellers älssure us that the
major work, Tlte Ancien Röginte und the Rev,olution ( 1856), left unfinished at Chinese have tranquillity without happiness, industry without improvement,
his death, charts the development of centralization under the Bourbon monar- stability without strength, and public order without public morality.'10
chy, and seeks to demonstrate how it fragmented French society, and encour- Mill's reflections on the problem take the form of a contribution to norma-
aged the kind of abstract and irresponsible intellectual speculation which reached tive political theory - that is, he seeks to characterize in abstract terms the na-
its apogee in the Jacobin regime. ture of individual freedom and to identify the limits of legitimate state
The problem of centralization also tbrms the starting-point of Tocqueville's interf-erence in that fieedom. Tocqueville offers, by contrast, particularly in the
second volume of Democracy in Americct (1840), a sclcio-historical analysis
1'r Letterto Corne, 13 Nov. 1845, quoted in A. Jardin, Tocclueville (New York, 1988), p. 396. of the circumstances productive of threats to modern liberty. There, in the
15 Letter to Gobineau, 17 Nov. 1853, in J. A. de Gobineau, Selected Politicttl Writings, ed. M. D.
Biddiss (London, 1970), p. 178. '' A. rlc'f-txquevillc. l)ctrtot trrt t' in Ame rit'u (2 vols. New York, n.d.). I. pp. 14,273.
ro Siedentop. Tottlttt'ville, p. 27. "' .1. S. Mill. ()l Liltr'r'tr'(l l:rrrronrlsrvorllt. 197:l). pp. 70. l3tt.
'7 [hitl.. p. 2(r. r" 'l'trt't;ltr't ill<'. l)r'rrt,,, rrrt t. l. 1t (l l 11 ,l().
70 Liberals and Reactionaries Liberals and Reactionaries 71

tradition of early modern French morctlistes and of Montesquieu (see § 1.3 above),
tendency of equality to keep men asunder and they have subdued it.' He lays
he concentrates less on exploring the political and social structures, and more
particular stress on the role of civil and political associations in American life,
on examining the moeurs - the belief's and customs - characteristic of demo- since 'associations ought, in democratic nations, to stand in lieu of those pow-
cratic societies.
crful private individuals whom equality of condition has swept away'.aa They
Tocqueville depicts a form of lif-e governed primarily by the attainment of rnay thus. like Montesquieu's 'intermediary powers' stand between the naked
individual well-being. This helps to explain the peculiar dynamisni and rest- individual and a potentially over-mighty state.
lessness of democratic societies, as each individual seeks to maximize his ma-
But Tocqueville conceives of the role of 'free institutions' as more than the
terial gratifrcations. It also accounts for a certain 'softening' of manners, and ncgative one of imposing limits on central power. Just as individualism saps
for the replacement of patriarchal authority within the fämily by relations based grublic institutions by undermining civic participation, so the remedy lies in
on atl-ection and intimacy. But this transformation of the family highlights one
cncouraging citizens to play an active role in political life: hence Tocqueville's
of the critical consequences of equality of condition. a powerful tendency to- interest in the direct democracy of the New England town meeting. As Roger
wards the privatization of social lif'e: 'Democracy loosens social ties but tight- ('. Boesche points out, '[t]his insistence on widespread democratic participa-
ens natural ones, it brings kindred more closely together, while it throws citizens lirrn as an essential component to the word freedom . . . sets him apart from
more apart.'11
lrl most all his nineteenth-century liberal counterparts.'a-5
Democratic societies are permeated with individualism. Tocqueville is care-
In Mill and the doctrinoirer we can see take shape what Judith Sklar memo-
ful to distinguish this quality from the universal and instinctually based det-ect rably called the 'liberalism of fear', whose 'overriding concern is to secure the
of selfishness, or excessive self-love (egoi'sme). Individualisrn is a modern phe- gxrlitical conditions that are necessary for the exercise of personal freedom'.46
nomenon 'of democratic origin'; it consists in 'a mature and calm f-eeling, which
lirom this perspective, public life can easily be represented as athreat, some-
disposes each member of the community to sever hirnself from the mass of
llring to be warded ofT in order to preserve the private zone of individual tiee-
fellows and to draw apart with his family and friends, so that after he has thus rlom. In conceiving the public sphere more positively, and citizenship as active
fonned a little circle of his own, he willingly leaves society at large to itself'. Its pirrticipation in political aflairs, Tocqueville harks back to the classical repub-
effect is in particular to undermine the individual citizen's incentive to take part lican tradition of Machiavelli and Rousseau.
in public life. 'Selfishness blights the genn of all virtue; individualism, at first, The overall effect of Tocqueville's analysis is, however, greatly to increase
only saps the virtues of public lit-e; but at the same tirne it attacks and destroys llrc sense of modernity as inherently conflicted. Thus he characterizes the long-
all the others and is at length absorbed in downright selfishness.'42 lcrm consequences of the 'democratic revolution' on men in the following terms:
The absorption of individuals in their private atTairs which equality of condi- "l'hey had sou,qht to be free in order to make themselves equal; but, in propor-
tion encourages fhcilitates the destruction of political freedom. Thus equality tion as equality was more established with the aid of freedom, fieedom itself
and despotism 'perniciously cornplete and assist each other. Equality places wls thereby rendered more difficult of attainnrent.'47 This presented the politi-
ttren side by side, unconnected by any common ties; despotism raises barriers
crrl problems of modern times as much rnore deep-seated than a liberal of a
to keep them asunder; the former predisposes them not to consider their fellow slightly earlier generation such as Constitnt had suggested. For Constant the
creatures, the latter makes general indifference a sort of public virtue.' Indeed,
l;r'cnch Revolution had gone off the rails by seeking to achieve an ancient col-
Tocqueville fears a distinctively modern fbrm of despotism combining 'the lcctive freedom inappopriate to modern cornfflercial societies (see § 1.5 above).
principle of centralization and that of popular sovereignty', 'an immense and 'l'trcqueville, by contrast, argued that there was an endemic conflict between the
tutelary power, which takes it upon itself alone to satisfy their [i.e. the citizens'] lwo prime modern values of equality of condition and individual freedom. So,
gratifications and to watch over their fäte', an 'absolute, minute, regular, provi- ol' lhe ideals of the French Revolution, liberty and equality were eternally at
dent, and mild' power that keeps men 'in perpetual childhood,.al
otltls with one another, while fraternity had dissolved into the endless pursuit of
It is no part of Tocqueville's argument that this new form of benevolent privutc gratification endemic in democratic societies.
despotism is an inevitable consequence of equality of condition. On the con-
trary, he claims that'[t]he Americans have combated by free institutions the rr lbitl.. II, pp. Il0, ll7.
' lt. ( '. lJocse he, 'The Stranee Liberalism of Alexis de Tocqueville', Histr.,i1' of I'oliticol Thoughr,
1r lbid., II, p. 208.
.' ( l()li I l. p. lt{.
.5

'[ Ibid.. II, p. 104.


" l. N. Sklrrr. "l'he l.iberalisrn of Fear', in N. L. Rosenblr.rnt, ed.,Liberalismantlthe Llorttl Life
(( ';rrnlrr irlltt'. Mltss. l()li9 ). p. J I
11 Ibid., II, pp. 109, 336-7.
.

'lirt rltt«'r'illt. l)t'ttt,,t'rrrr r. ll


' P I I l.

{
72 Liberals and Reactionaries Liberals and Reactionaries 73 !

This diagnosis has helped to constitute the problem-situation of modern so- ,r'n\(', lhere is no disorder, for disorder is commanded by a sovereign hand that
cial theory. Tocqueville's analysis of the privatizing tendencies of modern de- ,rrlr111i15 it to a rule and forces it to contribute to a good.'50

mocracy evidently has contemporary resonances. It has been deployed in order l'lrt' irnmediate source of this providential view of history is undoubtedly
to provide the social underpinnings of one of the more interesting accounts of tlrr' 1it'r:itt seventeenth-century Catholic divine Bossuet.sl In his Discourse on
postmodernity.ls And his exploration of the causes and consequences of polit;- I ttrtt't't',s'ul History (1681) Bossuet argues that the successive epochs of world
cal centralization is plainly an important contribution to the discourse on mod- lrr',tory (which he conceives largely in biblical terms as the ages of Adam,
ern bureaucracy most fully developed by Weber. Tocqueville's dissection of l.Juirlr. Abraham, and so on) are permeated by God's secret plan.
democratic society does, however, suffer from an obvious weakness which is
perhaps closely related to the preoccupations with moeurs and with public life llris
is why all those who govern feel themselves subjected to a greater power.
that are the source of the insights it ofTers. As noted above, in drawing on lrt'y achieve more or less than they intended, and their plans never lack unex-
I
pr't'lctl effects. Neither are they masters of the dispositions which past centuries
Montesquieu and the earlier moraliste tradition, he effectively sidesteps the
Ir;rvc rtrade in aftairs, nor can they predict the course which the future will take,
analysis of commercial society developed by the Scottish Enlightenment.
l.rr lilrrn being able to fbrce it. He alone holds all in his hands, who knows the
This precludes him from considering, as Hegel had already begun to do (see n;unt. of everything that is and that is not yet, who presides over all times, and
§2.1), the extent to which the problems of modernity were related to the dis- ;rrt i('ipates all discussions.s2
tinctive economic mechanisms and class antagonisms of what Marx would soon
call capitalist society. It is not that Tocqueville ignores economic matters. He llossttet's hold on nineteenth-century French intellectuals is indicated by the
notes the Americans' absorption in 'a kind of virtuous materialism' as they l,rr I llurl cven Comte praised 'the great Bossuet' for conceiving 'universal his-
pursue their private pleasures amidst the bustle and instability of commercial t,11' '1r 'one homogeneous series'.53 Maistre employs Bossuet's framework in
life. He also argues, in what is in effect a side-glance at the effects of the Indus-
'rr h't lo unalyse contemporary events, but he paints a much darker picture than
,
trial Revolution in Britain, that the division of labour is subordinating workers I r rr r s X lV's court preacher did at the apogee of Bourbon absolutism. The French
to their masters, and producing thereby a 'manufacturing aristocracy' that is lr,'r r rlrrlion, as we have seen, Maistre declares to be 'radically bad' . But its evil
'one of the harshest that ever existed in the world' (though, because the manu- r rrrt'rt'ly one instance of that which permeates the whole of creation. He spurns
facturers lack a sense of collective identity, 'one of the most confined and thc llrr' 'lnotlcrn philosophy that tells us all is good': 'in a very real sense, all is evil,
least dangerous').ae But Tocqueville shows little of the understanding displayecl lr, (' n()lhing is in its place'. Indeed, the king of Dahomey was right to say that
in their different ways by Smith, Hegel, Ricardo, and the younger Mill that t iorl ttt:trlc the world for war', as is shown by 'the long series of massacres that
modern life is bound up with a new form of economic system with its own Ir r'. ',oilctl cvery page of history. One sees war raging without interruption, like
peculiar dynamics and conflicts. His writings, for all the insights they ofTer. ,r r .ntrrrtrcd f'ever marked by terrifying paroxysms.'54
resonate as much with early modern political thought as they do with the work I rottr this perspective, imbued with a pervasive sense of original sin, 'fmlan
of later theorists fbr whom the existence of capitalism has become a fundamen- r i'r rl. lrorribly evil.' Social order is maintained only through the regular appli-
tal reference-point. , ,rlr,rr ol'violence. Thus the executioner is 'the horror and the bond of human
r .,r irliott. Remove this incomprehensible agent from the world, and at that
, , r\' rrronrr:nt order gives way to chaos, thrones topple and society disappears.'
3.3 Providence and race: Maistre and Gobineau l,rr 'lt'lvil cxists on the earth and acts constantly, and by a necessary conse-
i
lr{'n( t' il rnust be continually repressed by punishment.'5s
Less surprisingly perhaps, the same quality of being situated as it were midway \\'lr:rt. llrcrt. is the meaning of the French Revolution according to Maistre? It
between older ways of thinking and the theoretical revolution represented by
the Enlightenment is displayed by the most resolute opponents of the French l\ l,rr..lrr', ('ttrt:irlcnrlit»r.r', p. 9.
Revolution. Maistre is a particularly interesting example of this stance. His l,r, (
lr r('\ lltirt igrtc llossuet (1621*1704): Bishop of Condom, 1669-8 I ; Bishop of Meaux, 168 l-
I 'rrf 11111rt rrl lltt' l)rrrrpltin (fbr whom he wrote the Discourse); most celebrated fbr his sermons,
political writings repeatedly affirm that human affairs are governed by divirrt'
, rr \'oll:riri'trrlrrrircrl lris prose style.
Providence: 'Nothing happens by chance in this world, and even in a sec«rnclru't r I rrlrr'r t.ttt,tltli,t(,.\ rlc l)rt.s,ttrct ( l9 vols, BesanEon, 1840), IX, p.262.
I rrrnft'. ( ttuts,ll. P. Jt7; I,..s,sctttittl ('tttttlt', p.2(X).
'1r{ G. Lipovetsky, L'Ere du vide (Paris, 1983). l\l,rr.,trt'. ('rttr.titlt.tttlit,l,§. l)l). Jl. i l. .) l, l"l
're Tocqueville, Democracy,ll, l4l, 170. I Irr,lt'.rrl .Ilt,'Wt,rl':ttl .l,,tt1tl1 ,l, llltri.tltt' (l.orrtlorr, l()(r5), 1l;t.2(X). l9l l.

ä,
74 Liberals and Reactionaries Liberals and Reactionaries 75

is impossible fbr the republican regime to sustain itself inde{initely (Maistre An undeniably new note is, however, sounded by Gobineau.60 His Essay on
i
wrote the Considerations on France in 1196, not long after Robespierre's fall), the Inequttlity oJ the Human Races ( 1 853-5) takes aim at two of the basic as-
fbr 'nothing is new, and a large republic is irnpossible, since there has never sumptions of the Enlightenment. First, Gobineau denies the idea of historical
been a large republic'. Moreover, since 'every imaginable institution is founded progress. He does not believe, for example, that the moderns have achieved any
on a religious concePt', a fbrm of government which blasphemously claims to real intellectual or political improvement on ancient Greece and Rome. His
base itself on human reason alone is doomed fiom the start. The sufl'ering caused concern is with 'the fall of civilizations', 'the most striking, and at the same
by the Terror and the Revolutionary Wars are God's punishment for the impi- time, the most obscure, of all the phenorrena of history'. The decline of civili-
ous arrogance envinced by this claim: 'in our epoch, coming down to our level, zation is, rnoreover, inevitable: 'every assemblage of men, however ingenious
Providence punishes like a human tribunal'.s6 the network of social relations that protect it, acquires on the very day of its
But God condescends to use even the 'vilest instruments' for his own larger birth, hidden among the elements of its life, the seed of its inevitable death'.61
purposes: 'this monstrous power, drunk with power and success, the most fright- Why are civilizations doomed to collapse? Gobineau's answer to this ques-
ful phenolnenon that has ever been seen and the like of which will never be tion represents his second challenge to the Enlightenrnent. As the title of the
seen again, was both a horrible chastisement for the French and the sole means essay declares, he rejects the idea of human equality which was axiomatic for
of saving France'. The triumph of the counter-revolution over the republic would the philosophes, however much this assumption might be qualified by, fbr ex-
have meant France's eclipse in the European state systern. The Jacobins, with ample, the racisrn we saw Hume and Jetfbrson display towards blacks (§1.5
their centralizing ruthlessness and revolution ary ölan, were the means through above). Gobineau declares: 'The irreconcilable antagonism between diff'erent
which this outcome was prevented, and France's leading position was preserved races ernd cultures is clear"ly established by history, and such innate repulsion
for God's plan. Thus: 'When we think about it, we can see that once the revolu- must inrply unlikeness and inequality.' His classification of humankind reduces
tionary movement was established, only Jacobinism could have saved France them to variants of three fundamental races - in descending order of intellec-
and the monarchy.'-57 tual and physical powers and even of beauty, the'white', the'yellow', and the
In a brilliant essay on Maistre, Isaiah Berlin argues that his 'deeply pessinris- 'black'. 'The great humitn civilizations are but ten in number and all of thern
tic vision is the heart of the totalitarianisms, of both lefi and right, of our terrible have been prodr.rced upon the initiative of the white race', and in particularof
century'.s8 Yet, in conceptual terms at least, there is very little that is new in the Aryans originating in central Asia who are the source ol'all that is vigorous
Maistre. His view of a world ruled by evil, war, and bloodshecl, though ex- and creittive in the European racial stock.('l
pressed in particularly forcefulterms, derives from orthodox Augustinian Chris- Yet decline and death are, as we have seen, built into every civilization fiom
tianity's clairn that the Fall of Man introduced a raclical fault into God's creation. the start. The fundamental cause is the tendency fbr different races to mix.
Maistre's political theory proper combines abizarre revival of the medieval Civilizatir)ns are typically fbunded by the colonization or concluest of an inf'e-
doctrine that the pope is the source of all secular authority with the traditional rior 'f'enrale' race by a superior 'male' one. The master-race usually has f'ewer
claims of clnssical thought. Thus, as we have seen, he rules out the possibility members than the groups over whorn it rules. Conquerors and conquered inevi-
of the French republic surviving because 'nature and history together', or rather tably intennarry: initially tlris racial nrixing invigorates the civilization, but,
ancient and early modern philosophers and historians, 'prove that a large indi- over tirne, it progressively drains away the original vitality of the masters. The
visible republic is an impossibility'. What distin-uuishes Maistre is the extrem- civilization accordingly degenerates: 'The word degencrate, when applied to a
ity of his political language - itself a reaction to both the novelty and (to him) people. nreans . . . that the people has rro longer the sarne intrinsic value as it
the moral scandal the Revolution represented, and the lucid rcalism he often ought to have, because it has no longer the same blood in its veins, continual
displays in his analyses. Thus he argues that revolutions have their laws, which adulterations having gradually aff-ected the quality of that blood.' The outcome
will, in time, tävour the restoration of the monarchy. He notes, tbr example. the can be seen in the confusion o1' races and cultures that dernoralized and
emergence of an 'aristocracy of office' in Revolutionary France that will, as in
Cromwellian England, help produce the desire for political stability necessary
to revive the monarchy.5e 6() Joseph Aühur de Gobineau (ltl l6-82): born to a bourgeois fanrily in Bordear"rx. though he
assumed the title of comte in 185-5; traiued as an Orientalist; after working as a journalist,
56 Maistre, Con.sideratio,Ts, pp. 33,41, 14. 'Iocqueville's secretary whcn the latter was Foreign Minister in 1849; thereafter served as a diplo-
51 lbid., pp. 8. 16.
rltt till 1877.
)ri I. Bcrf in, 7'hc' Cnxtketl 7'inber of'Hrrmunit.t, (Lonclon, l9()l), p.
127. "l (i«rbittt'it u.,\'t' I t't. t'tl l't tl it'ttI
t it Writin,q.s. pp. 42, 43.
)() Miristrc, ('rttr.rirlanrtirlr,r, pll. :12. 90.
lbitl..pp lll ll)
/(; Irlrur;rlr;;rnrlllu,; rr;ltorr;urc:; Itlrr:ltl:; ittltl llcitr:lton;utcr; / /
rrlllrrllrlt'ly tlt'slt'.yt'tl itttlrt'ttlrl ltotttr'. Mrtlcrrr llrrrollc
is r-clrrr-rrirrg l, rlris.srrrlc. liott. wlrt'rr tlrc t':rrllr wls still slrakcn by its rcccrtl culirstrrrplrcs lurtl willrotrt lury
ttl' 'ntrrtttrtil1" lts llrc Aryltrt slock is irtlultcruterl
throirgh adrnixture with .tlcgcn- tlclcrtcc lrgrrirrsl tlrc l'earful el'fbcts ol'their last clcath-lhr«rcs'.'l'hc rilccs lirrnrecl
eratc't'ilccs.,,'
il
irr this terrible geological shakirrg up are set onto pernranently diffbrent paths:
Gobineau's racial theory was merely the most systematic 'their primordial unity cannot and does not have the slightest influence on their
articulation of a
widespread ideological reorientation which occurred
1l
in mid-nineteenth-century clestinies'.66
Europe' The Western colonization of the rest of the
I
world encouraged some This quasi-theological conception of history informs Gobineau's account of
European intellectuals to treat racial difference
as the fundamental category by
l

the future as well as that of the origins of humankind. History reveals no dy-
i
means of which to understand the social world.
Robert Knox, the Edinburgh namic principle - say, what Darwin would soon call natural selection (see §5.1
anatomist who ernployed the grave-robbers Burke
i
and Hare, expressed essen- below) - merely the constant patterns arising from conquest and racial inter-
tially the same view as Gobineau's when he decrare cr, in The
Races oJ. M,n mixture: 'transcending any transitory or voluntary action of either an individual
(1850): 'race is evelything; literature. science,
art - in a word. civilization. de- or a nation, these fundamental determining factors in life operate with imper-
pends on it'.nr
turbable independence and impassiveness'. Their inevitable outcome will be
The development of particular forms of knowledge
could be mobili zed in the disappearance of the human species. The ultimate achievement of the great
support of this construction of race. Thus William
Jones's suggestion at the end Aryan peoples has been to create a single world-civilization, thereby fulfilling
of the eighteenth century that the classical Hindu language
of Sanskrit was the 'the suprerne goal of all history', fbr 'the ultimate aim of the toil and suf'fbring,
conlmon ancestor of a distinctive family of Inclo-European
languages was re- the pleasures and triumphs of humanity is to attain, one day, supreme unity'.
interpreted in racial terms, so that linguistic
affinities became signs ortr,. exist- But the attainment of this unity implies the racial confusion and degeneration
ence of a commolr Aryan race. Maine's anthropolo-eical
writings, immensely which destroyed Rome, now on a global scale, and hence the disappearance of
influential on Victorian thought, were infbrmed by
the ass-umption that the white race. Racial weakness will bring in its wake population decline, and
'[clivilization is nothing but a name for the
old order of the Aryln world, dis- eventually the 'final obliteration' of humanity in another 6,000 or 7,000 years'
solved but perpetually reconstituting itself under
a vast variety of solvent time.6i
influences.'65
So Gobineau, like Maistre, sees the lridden hand of Providence at work in
Gobineau's elaboration of such beliefs into a philosophy
ol'history cffected history. His version of this philosophy of history culminates in the fatalisrn
afäteful fusion of biology and social theory. onecan cletocr
irr his wiitings the with which Tocqueville taxed him in their correspondence. Cobineau clairned
obsessions with degeneration and miscegenation
which pcr-rncrrlc subsequent that his theory depicted humankind's fate beyond good and evil: 'l am not tell-
racist literature. including Mein Kampf'.It wourd,
howcvcr.. hc ir rnistake to ing people "You are accluitted" or "You are condemned". I am saying "You are
overstate the modernity of Gclbineau's thought.
The conccprt ol'hiokrgical evo- dying."'68 Fascist ideology would take his view of history as race war, and his
Iution, whose complex interrningling with racist ideology
I r.orrsitlcr-in chapter obsession with biological degeneration, and marry them to the idea of a deci-
5, is quite absent fiom it. The Essa-v antedates Darwirr's ()r.iqir
r of'Specie,s, sive assertion of collective will. In this tbrm, Gobineau's pessimism would
which was published in 1859. Despite his own anrbivrrlcrrcr.
lrwrr*ls Clhristian- help incubate horrors beyond the imagination of even the darkest nineteentlr-
ity, Gobineau in his accclunt of the sources ol'r'ucirrl tlil'li'r.t.rrr.r.
lrccepts the century thinkers.
biblical figure fbr the age of the earth of betwecn (r.(xx)
rrrrrl 7.0(x) yc.rs.
The fact that different human groups can slrcccsslrrll-y
inlt.rlrrt'r.tt lcads hirn
reluctantly to reiect the idea of polygenesis thc sirrrrrltrrrrt.rrs
-
eral distinct human races * which had tascinatcrl tlrr'
t.r.r..rtir, of sev-
l,.rrlirlrlr.rrrrrt.rrt. liut, if the
humatt species began as one, it soon broke aplrrt irrtr) r:r(.(.
wlrosr.ttil.lcrences
are 'absolutely fixed, hereclitary , and pe rntr, rrj,,,'. 'l'lrt.st. .wcre
r li l lt.r r.rrr.r,s fixed
in the earliest epoch of our terrestriar rif'e .. . rrrrrt irrr(.(ri;rrt.rr
;rrrt,r.rrrc: crea-
(r'] Ibicl.. pp.
59. t-53.
64 Quoted in Burrow, Evolution,
p. 130.

:t Quotedinibid',p' l6l.SirHenryMaine(ltt2l i{l{): .t'trr|,rt.,l,lr.rr.,rrrl.rir,rr ()rl.rrl lrndthe 66 Gobineau, Seleucd Politit:ulWriting,,s. pp. 103, l06-1,161.
InnsofCourt.ancl then,afierserl,ingasLegal Mutrlrt.r.ol tlrt.(,()utr(rl,,l 67 lbid., pp. 163. 17l-2. 171.
lrr,lr.r lx(rr(,.;rt ()xf-ord
again and Cambridget most celebrated w'rk: Atrt.it,rttl.rrrr ( I li(r I 6rr Letter to Tocqueville, 20 Mar. 1856, ibid., p. l8l.
r
Marx 79

precisely against this stance that the great Russian critic of the 1830s and 1840s,
Vissarion Belinsky, rebelled :

I thank you most humbly, Eger Fedorovich [i.e. Hegel], I acknowledge your philo-
sophical prowess, but with all due respect to your philosophical cap and gown. I
have the honour to inform you that if i should succeed in climbing to the highest
Marx rung of the ladder of progress, even then I would ask you to render me an account
of all the victims of life and history, of all victims of chance, superstition, the
Inquisition, Philip II, and so fbrth. Otherwise I should hurlmyself head first fiom
that very top rung.3

But what if one were to liberate Hegel's dialectic fi'om his absolute idealism,
and to abandon his essentially theological attempt to justify 'the existence of
evil"/ Then one could truly say, in the words of Belinsky's contemporary
Aleksandr Herzen: 'The philosophy of Hegel is the algebra of revolution.'a
4.1 The adventures of the dialectic This was the step that Marx took.5 He was by no means the first to have the idea
of setting Hegel on his feet, as Engels fhmously put it - that is, of secularizing
Hegel's response to the profbund tensions which the aftermath of the French the Hegelian dialectic.6 Hegel's philosophy exercised a peculiar fascination fbr
Revolution had exposed in European society was to interpret them as specific young radical intellectuals in the 1830s and 1840s. This was particularly so not
instances of a much larger pattern. World history was essentially a process of simply, as we have seen, in Russia, but in Germany itself. [n these countries the
constant transfbrmation driven by the contradictions internal to and constitu- Holy Alliance - the absolute r-nonarchies of Austria. Russia, and Prussia - sought
tive of sLlccessive social and political forn-ts. Yet at the same time as thus dra- after l8l5 systematically to repress any signs of a revival of the radical-
matically generalizing tiorn the experience of his own generation, cau-qht up tts democratic irnpulses unleashed by the French Revolution. In this climate of
it was in the whirl of the 'dual revolution', Hegel sought to fieeze the dialecti- repression and censorship, political criticism was displaced onto philosophical
cal process, to treat it as a circular movement which sirnply developed what speculation. 'In politics the Germans thoughl what other nations did', Marx
was implicit in its starting-point and whose conclusion consisted in the recon- later wrote.i Hegel said nruch the same thing: 'We have cornmoticln of every
ciliation of all conflicts within the self-transparency of Absolute Spirit. The
efTect was to undercut the awareness of tension and instability expressed in his
claim that 'Contradiction is the root of all movement and life'. Dialectical rea- I Letter to Botkin, Mar. lll4I, quoted in A. Walicki, A Hisrorl, o.f Russiutr Thought.f-roru the
son can then seem like an almost Buddhist quietism, the contemplation of the Enlightennrcnt to Murxi.snl (Stanfirrd, lL)79),p. 124.
a A. Herzen, My Pu.;t and T-ltotrgltlr, abr. edn, ecl. D. Macdonald (Bcrkeley, l9U2), p.237.
eternal pattern of things well captured in these lines of T. S. Eliot (hin-rself a 5 Karl Heinrich Marx (ltill3-83): lrorn in ]'rier to a secularizecl Jewish thrnily: stuclied law aud
student of the late Victorian British Hegelians): 'Only by the form, the then plrilosophy at Bonn ancl Berlin universities: eclitor-in-chief of thc. Rlrcini.sche Zeittrtrg,l842-3;
pattern, I Can words or music reach I The stillness. as a Chinese jar still I Moves moved to Paris in lU43 and Blussels in lU45; leacler of the Communist League, ltt47--50: editor-in-
perpetually in its stillness.'l chief of the Neue Rheinischa Zciturtg. ltt4t3-9; alier the def'eat ol the 1848 Revolution went into
Quite aside from the philosophical dif1iculties involved in Hegel's absolute cxile in London, where he spent the rest of his li1'e. ofien in great poverty; fbunder and leacler of the
International Working Men's Association (the First International), ltt6-l 72.
idealism, his description of his philosophy of history as 'a theodicy' which
'should enable us to comprehend all the ills of the world, including the exist- " K. Marx and F. E,ngels, Collt'cred Works (-50 vols. London. 197-5- ), XXVI. p. 3tt3: hereinirf -
tcr CW. Friedrich Engels ( Iti20-95): born in Barrnen to a fämily of Protestant mill-owners; worked
ence of evil, so that the thinking spirit may be reconciled with the negative irt Manchester tbr the family firm Ermen and Engels, 1842_,1-. obtairring the material for T'he Con-
aspects of existence' seemed to imply the kind of complacent acceptance tlitionoftheWorkingCla.ssirtEngland'.Marx'sclosestfiiendandcollaboratorfiom lS44onwards;
of sufTering and oppression that Voltaire had attacked in Candide.) lt was Io«rk part in armed struggles in Elberf-eld and the Palatinate during the death-agony of the 1848
Ilcvolr"rtion; worked at Ermen ancl Engels, 1850-69. providing the Marx family with indispensable
linrrrrcial support: edited the sec«rnd and third volumes of Capit«laficr Marx's cleath: dr,rring the last
I T. S. Eliot, 'Burnt Nortorr'. itt Collected Poems 1909-1962 (London. 1963), p. 194. lwt'rrty-livc yclrs ol'his lile. his home in London becarne one of thc nrain centrcs ol'the British and
r G. W. F. Hegel, Lct'ttrrc.s on tlte Philo.solthv ol Wot'lrl History: Intxxluc'tion (Cambridge, 1975). ittlt'r'tt;tlionltl llthottt nr()\'('nr('nl.
pp. 42 .1.
I ('l,y lll.P. lfil
80 Marx
Marx 81
kind within us and around us, but through them all the German head quietly lar, the Young Hegelians tended to see the critique of religion as the precondi-
keeps its nightcap on and silently carries on its operations beneath it.'8 tion of any broader political challenge to the established order in Geimany.
In
By the 1840s 'the German head' was thinking revolution. The group of this they recapitulated the French Enlightenment's conception of history
as (in
young German intellectuals known as the Young Hegelians emerged at the Condorcet's words) 'the progress of the human mind', and its view of
orthodox
beginning of this decade. They had in common the aim of emancipating the Christianity as the main underpinning of the ancien rögime-The German
head
Hegelian dialectic from the Absolute, but ditfbred over precisely what this had thus not yet shed its nightcap.
implied. Bruno Bauer, for example, argued that Absolute Spirit was merely a Marx in his first political writings in the early 1840s displays borh his grow-
metaphor for human self'-consciousness. He thereby replaced Hegel's absolute ing discomfort with this broad approach and an attempt to use some of
idealism with a version of subjective idealism, according to which history was Feuerbach's main categories to develop a more materialistic analysis
of soci-
a succession of forms of consciousness. Feuerbach by contrast developed a ety' Thus in the Contribution to a critique oJ'Hegel's philosophy
,,y fugnt ( I g43),
much more original critique of Hegel based on a version of the naturalistic he persistently taxes Hegel with inverting subject ancl predicate
üy ti.rtlng po-
materialism which became increasingly influential in German intellectual litical institutions as expressions of the Absolute Idea. Marx concedes that ,[ilt
culture around the middle of the nineteenth century.') shows Hegel's proflndity that he feels the separation of civil from political
Feuerbach's main tools in this critique were the concepts -taken over by Marx society as a Contr(rdic'tion.' Rather, however, than the state reconciling
the con-
- of inversion and alienation. He argued that the diffbrent forms of reli- flicts of civil society, 'It]he atomism into which civil society ptunles
in its
gion, reaching their climax in Christianity, involved the transposition of dis- politicalrzcr fbllows necessarily fiom the fact that the community,
thecommu-
tinctively human powers onto alien and fictional entities. This was a process o1' nal being in which the individual exists, is civil society separatecl
fiorn the srate,
inversion: the 'subject' - man, the active and creative factor in history - was orthat the politit:ul stute is an abstraction fiom it.'The modern state is indeed
reduced to the status of a 'predicate', that is, of a dependent attribute, the crea- like God in Feuerbach's critique of Christianity an alienated projection
tion of a being - God - that was in fact the product of the human imagination. It
- of the
colrlmunal social lif-e which only exists in the impoverished form
of a civil
was also a process of alienation: man lost his essential powers to a being which society riddled with competition and instability. Fortunately, however,
civil
he conceived as fundamentally other than him. Hegel's absolute idealism was il society is beginning to transcend this alienatecl condition by iernanding
politi-
rarefied and abstract version of this same process, in which everything physical cal expression in the form of universal male suffiage: 'Electrtral
re.lrtrriwithin
and human is reduced to means for the self--realization of an impersonal God, the ub'stract politicul stute is therefilre the demand fbr its clissoluLion,
but also
the Absolute, that was just as imaginary as the more narve versions worshipped fbr the dissolution of'civil society.'to
in conventional religions. What was required, Feuerbach argued, was an inver- Marx thus identifies Feurbachian inversion the restoration of the real
sion of this inversion. Man must recognize himself as the real subject of the
-
ject to its proper place with the most raclical political
sub-
- clemand of the day, and
process, thereby resuming control over the capacities he had ascribed to God and thus (not only in his argument but also in the mincls of Europe's
ruling classes)
the Absolute, and recognizing these latter entities fbr the fictions they were. with social revoluti«rn. Plainly, pursuing this analysis required taking
a clgser
Though Feuerbach rightly saw himself as a critic of Hegel, his arguments look at the structLtre tll'civil society. Like Hegel belore him, Marx closely
stud-
remained in many ways within a Hegelian tiamework. Hegel also conceived ied the classical p«rlitical economists. These researches helpecl to prompt
an
the dialectical process as one of alienation, in which Spirit loses itself in intpcrrtant shifi away fiorn Feuerbach. As a first approximation
to characteriz-
Nature, which it counterposes to itself as an other, only to rediscover later the ing the extent of the latter's break with Hegel, one rnight say that he
replacecl
essential identity of subject and object, self and other. Moreover, the emancipa- the Absolute with Man as the subjcct of the dialectic. But what
is Man? Feuerbach
tion Feuerbach seeks from the hold of religion and idealism is an intellectual rejected the more straightfbrward forms of inclividualism: 'The
essence of man
one. For all his philosophical differences with Bauer, he too conceived history is contained only in the community, in the unity of'mtrn with
man.,tl
as a succession of forms of consciousness; both argued that political liberation To underline both the primacy of the communal over the individual,
and
from Prussian absolutism depended on a process of enlightenment. In particu- humanity's growing awareness of this truth, Feuerbach often tended
to use the
expression 'species-being' (Gattungswesen) to refer to human nature.
His ac-
* G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the Historl- rf PhiLosoph.y (3 vols, London, 1963), III. p. 426.
count of species-being was, however, fraught with difficulties. Thus
a central
' Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach (lB04J2): his rr-rost important work, Ilre Essence o.l'Chris'tiun-
ir.v (1841), was translated into English by the novelist George Eliot; declared: 'Der Mensch ist tt' CW III, pp.75,79,l2l.
was er isst' - Man is what hc cats. ll [,. Feuerbacl'r. Mttttili',rlc.t'ltltilosolthitltrt,,s.ctl. L. Altlrrrssr.l (1,:rr.is. l()7 t).,. lr)li
J
l
gZ Marx Marx 83

by Christianity and ideal- rialist conception of history and an unrelenting polemic against the idealism of
aspect of the human essence that had been concealed the Young Hegelians. Before going on to consider Marx's historical material-
with nature' Man'S aware-
ist philosophy was, Feuerbach argued' nlan's unity ism in the following section, it is worth pausing briefly to reflect on the novel
his dependence on nature'
ness of this, and more particularly of his neediness,
reason (there is a Romantic view of the relationship between beliel's and representations, on the one hand,
derived more from his Ii.,.,r.,, and emotions than his and social relations and institutions, on the other, which these writings of the
suggests' Feuerbach con-
strain in Feuerbach's philosophy)' As this summary I840s began to develop.
passive: one of his key con-
ceives man's relatiopship to nature as essentially The idea that thoughts were to be considered not solely in ternts of their
cepts. sensibility (Sinnlichktrir), was used by
Kant to designate the receptive
in by human consciousness' truth-cotrtent. but alscl with respect to the social role they rnight perfrrrm was
fäculty through which sense-impressions are taken very firr fiom new. The ntore radical philosophes had attäcked orthodox Chris-
ofl-ering little ac-
Thus conceivecl, species-being is abstract and indetertninate, tianity as a body of nryths which helpecl to sustain an un.just s«rcial order. Thus
cess to the rich historical development which
Hegel had so successl'ully achievecl.
in The Ego ancl its Holbach argues that 'clespotisr.r-r is the work of superstitit>n'. Superstition itself
It was therelbre highly vulnerable to Max stirner's attack is an essentially intellectLral tault: 'Mun is superstiti«rus only because he is l'ear-
in a series tlf abstract
Otyn (1844) 6n the concept 9f 'Man' as sirnply
the latest
,spgoks' GOtl. the State, the Absotute - which merely served to suppress the ful; he is t'earlul only because he is ignrlrant.' Rulers and priests colrspire to
- keep mcn igttrlrant: 'Thc rnaiority ol'sovereigns are afiaicl to cnlighten nlen:
irieducible reality ol' tlre individLral subject' acc«trnplices o1'the pricsthood. they ally thernselves with it to slnother reason
in the first tna.lor
Marx makes extensive use of the concept of species-being and to perseclrte all thosc who havc lhe c<lurage to Announce it.' The soluti<ln is
the Ecotrtttttit' trtul
work tcr reflect his reading of classical political economy. therefbre [o erttct>uritge rational thinking.l'<tr'lul.s .\'oon os tnun (lurc,s'to tltink,
difterent ctlntent'
Pltil|.sttltltit' Mcytust'ript,s ,l tS'l+, but he gives it a
radically
fundametttal. but it is an activc the emlti ra tfi' tltc pri<,.t't i.s' rlt,,slroy(d.' ta
Hunran beings' relationship t<l naturc is indeecl Man's irrtellcctuul urtdcrclevcklprttertt ancl sclf'-intercsted rnunipr.rlation thr-rs
through which they transforrn
relati1lnship clelinccl by thc productive activities c<lnbinc to prcservc s«lcial opprcssion. Against thc background ol'such bclief
and s«rcial ctrvirontnerrt. This stance inrplics 'it l11()rc p«rsitive ap- ,s

their physical the strcss laicl hy both tlrc Enlightcrrrtrcrtt arrd the Young Hegelians «rn the thco-
'Hegel's stitnclpoint is that ttl'
pritisal 0l'Hcgcl's philosophy than Feuerbach's: retical e xposLlrc ol' rcligious nryth as thc prcc«rnclitiolr ot' political liberation
the e.s'tretl(c tlf trrln.' The trotl-
rrrtrtlern ptllitical ccollollly' Hc grasps lrtbour as
is rrl;sl'ttctlv t,.ttdl becottrcs intclligiblc. Alrcacly in lrcucrbach. howcvcr. wt: see a shili. Hc ilrgucs
ble is that 'thc .nly labour which Hegel rectlgnizes that thc various lirt'ttts ol'r'cligi«lLrs alierra(ion cium()t [rc understoocl lrs lncre
labtlur nitturalistically' its
labour'.rr lt is ,',"..*rury insteacl to understand error. They reprcsent l necLrsliilry slagc irr the rle velopnrcnl ol'hunurn consci<lr-rs-
hurnan beings in tlrder to prtlduce
tl-rc c«t-gpcrativc activities r'tndcrtakcn by ness: in particulat'. (he rnos( arlvarrccd slalc ol' ulie:natiorr in Christiunity is a
the ttse-vitlttcs rcclttired (o rtlcet tl-reir neecls' preconclition ol'nriul's arriving at conscior.rsltcss ol'hirnsell'as a spccics.
Marx' in the
once this stcp is tlkc:n. ollc's view tlf history is tritllsttlt'tned' Mitrx tukes this irnalysis, wlriclr cvidcntly rellccts Hcgcl's inl'lucncc. r.r slcp
alienatitln' httt what is
Mttrtust'ripls at itny rirtc. still treats it as a process
«lf
lab.ur. M.clern b.u'ge.is soci- furtl'rcr. ln a l'ittnous pitssasc ol'his lll43 lntrocluction to A Contributiott to tltc
:,rric.atccl n.w is rr.it tl-re Icle. rlr Man. b.t social
wtlrker's ltlss «lt'ctlntr«ll Crititltrc rt.l'Hegcl',s I'ltilo,soltltt fi llig/rl, hc writcs: 'llcligiorr,t rlistl'css i.s al the
cty is thc vcry ilclllc 0l'alicnati()n, since it rests tln the
siln)e tintc thc r,.r1trc,\',\iotr ol'rcal rlislrcss and also thc /»'rrlr,.v/ lrguilrst rcal dis-
«rver his lahour ilntl his srtbtlrdinatitln to the
capitalist' 'Priyrrte propcrtl is thus
tlf ttlientficd ltiltrtur" lndeecl' tress. Religirlrt is thc sish ol-tlrc oppresserl crcaturc, thc hcurt ol'a hcurtlcss
the proclr-lct, the rcsttlt, thc tlecessafy Consequence world..just as it is the spirit of spiritlcss corrcliti«ms. lt is lltc oltiutrr ol'the peo-
.lpl()litical ccononry has Irercly lirrmulated the laws tlf'estrarrged labtlur'' It
any rlere intel- ple.' Usually orrly lhe linal sentcncLr is c1r-rt>tecl, bul, sel in thc contcxt ol'thc
tirllt>ws this cliagn,rsis that alienation cannot be cured by
l'r.,
stlcial - or more entire passagc, it figr-rrcs in un argunrcnt that rcligion canno[ he undcrstood
lectualenlightcnrr.,',i. Encling the atienatit>n of labour recluires
'the emancipation of stlciety frt>m privirte prop- prirnarily as a set of lalsc bcliel-s, or cven as tlre work o1'lnanipirlative priests
precisely sgcialist - rcvolution:
rtf'tha workers''t:' and kings. Religious firith is a reflcction ol'real needs in a distorted social world,
erty is expresse«l in the politi<'ultirrrn of the e'munt'ilttttitttt the displacement o1'the aspiration to a better Iif-e onto a world beyond. Conse-
a break with the Young
Marx's transtormati«ln of Hegel ancl Feuerbach rnacle quently, '[t]he detnattd to give up illLrsions atrout the existing state r>f affhirs is
Gerntun ldeologr' ( 1845-7)'
Hegelians inevitable, a t1love consLlmmatecl in
The
becotile known as the utate- the demctrul to give up o ,\'tute fi'ulJhirs whic'h needs' illusiorts.'r'Religious
This work is at once the tirst outline of what would
il llrrr'«rn cl'Holbach, Tertes c'lutisis (Paris.
iii
i CW lll' P.333' t' ('lV III. pp. 175. 176.
it
I
' (-1'Y I I l. PP. 719 . 280 '
84 Marx Marx 85

illusions will thus survive any purely intellectual refutation so long as the social Their use represents the productive powers of the society in question, measured
I
conditions which produced them continue to exist. Present here is the kernel of by the productivity of labour.
The level of developrnent of the productive fbrces reflects at any given time
Marx's theory of ideology - that is, of his atternpt to show that the widespread
the particular technology human beings use in order to meet their needs. This
acceptance of certain beliefs has social causes which arise from the contradic-
I

tions of class society. What, then, are these contradictions? technology presupposes knowledge of nature which is applied in production.
The operation of this technology, lurther, typically involves a particular form
o1'social co-operation among the direct producers, what Marx in Capital calls
4.2 History and capitalism the 'labour-process'. Changes to the labour-process, resulting fiom the discov-
ery ol'new techniques, or fiorn improvements in the social clrganization of pro-
Marx wrote in 1852: duction, allow increases in the productivity r>f labour - in other words, the
developrnent of the productive fbrces.
I do not clairn to have discovered either the existence of classes in modern society
This accolrnt of the productive filrces reflects Marx's view of human beings
or the struggle between them. Long befbre me, bourgeois historians had descrihed as inventive social producers. Social co-operation is an essential feature of hu-
the historical development ol this struggle between the classes, as had btlurgeois man existence. He contenlptuously dismisses what he calls the 'Robinsonades'
economists their economic anatomy. My own contribr-rtion was l. to show that of bourgeois thought, which seek to deveklp a theory o1'society by starting
the existenc'e tf't'lussas is merely bound up with <'ertuin hi,storit'al pha.ses in tha fiom man alone in the state ol'nature. as il'he were Robinson Cruscle on his
tleyelopruent tf'pruxlut'tiott',2. that the class struggle necessarily leads to the rlrr'- desert island: 'Production by an isolated individual outside society . . . is as
totorship o.f'the prutlcturiut: 3. that this dictatolship itself constitutes no ntore than much an absurdity as is the developrnent of language without human beings
a transition to the ufutlititm of-ull t'lu,s.srs and ttt tclussle.r,s.rot'i?l'.y.rt' living together and talking to each other.'r7 HLurlan beings at the same time,
hclwever, have a flexibility and a capacity to nronitor sell-consciously their
The Scottish Enlightennrent made possible the exploration of the 'economic thoughts and actions that is deniecl otlrer anirrtal species. They are therefclre
anatomy' of the classes by developing a conception of history as a succession able to innovate, to corr.rc up with new ways ol'prcducing, thanks to which the
of 'modes of subsistengLr' (see § 1.4 above). Marx took over this conception of productive forces develop.
history: thus The Gennun ltle ologv fitllows The Wealth rf Nutittrzs in treating Marx calls the labour-process 'the univcrsal condition fbr the metabolic in-
the clevel<tpment of the clivision ol' labour ars the ntotor of historical progress. teractiorr between nran and nature. the everlasting nature-irnposed condition of
Marx, however, elaborates a consiclerably more complex set of concepts than hur.r.rar.r cxistcnce'. As we saw in the prcvious section, he envisages the relation-
those used by Smith or Millar. The rnaster-concept of his theory of history is ship between hurnanity and its natural envinlrrrrtent as a dynamic one. Improve-
that of the lnode of procluction. Though this expression has several uses in Marx's ments in thc pnlductive tilrces allow hurnan bcings to gain greater control over
writings. its rnost imp«lrtant is to specify a number of basic economic types of their physical corttext. But the labour-proccss rcpresents only one aspect of
society. Thr.rs he ref-ers to the ancient (or slave), the Asiatic, the feudal. and thc social procluction:
capitalist rnocles of pnlduction. Each of these constitutes a distinctive s«tcitl-
economic system with its own 'laws tlf mtltion'. Thc tastc ol'the porridgc cltrcs not tell us who grcw the oats, ancl the process we
The Scots' 'ntt)des of sr.rbsistence' were characterized by the fbrm of tech- have prcscnted cloos rrol re veal thc conditions urrrler which it takes place, whether
nology on which they were based - hunting, pasturage, agriculture, and manu* it is taking place urrdcr the slave-owner's brutal lash or the anxious eye of the
facture. As the list just given indicates, Marx's modes of production are capitalist. whether Cincinnatus undcrtakes it tilling his couple of acres, or a sav-
distinguished. in the first instance, by the social relations they involve. Each ase, when he lays low a wild beast with a stone.rH
nrode is in fact a complex, internally diftbrentiated entity. It combines a given
level of development of the productive forces with a specific set of production To answer these questions it is necessary to cclnsider the relations of produc-
relations (or, as Marx sometimes puts it, social relations of production). The tion. These consist fundarnentally in the social relations of efl-ective control
productive fbrces consist. in the first instänce, in the basic eletnents of produc- over the procluctive forces: 'Whittever the sociitl tbrm of production, workers
tion - hurnan labour-power and the material means of production it ernploys. and means of production always rernain its fhctors . . . For any production to
U K. Marx, Glrorrlr'r.s.rr, (Harmonclsworth. lc)73), p. 134.
rr' '' K. Mlrrr . ('trltitttl 1.1 r'ols. I Ilrrrnor.rdsrvrlllh. l()7(r li | ). l. 190 I
Mitr'. ltt.52. CW XXXIX, pp. (r2. (r.5. 111r. .
Lellcr lo Wcytlcrttcycr. -5
86 Marx Marx 87

take place they must be connected. The particular form and It'trttlc irr which this Marx develops and elaborates the complex set of distinctions which consti-
connection is effected is what distinguishes the different ecottrttttic epochs of tutes his theory of nrodes of production in the course of writing the vast body of
the social structure.'re The nature of- this 'connection' betwccrt labour-power manuscripts devoted to the study of one particular mode - capitalism - and
and the means of production depends crucially on who controls tltetn. Where culrninating in the three volumes of Cupital(1867. 1885, and 1894). Here his
they are controlled by the direct producers themselves, either collcctively (as starting-point is provided by classical political economy, and in particular by
under primitive or advanced communism) or individually (as in ccrtain egali- Ricardo, who does indeed portray the class structure of modern society as an
tarian peasant societies), the scope for class difTerentiation is cxtremely lim- antagonistic one. since landlorcls, capiterlists, and workers can each only in-
ited. Classes and the conflicts between them arise where a minority controls the crease their respective shares of the net product by reducing those of the others
productive forces. (see § 1.5 above). But neither Ricardo nor arly other classical econorrrist distin-
Exploitation provides the link between nrinority control and class antago- guishes between the filrces and the relations r>f production. They are therefitre
nism. [t occurs wherever a groLrp has consolidated a sufhcient degree of control led to assurtle in parrticular that any complex prodr-rctive process must necessar-
over the productive forces to compel the direct producers to labour not simply ily be organized through investment by a private enterprerreur who clairns
to nteet their own needs, and those of their dependants, but also to support this cornpensation in the filrrn of profit.
clominant group. Exploitation thus consists in the appropriation of surplus Marx introduces the c«rncept of production relations in The Povcrtv rlf'
labour - that is labclur over and above the rtecessary labour required to support Philttsolthr,(ltl47) in order t«r distinguish capital. conceived as a historically
the clirect producers - by the nrinority controlling the productive tbrces. The specific sttcial relationship, frorn the means of prodr-rctir>n (rnachinery and the
result is the division clf society between exploiters and exploited. It is this nec- like) which it uses. The effbct of confusing tcchnokrgy and social relations, as
essarily antagonistic relationship which is the basis of class division. As Geoffrey the politicitl ec«lnotnists clo, is t«l eterniz.e h«lurge«ris society by presenting its
de Ste Croix puts it, 'clirss . . . is essentially the way in which exploitation is speci{ic I'eatures :.ls necessälry prereqLrisites of proclucti<ln:
reflected in a social structure'.r" Modes of pmduction itre thus to be diffbrenti-
ated, not according to tlre fbrrn of technology which they use, but in ternrs of Whcn thc ccoltolnisls say that prcscnt-day rclltior)s - lhc relutions ol'bourqcois
the kind of exploitation on which they rest: 'What distinguishes the diffbrent production - ilrc lutturitl, thcy irnply that thcsc arc thc rclatiolts in which wcalth is
crcittccl itncl prodttclivc lirrces tlevclopc:tl in confilnnity with thc laws ol'rraturc.
economic filrrnations of society . . . is the firrrrr in which this surplus-labtltrr is
Thcsc t'cllttions thcrclilrc arc tltcnrsclvcs nalrrral Iaws inrlcperrdcnt ol'thc inllu-
in each case extorted frorn the imnrediate producer, the worker.'rr
cttcc of'titttc.'l'hcy itrc ctcrrtal laws wlticlr rnusl ulways govcnr socicty. ThLrs llrcre
The resLrlting conception of the social structure is succinctly summarit,ecl in
Itas been histrlry. but thcrc is rro longcr lrry.r'
this famous passage:
Neccssarily, therelore, Marx's star.tcc t«lwnrds classical political ccolr«lrny is
The specific fbrnt in which unpaid surplus-labour is purrtped <lut of the dircct
a critical ot'lc - hc hoth appxlpriatcs and lranslirrnts its lcacling thcories by ap-
prrtclucers determines the relationship of dontination altd scrvitttdc. its this grows
proachirtg thcttt frrttr within il vcry clil'l'orcnt li'anrcwork. ThLrs he tlkes ovcr
directly out of production itself and reucts back on it in tut'tt as a dcternlinant. On
this is based the entirc configuration ol'the cconornic coltrtttunity arising fkltn the' Ricardo's labour thcory ol'valuc, but rnakcs it thc basis ol'his irccor-rrrl ol'capi-
actual relltions ot'production, and hencc als«r its sprccilic politictl lilrrrt. It is in talist expl«rit:-ttion. Clapitalisnt is whitt Marx calls a systcnt of gcncralizcd conr-
each case the direct relationship of the owners of the conclitions of prodr,rction - a modity productiotr - in other worcls, the pnrducts ol'labonr typically take the
relationship whose particular lirrrn naturally corresponds ttl a certain levcl o1'clc- fonn tlt'cotttttroditics which arc bought ancl sold on thc rnarket. Their nrarket
velclpment of the type and ntiutner ol' labour, ancl hence ttl its socii,tl procluctivc prices tend to gravitate around their values - that is, thc socially necessilry
power - in which we find tlre innerrnt>sf secret, the hidden basis of the cntirt' labour tirne requirecl to produce therr-r. But labour'-powcr itself is a cornrnodity.
social structure, and hence also the politicat fbrm ol'the rclationship of sover- In other words, capitalist relations of production presuppose the separation of
eignty antl dependence. in short. the specilic firnn of the state in cach case.r' the direct producers fi'oltr the nleans «rf production - the ofien brutal process
of dispossessing peasants of their land that Marx describes in the English case
in part 8 of Cupitul. volurne I.
Ibid., II, p. 120. The expropriation of the peasantry gives rise to the peculiarly ambigLroLrs
G. E. M. cle Ste Croix. The Clos,s .9truggle irt the Atu-ient Greek World (London. l9tt l). p. -5 I tieedom of the worker under capitalism: he is 'fiee in the double sense that as it
Mlrx. (ir7rilr11. I, p. 325.
Ilritl.. lll, p t))1. '' CW VI. p. l7J.
B8 Marx Marx 89

free individual he can dispose of his labour-power as his own commtldity, and process governed by natural laws beyond human control. The extreme verslon
that, on the other hand, he has no other commodity fbr sale . . ' he is tiee of all of this fetishisrn is what Marx calls the 'trinity formula' developed by post-
the objects needed for the realization of his labour-power'.24 The relationship Ricardian economists, according to which the three 'factors of production' -
between worker and capitalist on the labour tnarket is sirnilarly ambiguous. In land, labour, and capital - each derives an income (respectively, rent, wages,
formal, legal terrns, they are equal, since the worker is not a slave or a serf and interest) by virtue of its contribution to the productive process. This theory,
subject to ihe direct physical power of his or her prospective employer' But in which completely eflaces the distinction between the fbrces and relations of
1..ul t..*r, those of the relations of production, they are unequal, since the worker production,
must sell his or her labour-power in order to live while the capitalist controls
the means of production which the worker lacks. The result of their market cornpletes the rnystification o1'the capitalist rnocle of production, the reillcation of
exchange is thus a bargain on unequal terms, as a result of which the worker is social relations. the immediate coalescence ol'the rnaterial relations of produc-
exploited. tion with their historical and social specilicity: the bewitchecl. distorted. topsy-
Marx's account of this process clepends critically on the distinction between turvy world haunted by Monsieur le Capital and Madame Ia Terre, who are at the
sitme time social characters and things.r"
labour ancl labour-power. Labour-pclwer is a commodity like any other, and it
therefbre has a value that consists in the value tlf those goods and services
What c«rmmo«Jity f'etishisrn thus u..r,r, is not simply the contracliction be-
which the worker must purchase in order to live ancl that is represented by the
twecn capital and labour'. Marx in ljrct identi{ies two l-undamenlal conllicts con-
wage he or she is paicl. The use ctf this labour-power consists in the activity ol'
stitutive «rl'thc capitalist n.rocle o1'prodr-rcti<ln. The first consists in the exploitittion
Iabour. Labour, accorcling tcl the labour theory (ll' value, is the source of the
of wage-labour, the second arises fi«lrn the competitive accumulation of capital
value of commodities. Now the worker typically creates lnore value in a work-
and is rcsponsiblc lirr the regular econornic criscs to which bourgeois society is
ilg diry than the value ol his or her labour-power. F<lur hours may be takerr up
creates value equal ttl that of the consumer goods
liable. This rnoclc ol' production is distinguishcd frorn earlicr firrms ol'class
*ith n...rsary labour. which
socicty by, arnong othcr things, thc lirct that the prirtte ob.iectivc of exploitation
the daily wage can purchase; the other fbur htturs, of surplus labour, creilte
is not the consurnption ol'thc cxploitcrs thernsclves. Thc bulk of thc surplus
surplus vtilue tbr the capitalist, value tor which hc has advanced no comesponding
valuc e xtractccl fronr the wrlrkins class is rcinvested irr the e xpansi«rn and irn-
value. The prolrts of capital consist in this surplus vitlue. representing the wtlrk-
provcrlrcnt ol' productiort.
er's unpaicl surplus labour, and thus, Marx claims, are n«lthing but the tiLrits ol'
This proccss. the accunrulation ol'capital, lrad alrcatJy hccn highlighted by
exploitation.
Snrith ancl uther political ccorrornists. Marx's account ol'its causcs is rrot l'unda-
This argument posits a systernatic cliscrepancy between how things appcar
'the spherc mcntally clil'l'clerrt ll'onr theirs, hut it scts thcrrtt in :r bnraclcr histrlrical corttcxt,
and how they really arc in capitalist society. The surl'itcc consists in
and his asscssnrcnt «ll' its consequerrccs docs part conrpany lirlrn thcirs. Thc
of circulation or comrnodity-exchange', of nrarket transactions such as th«rsc
bourgcoisie, hc argLlcs, is a clilss dividecl ar)rong cotnpctittg. nrutttally antago-
between capitalist and worker. These apparently ctlnsist i11 saL:hanSes betweert
nistic, capitals: 'Capital exists anclcan only cxist as rnirny capitals.'17 Irrdiviclual
fr-ee and equal commoclity-owners. 'a very Eden o1'the innate rights ol' tttittt . . .
capitalists conrpctc with each othcr in ordcr to gain lilr thernselves thc largcst
the exclusive realrn o1'Freedom, Equality, Property and Benthanl'. Beneath thc
possible share of the surplus value thcy havc collcctivcly extracted fhlm the
surfirce, however, once we enter 'the hiclclen itbtlde tlf prtlduc{.i{)ll', wt) discovcr
working class: 'Thc capitalists, likc hostile brothers, dividc arnong thernselvcs
that the worker is exploitecl. An understanding of thc underlying structtlre ol'
the loot of other people's labour.'r*
the capitalist econorny is, however. irnpeded by the very operation tlf that
It is this process ol'cornpetition which is rcsponsible lor the accurnulation of
economy. The fäct that the products of hurnan labour circulate tln the Irlarket
capital. Marx rcjects any cultural or psychological explanation firr the priority
gives rise to what Marx calls 'the f-etishism of the conrrnodity': 'the definite
the capitalist gives to accurnulation: 'in so firr as he is capital personified, his
social relation between men thenrselves . . . assunles here, fbr them, the tantas-
motivating firrce is . . . but the acquisition and augmentation of excharrge-
tic fbrm of a relation between things'.rs
values . . . As such. he shares with the miser an absolute drive towards self'-
Since the social relationship between producers is rnediated by the exchange
enrichment. But what appears in the miser as the mania of un individual is
of their products, the market economy Comes to be Seen as an autonolllous
16 Ibid., III, p. 969 (translation rnodified).
rr Murx. Cultitol.l, pP. 272-3. '' Marx, GruntJri,yse, p. 414.
ri lbitl.. l, pP. 279 ttO' l6-5. '* K. Marx.'I'ltcrtric.t of .Strrytlus-Vultrt (3 vols. Moscow. l()(r.l 721. II. p.29
90 Marx Marx 91

in the capitalist the effect of a social mechanism in which hc is rrrcrcly a cog.'2e other means of production (the rationale for these names is that only variable
An individual firm which fails to match its rivals' investrncnt irr pxrductivity- capital is responsible for the self-expansion of capital, since Iabour is the source
enhancing innovations will find itself undercut and driven oul ol'business. This of surplus value). The investment imposecl on capitals by corlpetition tends to
is the 'social mechanism' that promotes capitalism's tenclcncy to expand the be labour-saving - in other words, it increases the productivity of labour by
productive forces. The peculiar dynamism and instability ol'bourgeois society allowing f.ewer workers to prclduce a given output with the help of ntore ma-
arise from this tendency: chinery. The ratio of constant to variable capital what Marx calls the organic
-
composition of capital - therefbre rises. A given investment is theretbre liable
The bourgeoisie cannot exist withourt constantly revolutionizing the instmments to ctlnsist in a larger proportion of capital invested in the means of production
of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with thern the whole and a smaller prtlportion invested in labour-power than irr the irnmecliate past.
relations of society . . . Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted dis- But clnly labour-power creates value and surplus value. If the total investment
turbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish grows relative to the variable capital invested in labour-power, then the rate of
the bour-ueois epoch lionr all carlicr ones. All tixed, fast-frozen relations, with
profit - the retttrn tlre capitalist rnakes on this total investrrren[ rnust lall.
their train of ancient and veneritble prejudices and opinions. are swept away, all -
An obvious ob.iection to this theory is that it is sr.rrely irrational firr capitalists
new-tirrmed ones become anticprated befirre they can ossifi. All that is solid melts
into air, all that is holy is prolhned, antl rnan is at last cclmpelled to face with sober
to undertakc investntents which lcad to a lull in thc rate ol'prolit. Marx's expla-
senses. his real conditions of lil'c. and his re lations with his kind.r0 natitltt appears ttl lack whitt are sometirnes callcd 'rnicrofounclations' in other
-
wtlrds' it gives no ilccoLlnt ttl'the tnolivations which w6ulcl leacl capitalists t.
These celebratccl lines f«lrn the Conutruttist Mcrnifesto, written shortly bc- prtlducc this resLllt. In firct, Marx does provide such an account. He suggests
fbre the 1848 rcvolutions, explain the 'everlitsting uncerterinty and agitation' ol' that innovatiotls are initiated hy sonlc incliviclual capitalist wh«r undcrtakes ar
modern times as a consequcnce of the particular rnotivations which capitalist productivity-cnhancirrg investltrent bccausc it will l«rwcr his costs 9f precl1c-
production relatir>ns encoLrrage in econonric actors. But, if tlris condition is thus titln below thc avcragc filr his scctor. The innovatur is the rcby able to reap extra
historically situated. its ternrination is also ann«runcecl. Capitalisnr is not thc pKl[its itttcl to ttndel'cut his l'ivals. Thcy in tunr rnr.rst copy his inn6vlti.lt il'they
cnd of history, nrercly a transitory lirrrn ol' social prcduction. The very tcrt- itrc to stay in business. Once thcy d«r so, itvcragc costs irr thc scct«rr l)rll t«l the
dency towards capital accunrr"rlation thaL is thc source of its dynamisrl also lovel cstahlishcd hy thc inltovatrlr. His spccial actvantage clisappcars, but, 1s ir
reveals its inhcrent lirnits. result tll'this routld «rf intt«rvitliolt. the orgarric colrrpositiorr of capital has risen,
In the third volunre ol'Cupit«1, Marx cliscusscs thc tenderrcy of thc ratc ol' arld so thc overall ratc «rf profit firlls. A scric:s ol'inclividLrally rati11lal dccisi«lns
profit to fhll which Ricardo hacl alrcady p«rstulatccl (sce § 1.5 above). Ricarclo produccs a gltlhally irrali«rrtitl rcsult. Snrith hacl pointctJ t9 the way in which
based his explanation <11-this terndency on Malthr"rs's law ol'population: dinrirt- individLlal acti«ltts corttbine to protlucc unintcnclccl conscquences (see 1.3
s
ishin-g returns in agriculturc woulcl rnake it rnore expensive to producc filocl abtlve): herc, htlwcvcr, thcrc is no'invisible hancl' to cr.rsurc that thcse conse-
ancl thercby cirLrse wa-scrs lo risc ancl prolits to lall. Hcnryk Grossrnan clcscribcs qucr)ccs rnaxirnize tlre gencral wcllirrc.
this theory as 'pseudo-dynantics, r.rs thc dynarnic lactrlr is not inhercnt in the Tw<l tlthct' I'caturcs ol'Marx's thcrlry «lf whitt he calls 'the law of thc tcnclcncy
econonric process itself, but is rathcr a rtaturitl lorcc which inl'luenccs the tlf thc ratc of prtlfit ttl f all' are worth noting. First, whercas Ricarc6 cxpl,ins
economic process fr«rrn the outsidc'.tr Marx, by contrasl, trcats thc tcndcncy falling prolits by firlling productivity (specifically in the agricultural sector),lirr
of the rate of prolit to lirll as a consequence «rl'the intrinsic charactcr o1'capital- Marx thcy are a conseqLtence of ri,sing productivity. The growth ol' nteirns sl
isrn its a socio-economic systern. production relative to laboLtr-power represc'nts the increa.seci p«rductivity of
Central to his acc«runt is the suggestion that capital accur-nulation will pnl- labcltlr: each workcr operates a larger quantity of rnachincry ancl processes more
gressively change the structure ol'production itself. To conceptualize this struc- raw materials in order to produce a greater number of goods. Yet the expression
ture Marx distinguishes between variable capital, which is invested in employing in value terms of this development of the productive fbrces is the risingorganic
labour-power. and constant cerpital, the valLre of machinery, raw materials, and composition of capital and hence a fall in the rate of profit: 'The progressive
tendency fbr the general rate of prolit to fall is thus simply the expression,
rq pecttliar to the cupitalist mode of production, of the progressive development
Marx, Capitd,l, p.739.
'ro CIYVI, p.487. of the social productivity of labour.'32
'r II. Grossrnann. 'Marr. Classicirl Political Econolt.ty and the Prohlenr of Dynamics',11. Capitol
ttttrl ('ltt,:.s.3 (l()17\. p.67. '' Mitrx, (.rt1t11q1l.lll. p il<).
92 Marx Marx 93
Secondly, Marx only posits a tendenc), of the rate of profit to lall rather than At a certairl stage of development, the material productive fbrces of society conle
an absolute trend. He argues that there are 'counteracting influcnccs at work, into conflict with the existing relations of production or - this merely expresses
checking and cancelling the effect of the general law, and giving it simply the the same thing in legal terms - with the property relations within the framework
I character of a tendency'. Indeed: 'the same causes which produce a fall in the of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development these relations
general rate of prolit provoke counter-efTects that inhibit this fall, delay it and turn into their f-etters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution.r5
in part even paralyse it'. Marx discusses various such'counteracting factors',
though perhaps the rnost interesting of these - recurrent economic crises - is Each mode of production thus experiences, broadly speaking, two phases -
not fbrmally listed as one. 'Crises are never more than momentary and violent the first in which the relations of production stimulate the development of the
solutions of the existing contradictions,' he argues, 'violent eruptions that re- forces of production, the second in which they becorne limits to further eco-
establish the disturbed balance for the time being.' Crises occur when the fall in nomic growth. A peculiarity of the capitalist mode of production is that both
the rate of profit makes new investment irrational. Output and employment fäll, these phases are to some degree integrated in the trade cycle, growth and stag-
and firms go bankrupt. This process represents the destruction of capital, since nation succeeding each other during the course of each individual cycle. How,
assets decline in value and may even be physically scrapped. The effect is to then, do these structuralcontradictions, the result of tendencies inherent in every
reduce the overall amount of capital in the economy. But the t-alling rate of mode of production, bring abr>ut social revoluticln, and thus the establishment
profit originated in the fact that total investnlents had risen relative to the source of new production relations perrnitting the further dcvclopment of the prclcluc-
of surplus value, narnely labour-power. The destruction of capital during a re- tive filrccs'?
cession, by reducing the size of these investments, will tend to restore the rate It is here that the class struggle assumes particular irnportance. Marx ancl
of profit to a level where economic expansion can be resumed: Engels gave their most precise formulatir>n of its role in 1879, near the end of
the fbrmer's lif'e: 'For almost 40 years we have ernphasized that the class strug-
The periodical devaluation of the existing capital. which is a means, immanent to gle is the ilnlnediate motive filrce of history and, in particullar, that the class
the capitalist rnode of production, fbr delaying the tall in the prolit rate and acceler- struggle between bourseoisie and proletariat is the great Iever of modern social
ating the accumulation of capital-value, distLrrbs the given conditions within which revolutitrrl.'r" To call the class struqgle 'the intmctliute ntotive fbrce of history'
the process of circulation and reproduction-process of capital take place, and is suggests that there is a tnore fund:.rnrental one behind it. Marx in fact posits two
therefore accompanied by sudden stoppages and crises in the production process.I mechanislns tlt'historical change - the tendency trlr structural contradictions to
develop between the firrces and relations ol'production, and the class struggle
Economic crises are thus 'immanent' to the capitalist mode of production as arising frorn the division of society between exploiters and exploited. The latter
both a consequence of. and a means of temporarily overcoming, the tendency of is a chrtlnic t'eature of every class society - 'an uninterru;ttecl, now hidden, now
the rate of profit to fall. Yet the fact that stable economic growth can only be open fight'. in the words of the Munife,sto - but it becomes more intense when
restored for a while by such disruptive means is a sign of the inherent limits of a systelnic crisis devclops, uslrering in 'an epoch of s«lcial revolution'.r7
bourgeois society: 'The true barrier of capitalist production is capital itself.'34 Dtt such periods of acute class struggle inevitably produce social revolution
The business cycle of boom and slump which Marx was the first systematically to itself'/ Nunterous colnmentators have been quick to clairn that Marx believed
analyse arises from the extreme tensions caused by the subordination of the de- that they d<t, itnd accordingly to ascribe to him a fatalistic or deterministic con-
velopment of the productive forces to the priorities of competitive accumulation. ception of history. There are certainly passages in his writings which support
such an interpretation. Thus, afier describing the expropriation of the small
producers during the phase of the 'prirnitive accumulartion' of capital, Marx
4.3 Class struggle and revolution declares: 'Br"rt capitalist production begets, with the inexorability of a natural
process, its own negation. This is the negation of the negation' in which the
The conflict which Marx discerned between the forces and relations of produc- capitalist expropriators are themselves expropriated.ss Here we see the influ-
tion in capitalist society was, he believed, merely one instance of a larger pat- ence on him of the teleological philosophy of history developed by Hegel and
tern. Successive modes of production have each experienced a systemic crisis
deriving from this same conflict: '5 K. Marx , A Corttributiort to the Critique Ltf Political Et:onon\,(London. 197 l). p. 2l .

I Ibid.. III. pp. 339,


"' CW XXIV, p.269.
347.
lhid.. lll. p.3-5tt.
-1.+5. 3-5tt.
" CW VI, p. -ltl2.
" 'n Mllrx, ('tt1tit,rl. l. p. t)'rt).
94 Marx Marx 95

inherited by Feuerbach, according to which alienation is it ncccss:rry phase of as thechief victim of bourgeois society. But, precisely because of its sufTerings
development in order to achieve the full. enriched self'-consciottsttcss that is the and deprivations, the working class was thought to be incapable of undertaking
goal of the dialectical process (see §§2.2 and 4.1 above). independent political action. Social change would come about as a result of the
Yet much of Marx's thinking is hard to reconcile with such u historical tele- action of an enlightened elite, whether this was identified with progressively-
ology. 'Men rnake history,' he famously wrote, 'but they do nttt Itritke it just as rninded businessmen, as it was by Fourier who hoped to persuade them to
they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by thclnselves, but finance his phalansteries, or with the kind of revolutionary conspiracies to
under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted fiom the past.'3e which Auguste Blanqui and other early French communists devoted their pol-
Human action is constrained, this passage suggests; it is subiect in particular to itical activity.
the structr-rral limits constituted by the forces and relations of production, but it Marx believed that neither gradual refbrm nor insurrectionary putsches could
is not determined in such a way as to make what happens the inevitable conse- fundamentally transform society. He also rejected the idea that the working
quence of these limits. In the even more celebrated opening lines of the Mani' class was too corrupted and distorted by its rnaterial situation to carry out a
'each time ended, either in the revolution as 'bound to divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to
.festo, Marx says that the class struggle in the past
revolutionary rbconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the society'.12 His opposition to what he regarded as elitist conceptions of social
contending classes'. This suggests that the systemic crisis of a mode of produc- change did not mean that Marx deniecl the existence of obstacles to revolution.
tion poses alternatives rather than deternrining oLltcomes. But the same chapter On the contrary, his theory of ideology, first devel«rped with respect to religion
concludes with the prediction that the 'tall the bourgeoisie] and the victory (see §4.1 above), atsserted that social mechanisms caused the widespread ac-
Iof
of the proletariat are equally inevitable'.40 ceptance of beliefs supprlrtive of'the existing rlrder. Thus:
Two poles can thus be detected in Marx's thought, each resting on one of the
The icleas ol'the ruling class are in every cpoch the nrling ideas: i.c., thc ruling class
mechanisms of historical change he posits - the tendency for the productivc
which is the ruling nruteriulfirrcc ol'society is at the sarnc tir-ne its ruling intellect-
forces to develop, on the one hand, with the irnplications of inevitable progress
rrrrl lirrcc. The class which has thc nlctrls ol'rnaterial production at its disposal,
this can be made to carry, and the class struggle, on the other, full of contingerl-
cottscrptcntly also controls lhe nreans of rncntal production, so [hat thc ideas of
cies and uncertainties. Later Marxists would gravitate towards one of thesc thosc who lack thc nreans ol'rncntal prlduction irrc on the whole sub.icct to it.a'
poles - for example, Kautsky towards the first and a lnore fatalist version tlf
historical materialism (see §-5.2 below), Lukäcs towards the second and a thetlry This passagc li'orn Tltc Gcnnun ldcolog.v asserts what is sonretirncs called
of class subjectivity (see §9.1 below). the 'drlrninant ideology thesis': the social powcr o1'the exploiting class alklws
Marx's account of socialist revolution certainly inclines in the latter direc- it to irnpose its ideas on socicty gerrcrally. This the«ll'y bcars at lcast a lirnrily
tion. His theory of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall does not imply that resernblance to thc Enlightenrnent critique oIorganized rcligi«ln as a c«rnspiracy
capitalism is liable to break dclwn simply because of its economic c<lntraclic- of priests and rulcrs: both sccnr lo view the rnasses as passive rcccptaclcs firr
tions (some later Marxists did seek to develop a theory of capitalist collapse, the 'ruling ideas'. The theory of c«rnrrn«ldity l'ctishisrn developed in Cupitol
most notably Rosa LuxemburginTlrc At't'utnu\utittn ot''Cu1titulII9I3l, but suclr (see §4.2 above) posits it dil'l'erent nrechanisnr which does not presume on rnass
attempts were always fiercely contestecl by other Marxist economists). Mitrx's passivity. The daily workings ol'the rnarket economy cncourage individuals to
own expectations fbr the downfall of capitalism depended crucially on the cle- see it irs iln elutononroLrs proccss g«rverned by rratural laws. This percepti«ln is
velopment of the workirrg class into a self-conscit-rus political subject capable not sirnply an error: 'To the producers . . . thc social relations between their
of taking control of society. Socialist revolution is indeed necessarily a process private labours appear asv,ltrtt they- are, i.e. they do not appear as direct social
of selJ'-emancipation: 'The emancipation of the working class ntust be achieved relations between persons in their wnrk, but rather as rnaterial relations be-
by the working class itself.'ar tween persons and social relations between things.'aa The social relations
In thus making working-class self'-ernancipation the key to social transfitr- between producers are mediated by the exchange of their products on the
mation Marx was going against the mainstream of contemporary radicalthought. market: it is this real f'eature of a cornmodity economy which fäcilitates the
The Utopian socialists certainly thought of the ernerging industrial proletariat perception of capitalism as a natural phenomenon outside human control.

re CWXl.p. 103. CW Y, p.7.


1o CiV VI, pp. 4ti2.496. ClYV. p.59.
1t ('W XXIV. p. 2(r9. Marx. ('rt1ti1,11.1. p. 166 (emphitsis atlilcd)
96 Marx Marx 97

exploiting class might exercise its political domination indirectly - neither in


The class struggle represents the main counter-force to such pressures to
Napoleon II['s Second Empire (1851*70) nor in post-Refbrm Britain, Marx
accept the existing order. Marx sees this as arising in the first instance from the
believed, did industrial capital directly exercise political power, even though
economic conflict within the process of production over the distribution of the
the state still promoted its interests, but universally '[p]olitical power . . . is
net product between wages and profits. Contrary to legend. he does not accept
merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another'.48
the Malthusian 'iron law of wages', according to which workers' incomes tend
This theory of the state explains his further belief that the 'dictatorship of the
towards a bare minimum of physical subsistence (see § I .5 above). On the con-
proletariat' was a necessary prerequisite fbr the achievement of communism.
trary, the share of profits (and hence of wages) may be set anywhere within the
In overthrowing capitalism, the workers would have to forge their own state in
limits set by this physical minimum and the net value created by the workers:
order to overwhelm bourgeois resistance and lay the basis of the future society.
'The fixation of its actual degree is only settled by the continuous struggle be-
Marx's view of what this state would be like became rnore definite as a result of
tween capital and labolrr . . . The matter resolves itself into a question of the
the Paris Commune of lU7l, when the city's krwer classes briefly took control.
respective powers of the combatants.'15
He described the Cotnrnune as 'the political fbrm at last discovered under which
This analysis leads Marx (going once more against the socialist orthodoxy of
to work out the economic emancipntion of labour'. The f'eatures of the Com-
his day) to view trade unions positively, since the better organized workers are,
mune which he stressed were those which broke down the distinction between
the better they will färe in the struggle over distributiotr. Trade unions can,
the state apparatus and the mass of the popurlation and extended popular par-
however, only combat the ef'fbcts of capitalist exploitation rather than abolish it
ticipatirln in governrnent - the aholition ol-the sLanding anny and the police,
altogether; the capitalists' control over investment, and their consequent power
their replitcemenf by a popular rnilitia, the election subject to the right of irnme-
to increase the rate of unemployment and thereby to undermine workers' bilr-
diate recall of .judges ancl other public officials, and the reduction of their sala-
gaining position, gives them the ultimate aclvantage in purely distributional
ries to the average wagc. Indeed, the Conrnrune 'was a Revolution against the
conflicts. The most important function of trade unions frlr Marx is their role in
Stute itsclf. this supcrnaturalist abortion ol-society, a resullption by the people
increasing workers' selt'-confidence and strengthening their organization. The
filr tlre people, of it.s own social lit'e'.r')
experience of class struggle, even over relatively narrow economic issttes, helps
Already in the early lU40s Marx hacl fircusccl his criticisrn on the nrodern
the workers to transfirrrn themselves from mere victirls of expl«lititti«rn inlo
state as an rthstracti«ln alicrrated lirlnr an atornized civil society and propt-rsed its
self--conscious subiects increasingly willing to take on the task of sociitl trans-
dissolutiott along with that ol'civil socicty itsclf (scc §4.1 abovc). This therne
formation. The latter process must thus be underst<lod as the 'coinciclence ot'
continucs to inforrn his later political writings, where it is not only integrated
changing of circumstances ancl of htttnan activity <tr sell'-change'.4t'
into his ntature theory ol'history, but also reinlilrced by a I'erocious critique of
The trajectory of the working-class movement would be tiorn econorrric is-
the hr.rreaucrittic ttatut'c ol'thc rtroderrt statc. Thus Mitrx, in it rnanner strikingly
sues concerning either individual etnployers or groups of thern to p«tlitical oncs
sirnilar to Trrcqucvillc's, traccs thc devcloprncnt ol'the Frcnch statc, 'with its
involving confrontation with the state (Marx was here to some degrce gcneral-
enol-tnous bureaucratic and military organizatiorr, with its extensive aurcl artifi-
izing from the experience of the early British workers' n.lovernent as it clevel-
cial state ntachinery, with a host ol'ol'licials nunrbcring hall'a nrillion, besides
oped from early attempts to tbrm tracle unions to the Chartist derrtitntls lirr
an anny ol'another halla nrillion, this appalling parasitic bocly', and argues that
manhood suffrage in the 1840s). Already in his early writings Marx had
'all Icvolutiotts pcrf'cctcd this rnachinc instcad of breaking it. Thc parties that
criticized the limited character of the 'political enrancipation' achieved by the
conteltdcd in turn for dornination regarded possession ol'this huge state edifice
Frerrch Revolution: 'The so-called right,s o.f'mon... are nothingbut the rights
as the principal spoils ol'the victor.'50
of a memlter oJ'civil 'sociel.1', i.e. the rights of cgoistic man, of man separated
Socialist revolution, then, el.f'ects the destruction of this bureaucratic and
from other men and fiorn the community.' A fuller 'hurnan emancipation' was
military erpparatus, and replaces it with politiczrl institutions through which the
necessary to overcome the separation of the state fiom civil society.ai
working class directly participates in the process of government. This concep-
Once he had fbrmulated his nraterialist concepticln of history, Marx came to
tion of revolution indicates that Marx does not equate socialism with the expan-
see the kind of state produced by'political emancipation', the modern liberal
sion of state power, say, through the nationalization of the means of production.
parliamentary state, as, like indeed all states, a means of class domination. The

rs
]lt CWVI. p. -505.
CW XX. p. 146. 're
16 ('lV V. p. 4. CW XXll. pp.334,486.
Str CW XI.
t' ('W Ill. pp. l(rl. l6li. PP I l(.5 (r.
rT 1l

lri
I

9B Marx Marx 99

i On the contrary: 'Freedom consists in converting the state fiom an organ super- tinue afier classes have been abolished. Marx's vision of comrnunism is thus
i

imposed upon society to one completely subordinzlte to it.'sr Furtherrnore, Marx's closely connected with the theory of hurnan nature that continues to intbrrn his
I
view of socialism as self--emancipation seems to bear a family resemblance to mature writings.
the classical republican conception of liberty as the property of a collective Marx continues to command our attention not simply because of his enor-
ri agent (see § 1.5 above). Transformed and rendered self-confident through the
experience of the class struggle, the workers under the dictatorship of the prol-
mous influence. His social theory is comparable only to Hegel's in the complex
and integrated analysis it oftbrs of modernity within a broader interpretation of
etariat cease to be subjects and becorne citizens in the real sense of the word, history. Weber is perhaps the only modern social thinker whose writings match
collectively exercising self-mastery through their active participation in, and Marx's scope and depth (indeed, their historical range is much greater), but his
direction of, the political process. In this version. however, Rousseau's prob- is a much tenser, more arlbivalent theory, always, as it wele, on the verge of
lern of overcoming the conflict between the private and the general will is ap- breaking int«r l'ragments. But thus conrparing Marx with Hegel serves to high-
parently avoided, since it is the workers' cla,vs interest that leads them to light the reasons why so many express profound scepticism about hirtr. For, in
undertake 'universal emancipation'. Marx thus conceives the proletariat as the constructing a 'grand narrative' that claims in principlc to cornprehend the en-
'universal class' which Hegel had thought the bureaucracy to be. tire c«rurse t>l'history, is he not liable to a materialist reductionism as disabling
Even this universal emancipation is, however, merely a prelude to the attain- as Hegel's idealist recluctionisrn'l Most of the numerous detailed criticisrns of
ment of a developed communist society. Deeply critical of the Utopian social- individual aspects of Marx's thought (though not all - the issue of the internal
ists' attempts to anticipate the course of history by developing detailed accounts consistency of his economic theory has provoked extensive debate) - lbr ex-
of post-capitalist society. Marx says very little about comrnunism. In one of his ample, his supposed neglect of national and ethnic conflicts. and his apparent
last important texts, the Critique oftlrc Gotha Progrurnnre ( 1875), he suggests failure to anticipate capitalism's capacity to renew itsell'- as well as the assess-
that distribution in the 'higher phase of communist society' will be regulated by ment ol'the historical tate of his doctrine alier the Russian Revolution. turn
the principle 'From each according to his abilities, to eaclr according to his ultinrately orr this l-undarnental question. How well the tradition he filunded
needs.' Operating on this basis presupposes certain conclitions only gradually has been ahle todeal with this challenge nray enrerge in the rest ol'this book.
achieved afler the overthr<lw of capitalism, notably the transcendence of 'the
enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labour, irnd thereby
also of the antithesis between mental and physical labour', labour's becorning
'not only a means of lif'e but lif-e's prime want'. and the further gnlwth of the
productive fbrces 'with the all-round development of the individual'.sr
This passage shows Marx attempting to give a historically realistic arccount
of the conditir>ns on which a communist society would depend (how success-
fully is, of course, ilnother matter). It also presupposes the view of hunran
nature he had developed in his early writings, notably the Ec'ortorttic' und
Philosophit: Munuscript,s, where labour is affirrned as 'the essence of man' (see
§4.1 above). A society where labour is 'lif'e's prime want' is one where hurnan
beings are able to fulfil themselves as inventive social producers. It is because,
on this view, well-being consists in self--realization through creertive activity
that the members of communist society can be persuaded to accept a distrib-
utional principle which abjures material incentives and allocates on the basis of
need. Furthermore, since human beings fulfil themselves actively, socialist rev-
olution marks, not the end of history. but the end of the 'prehistory of human
society':53 history - the refäshioning of the world by social labour - will con-

CW XXLY,p.94.
CiV XXIV. p. tt7.
Mrrrx, ( iltlr'i lttt I i t ttt. 1'». 22
I

Life and Power


I

101
i

Now, we propose in the first place to show, that this law of organic progress is
the law of all progress. Whether it be in the development of the Earth, in the
development of Life upon its surface, in the development of Society, of Govern-
ment, of Manufäctures, of Commerce, of Language, Literature, Science, Art, this
same evolution fiom the sirnple to the complex, through successive differentia-

Life and Power tions. From the earliest traceable cosmical changes down to the latest results of
I

civilization, we shall find that the transfbrmation of the homogenous into the
heterogeneoLrs, is that in which progress essentially consists.r
I

Darwin thus cannot be seen as the parent of such views. The scientific model
ofl.ered by Sir Charles Lyell in his Principles of'Geologv ( 1830) - the recon-
struction of the historical past on the basis of inf-erences tiom unifbrm laws of
nature - exerted a powerful influence on Victorian social scientists. One of
the main problerns which their theories were constructed to address was that
5.1 Evolution before and after Darwin of the evidence of 'primitive' societies provided by archaeological evidence
and. more importantly, by the experience of colonial administration in Eu-
Marx's is the most important instance of the class of evolutionary social theo- rope's Asian and Atiican empires. The concept of a progressive evolutionary
sequence allowed practitioners nf the new discipline of anthropology (or ethol-
ries.It involves, in other words, a theory of history which ( l) distinguishes
between kinds of society (on the basis of the fbrces and relations of production ogy) both to affirm the continuity of human social filrms and to diffbrentiate
that prevail in them); (2) specifies the mechanisms which cause one kind of between 'bitrbarous' ancl 'civilizec'l' societies, with, of course, modern West-
society to change into another (contradictions between the fbrces and relations, ern civilization cilnstituting the chief'instance of'the latter. Thus the outcome
and class struggle); and (3) claims that these changes curnulatively represent of the c«rmparisons conclucted by Mainc in Anciant Luw,(ltl6l) is that 'the
the increase of a specific property (the development of the productive filrces). movcrncnt of the progressive s«lcicties has hitherto been a movernent.from
Stcttu.s lo Contnu'I', frorn f'eudal ancl Asiatic hicrarchy t<l nroclern bourgeois
Earlier versions of such theories of history had, of course, been developed dLrr-
ing the Enlightenment (see § 1.4 above). Around the rliddle of the nineteenth indiviclualism.r
Inasmuch as evolutionists such as Spencer clrew on evolutiorlary biology, it
century, however, a variant of evolutionary social theory became increasingly
tendecl to bc thc vcrsion cleveloped by Lanrarck.r In his Philo,yophic z.oologique
influential which treated the pattern of development of hurnan history as rncrely
a specilic case of the process of evolution at work in the living wclrld generally.
(1809), Lamarck ardvanccd thc idea of 'transfirrrnisrn': the existing world of
This developrnent is, of course, closely associated with Darwin's thcory ot' living organisms is the rcsult «lf the gradual rnodifications their ancestors un-
evolution by natural selection.r Yet the idea of an evolutionary conception o1' derwent over the course ol'tirne. These lranstilrmations constitute a directional
process, il rnoverncnt fiotn the sirnple t«l the cornplcx, that represents at the
both nature and society had been fbrmulated befbre his Origirt. of'Spec'ia,r was
published in 1859. Spencer wrote in an essay which appeared two years earlier: same time the progressive pcrl-cction «rf the living world: increased cornplexity
is a sign ol'greater perf'ecticln. This process is driven by two tbrces, a kind of
It is settled beyond dispute that organic progress consists in a change fiorn the inner drive that'ceaselessly tends to make organization more complex', and
homogenous to the heterogeneous. the adaptations which rlrganisms make to cope better with their environment.
Lamarck believed that organisnrs were so plastic that the action on them of
their environment would directly cause adaptive modifications in thern; he

r Charles Robert Darwin (ltt09-82): born ir.rto the English uppcr middle clasststr,rdied at Edin- r H. Spencer, E'^r'.rrr-y.r.' Scientil'i<', Politit'al, untl Speculatit'e (3 vols, London, l89l), I, p. 10.
burgh and Cambridge universities; abandoned the idea of taking the cloth firr scientific studies;
IJerbert Spencer ( 1820-c)3): the largely self'-educated author of a voluminous body of philosophi-
took part in HMS Beagle's scientific survey, I 83 1-6; fbrmulated the theory of natural selectiou in
cll, scierltific, sociological, and political writings.
1838, but only published it in 1859 atler A. R. Wallace developed a version of the same idea;
' H. S. Maine, Ancient Luw,ed. F. Pollock (London, 1901).p. 174.
intellcctually darirrg but personally timid - the prospect of contiontation sent him to bed with | .lc'an Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet. Chevalier cle I-anrarck (1144-lfl29): natural historiun:
stor.turclt I rotrhlcs.
hclltctl establish thc Nrttiorlrl Mttscunr <lf Ntrlrrrll [-lislory irr I'lrris ilr l7()-1.
102 Life and Power Life and Power 103

further argued that these adaptations would be passed on to the organisms' to a given environment, some variations will allow organisms to reproduce
descendants: 'the generation between the individuals in question preserves the better than others.
acquired modifi cations' .5 Frorn these premisses. Darwin drew the following conclusion:
Lamarck's theory of evolution is thus teleological, since the process of gradual
modification is governed by the goal of perfection, even if nature is no longer Owing to this struggle fbr life, any variation, however slight and fiorn whatever
cause proceeding, if it be in any degree profitable to an individual of any species,
'
conceived as the creation of a divine artificer. Frangois Jacob writes:
in its infinitely complex relations to any other organic beings and to external
nirture, will tend to the preservation of that individual, antl will generally be in-
According to Lamarck, Iinality does not involve a primary intention, a decision to
herited by its oft.spring. The off.spring. also, will thr-rs have a better chance of
produce a living world and gradually guide its development. It is made up of
l

surviving, tor, of the many inclividuals which are periodically born, br"rt a srnall
short-term finalities, so to speak, each centred on the well-heing «lf an organisn-t
nurnber can survive. I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if
that is to be produced later, since adaptive intention always precetles realization.
usel'ul, is preserved, by the terrn Natural Selecti<ln.')
In the enil, the plan followed by nature is airned at providing the world with
always more complex, more pert'ect and better adapted organisms.6
The theory of natural selection ofl'ers an explanation of evolution that is,
as Elliott Sober puts it, 'selecticlnal' rather than 'clevelopnrental'.r0 Historical
One can understand why such a theory should appeal to those eager to present
rii
materialisnr is an example of a developmental theory: according to Marx, soci-
their own society as the pinnacle of the entire evolutionary process: we shall
eties change as a result of the contradictions internal to thern. But. for Darwin,
see how this conception of change as a process of progressive difterentiation
evolution occurs not because individuals develop, but because they vary'. More
exerted a powerful influence on social theorists, commencing with Spencer
specifically, the f'act that sorne of these variations adapt the organisrns bearing
(§5.2 below). It is, however. crucial to understand that Darwin's theory of
them bettcr to their environment and that thesc organisrns are able to pass orr
evolution is radically at odds with this conception. In the Origin of'Species,
these variations to their descendants changes the cornposition of the population
he sought to establish two fundamental points. First, he offbred evidence of
of organisnrs over tirne - these clescertdants, other things bcing equal, come to
the fact of evolution - of 'descent by modification'. In other words, existing
represent a larger prop«rrtion ofthe population.
species of plants and organisms are not 'special creations'. as Christian tlrtho-
But, furthcr, as Jacoh puts it.'Ivlariation occurs randomly, that is, without
doxy still asserted, products of divine design, but are the descendants of earlier
any relation between cause and result.'rr This does not rnean that adaptive vari-
species. But Darwin's real originality lay in the explanation he tlf'fered firr
ations are sirnply accidents lacking any cilusal explanatiorr. On thc contrary,
evolution - natural selection: 'l am convinced that Natural Selectitln has been
Darwin was str«lngly influenced by Lyell's 'unifirnnitarian' assurnption that
the main but not exclusive means of modification.'7
the sarne cuuserl laws opcrate universally.The crucial point is that the causes of
Darwin indeed calls his book 'one long argument' tbr natural selection. This
variations have nothing to d«l with their potentially adaptive consequences.
argument is based on the following premisses. In the first place, 'many morc
Evolution is thus a hlind process, driven not as Lamarck claimed by an implicit
individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive . . . consequently.
force driving towards greater perl'ection, but by the interaction between inde-
there is a tiequently recurring struggle for existence'. Secondly, individual or-
pendently varying organisrns and their environmcnt. All thc diversity of lif'e is
ganisms vary, usually in small, but sometirnes in significant ways. Thirdly.
thus t<l be understood printarily as the consequence of 'this very slow, inter-
Darwin afhrmed 'the strong principle of inheritance': organisms are able ttl mittent action of natural selection'.rr
pass on variations to their offspring. He confessed to not understanding the
In fbrmulating the theory of natural selection Darwin was influenced by his
mechanisms through which this happened: 'Our ignorance of the laws of vari-
extensive reading of Scottish political economy. Sober points to the analogy
ation is profound.'8 (According to the 'Modern Synthesis' established in between Smith's 'invisible hand' (see 5\ 1.3 above) and the idea that 'the strug-
twentieth-century biology, inheritance operates through the genes - strings of gle for existence favours individual adaptive characteristics and thereby increases
DNA molecules which govern the manufacture of proteins - passed on by par- the level of adaptedness in the population'.r3 Darwin himself says the concept
ents to their offspring.) Finally. organisms exhibit differential fitness: relative
Ibid., p. ll5.
5 Quoted in F. .lacob. The Logic ofl.iving Svstems (London, 1974), pp. 141-8. 149'
lo
E. Sober, The Noture o.f'Scl<,oion (Chicago, lL)93), pp. 147ff .

6 Ibid., p. 150.
il
Jacob, Logic,p.174.
7 C. Darwin,Tlrc Or,qin tl'Spc<'ies h),Meun,y of Nuturtrlselec'tion (Harmondsworth, 1968), p.69. I)arwin, Origin, p. 1-53.
n Ibitl.. pp. -115. 6l{. 102.
tt
Sol'rcr. N«ttr t't'- p. I li().
104 Life and Power Life and Power 105

of the 'Struggle for Existence' is 'the doctrine of Malthus applied with mani- For a theory of society to be evolutionary three conditions must hold:
( l) The theory involves a typology of social fornts which potentiallt, has some
fold force to the whole animal and ve-{etable kingdoms'. But he is careful to
qualify this statement: '[ use the term Struggle for Existence in a large and kind of directionaliry ro it . . .
(2) It is possible to order these fbrms in such a way that the probability of
metaphorical sense'. ra
staying at the same level of the typology is greater that the probability of regress-
For one thing, success in this struggle does not consist in killing ofTrivals (as
ing.
is suggested by such lurid pictures of evolution as are invoked by Tennyson's (3) ln this ordered typology, there is a positive probability of moving fiom a
image of 'Nature, red in tooth and claw'), but in survival and, above all, in given level of the typology to the next higher level.r,)
reproductive success. For another the struggle need not be with other organ-
isms; it can be with the environment: 'there must in every case be a struggle firr Thus understood, an evolutionary theory nrerely implies that 'there is sonre
existence, either one individual with another of the same species, or with the process, htlwever weak and sporadic, which inrparts a clirectionality to move-
individuals of distinct species, or with the phvsit:ul contlition,; of'\ff?'.rs The use ments fiorn one filrm to another', but'there is no claim that societies have
Darwin makes of Malthus is thus a conrplex one: while the latter uses his theory needs tlr teleoltlgically driven tendencies towards achieving some final state'.2r
that population rises faster than food production irr an attempt to dernonstrate Darwin and indeed Marx are largely tree of evolutionism in this latter, tele-
that society cannot move beyond a condition of inequality, Darwin treats natu- ological sense. But, «rf course, there may be a considerable tliffbrence between
ral selection as a creative tbrce that is responsible firr the imnrense diversity of the actual content of a therlry and the version in which it comes to be wiilely
the living world. accepted and propagated. The enorrnous impact <lf Darwin's the<try of evol-
A further dif-fbrence with Larnarck is that Darwin is reluctant to depict the uti«rll by natural selection in late nineteenth-century Europe and Arnerica un-
evolutionary process as one of increasing perf'ection culrninating in the human doubtedly helped tu entrench an evolutionist vicw of the worlcl. More specifically,
species. When initially filrmulatirrg the concept of natural sclection in 1837 hc it was uscd tt>.jr"rstily both Western domination of the rest of the world an{ the
wrote: 'ltisabsurdtotalkofoneanirnal bcinghighcrthananother.Wc consider prevalence ol'/rti,r,scz.-./hirc capitalisrn in WesLenr societies themselves.
those, where intellectual fhculties arc most developed, as highest. - A bee d«lubt- Spcrlcer coincd the plrrase 'the survival ol'the littcst', which Darwin sub-
less would Iusel . . . instincts' irs a criteri«rn.rt'Elsewhcre he wr«lte: 'Ncver usc sequcntly adoptcd.rr This skrgi.ul appeared to lcgitirnizc cxisting social hier-
the words higher and l«lwer.'r7 In lhe Origin itscll'hc docs sornctirnes violatc archies as thc outcol'ltc ol' natural sclcction. Thus the Yale social scientist
this in junction. But at the sarne timc hc insists: 'l believe . . . in no Iaw o1' ncc- Williarn Grahant Sultrncr wrotc in ltttt3: 'Thc rnillionaires ilre a procluct ol'
essary devekrpment.'r8 As S«rber puts it, natural sclcctitllt, acting on the whole hody ol'nrcn to pick out those who can
mect llrc rccluircrncnt ol'certain work to bc clonc . . . Thcy gct high wages
Darwin thought ol'organisrrs us bcing rn«rdilicd by thcir lrxul cnvin rnnrcrrts; his
l

and live itt lr.rxury, but tlrc bargain is a g«rod one lrlr society.'r'Herc Srnith's
therlry ol'natural selcction givcs no rolc to the l-unrrrckian itlea . . . that e volution is
'invisihle hitnd'and Darwin's strugglc lilrcxistcrrce are brought togcthcr in thc
driven by sorne central lirrce that tends in all populations to p«rduco a singlc sor[ ol'
progressive change. Natural sclcction prcdicts a bush rathcr than a laddcr. Oppor-
idetllogicul synthesis that hits cornc to bc known as Social Darwinisrn.
tunistic populations cvolve in llrc various dircctions that cnvironrnents tirrtuitously Racist thcorizing was already well cstablishccl bcfbrc thc appcarancc ol'thc
make available; they do nol urrlirlcl in accrlrdance with sornc intcrnul tlynarnic. "' Origin, rIS we saw in §3.3 above. Nevertheless, as Richard Hof.stadter puts it,
'[a]lthough Darwinism was not thc prirnary source ol'the belligercnt ideology
lt is theretirre necessary to distinguish an evolutionary theory, either ol' and dtlgrnittic racism ol'the late nineteenth ccntury, it ctid bec«lrtre a new instnr-
nature or of history, fiom evolutionisrr. In the domain ol' social therlry, as ment in thc hands of the theorists of race and struggle.'ra [n Britain an«l the
Erik Olin Wright puts it, the latter involves the idea that 'societies inexorably United States this kind of thinking tended to take the form of 'Anglo-Saxonism':
develop towards some end-state of increasing adaptation to environmental as practised by E. A. Freeman, fbr example, the cornparative stu«ly of political
or material conditions'. By contrast, he suggests. institutions revealed the primacy even among Aryans of the 'Anglo-Saxon

Darwin. Origin, pp. I I6- 17.


Ibid., p. I l7 (emphasis added).
20
E. O. Wright. 'Ciddens's Critique ot Marx', Naw Lcji Re,,'it,w,,138 ( 198-l), p. 26.
ll Ibid. \
Quoted in A. Desmond and J. Moore, Darwin (London. 1992), pp.232.
Quoted in J. W. Burrow. introduction to Darwin, Origin, p.33.
22
H. Spencer ( I 864), The P rincipLes of Biology (2 vols. London, 1 898), I, pp. 530- I .
ll
Darwin, Origin. p. 34fi. Quoted in R. Hofstadter, soc'ial Darn*ini,srn in American Thought (Boston, 1955), p. 58.
,l
Sobct.. Nttttrn'. p 172. Ibid., p. 172.
irn lr

106 Life and Power Life and Power 107

race', distinguished by its (somewhat contradictory) capacity tbr both self'- of a very widely read literature by authors such as Ernst Haeckel and Wilhelm
government and the imperial stewardship of 'lesser' races. Bölsche devoted to the popularization of evolutionary biology. This grew out of
As rivalries among the Great Powers began to intensify towards the turn of earlier traditions, notably the thirly reductive scientific materialism developed by
I
the century, this cocktail of race theory and vulgarized Darwinism took on a Ludwig Büchner, Carl Vogt, and Jakob Moleschott in the 1850s - although it
L
more anxious and belligerent tone. Thus tl-re Revd Josiah Strong predicted in often also took over Romantic conceptions of the mystical unity of nature, as in
1885 that, as the land filled up, Bölsche's 'erotic monism'. The political bent of this popular Darwinism was
liberal-prcgressive and anti-clerical. In the repressive climate in which Bismarck
ll
Then will the world enter upon a new stage of its history _ the .t'inult't»npetition of' introduced the Anti-Socialist Laws at the end of the 1870s, Darwinism was treated
ruce.rJor which tlrc AngkrSulon i.s baing .yc'luxtlctl.ll'l do not rcacl it amiss, this with hostility in conservative circlcs: the ultra-reactionary Krcu::.cittlrg even
ll,
powerful race will move down up«rn Mexico, down upon Central and South
blamed the atternpts on the lif'e of Kaiser Wilhelm I which provided the pretexts
America, out Lrporl the islands upon the sea, over upon Africa and beyond. And
I
for these laws on the 'ape therlry'. Meartwhile, acc«lrding to Alfred Kelly, at a
can anyone doubt that the result of this cornpetition of raccs will be the 'survival
time when state persecution dicl not prevent the rapid developnrent of the Social
of the fittest"J2s
Derrrocratic Party (SPD), 'Iwlith the exception ol'Bebel's Womeil und Stx'iuli:;rn,
I
I

popular Darwinisrn dorninated worker nonfiction reading.'18


In fhct, however, the reception of Darwin's thought cunnot be reduced to
Popular Darwinisrtr of this kind did rt«rl necessarily challcnge the racist as-
such racist and /aissez.-.faire appropriati«rns. Marx's very positive response to
sumptions which had beconre dceply enrbedclecl in Western culturc by this time.
the Origin is well known: 'Darwin's bor>k is very irlportant and serves me its a
'No woolly haired nation has cvcr hacl an irnp«rrlant history', Hacckcl declared.r''
natural-scientilic basis fbr the class struggle in history . . . Despite all deficien-
cies. not only is the death-blow dealt fbr the first tirne here to "teleology" in the
But the n-tost critical step towarcls a gcnuittely nlalign l'usion «ll'biology and
social therlry canrc at the begirrnirrg ol'thc twcnticth ccntury with the ittcrcasing
natural sciences, but its rational basis is ernpirically explainccl.'r('Engels citcd
acccptancc o1'August Wcisrnann's thcrlry that inherilancc dcpcnclccl on thc trans-
the theory clf evolution as one case <ll'the enrergence of a ntore historical corr-
missi«rn ol'itn irttnrortitl 'gcnn-plusrn' li'orn purcnts to ol'f'spring. This. togcther
ception of nature in the physical sciences o1'the clay. The parallels he detectcd
between Darwin and Marx encolrragcd hirn to filrrnulate the idea «ll'certain
within thc rcdiscovcry o1'Grcgor Mendcl's rcrscarchcs int«r the rnecharrisrtt of
universal dialectical laws at work in both the physical and Lhc social wrlrlds.
hercdity, laid thc basis lrlr rnodcrn gcnctics. lts short-tcrnr inrpact, howcvcr,
was to hclp cncouragc thc bclicl'that s«lcial phenonrcna wcrc to hc undcrstood
But Engels nevertheless insisted that evolution by natural selcction involvecl ir
in tcnns ol'thc biological conclitions unclerlying thcnr.
distinctly different causal pattern l'rorn that prescnt in human history. This clil-
Francis Galtrlrr hacl irrventccleugenics in lti(r.5. Basccl on tlrc assurnption that
f-erence arose crLrcially tiom hurnan bcings' ability consciously to rnonitor and
indiviclual abilitics were inhcritcd, it sought to study h«rw sclcctivc brcccling
control their actir>ns, and therefilre t«r rnake the ir hist«rry a lirr less blind process
coulcl scrvc to increasc tlrc cprality of thc huntan nrcc. G:rllort wrotc:
than that of other species:

Darwin did not know what a bitter sittire he w()tc on rnankind, and cspccially on his ll'il twcnticth pirrl ol'lhc costs unrl pains wc'r't- s1'rcnt irr nrcasurcs lor thc irttprovc-
countrymen, when he showed that tiee competition, the strugglc firr existence, which rncrrt o1'the hurnart ritcc thut is s1-lcnt on the irnprovcrttcltt ol'thc brced <lf lrrlrses
the econotnists celebrate as the highest historical achieve nrcnt. is the nornral state ol' antl cattlc. what a galaxy ol gcnirrs nrighl wc r.lot crcatc! Wc rnight intnrducc
the animul kingtk»n. Only conscious organization ol' social production, in which prophots and high pricsts of civilization into thc world as surely as we can prop-
productiort and distribution are carried on in a planrred way, can lifi nrarrkintl abovc agirtc idiots by urating <'rölitt,s. Mcn ancl wourcu of the present day arc, to thosc
the rest of the animal world as regards the social aspcct, in the sanrc way that pro- wc nright hope to bring into cxisterncc, what the pariah dogs ol'thc strccts of att
duction in general has done this firr nrankind in the specifically biologic:al aspect.rT Eastern lown arc [o our own higlrly-bred varieties.ro

The same complexity of response is to be fbund at the more popular level. The eugenicist movement took strength fronr the development of gene theory.
Thus in Germany, Darwin's main irnpact was to help encourage the development William E. Kellicott summed up its basic doctrine in l9l I : 'the Eugenicist

2-5
Quoted ibicl., p. 179. :n A. Kelly, The [)cscenr rtJ'Dorwin (Chapel Hill, l98l), p. 12tt.
26 Letter to Lassalle, l6 Jan. I 86 l, in Marx an«l Engels, Selected Correspontlence (Moscow, 1965), rq Quoted ibid., p. I 17.
p. 123. "' F. Galton ( I 86-5). 'Hereditary Talent and Chalacter', in R. Jacoby and N. Clauberman , eds. The
r/ li. Iirtgcls. l)itrlrt tit.t ttl'Ntt!rrn' (Moscow, 1972), p. 3.5. lJcll ('rrrve Debate (New York. 1995), pp. 394-5.
IT ll

108 Life and Power Life and Power 109


,1',

I
believes that no other single factor in determining social conditions and Spencer's substantive social theory thus reflects the belief that'[a] Society is
practices approaches in importance that of racial structural integrity and an Organism.'34 Conceiving society in these terms is an old conservative standby,
character'.3r Eugenics was thus a form of biological determinism - that is, it used (as Shakespeare does in the opening scene of Coriolanrzs) both to assert
asserted ( 1) that social structures are caused by, and therefore must be explained the mutual interdependence of the different classes, and to remind the lower
in terms of, biological structures, and (2) that'race' , conceived as a set of fixed orders of their subordinate place in the state. However, it would misrepresent
characteristics transmitted by inheritance, is the most important of the biologi- Spencer to portray his position as primarily a defence of the status quo. As John
cal structures on which social structures are based. The obvious implication Burrow puts it, 'generally speaking his approach to contemporary institutions
was that the main way to improve society was to encourage the racially 'supe- is that of an impatient laissez.-foire radical'.3s Spencer's political impatience
rior' to mate with each other, and to discourage 'inferior' types from breeding leads him to interlard even his theoretical writings with vigorous criticisms of
at all. The list of crimes which this structure of beliefs has legitimized during the rigidity of Victorian Britain, of, for example, its cult of royalty, hypocritical
the twentieth century is a long one, ranging fiom the compulsory sterilization Christian morality, and brutal colonial policies.s6
of the'unfit'(twelve American states passed sterilization laws between 1907 How then does he square this liberal individualism with an evolutionary
and 1915) to the Nazis' attempts to 'cleanse' Europe of the Jews, the Roma and conception of society'/ Competition, conceived as a fundamental tendency at
Sinti, and other supposedly biologically 'inf-erior' types. It continues still to work everywhere in nature, plays a crucial role in providing the necessary con-
exert its influence through the persistently advocated theory that social inequali- nection. 'As carried on throughout the animate world at large, the struggle fbr
ties reflect innate differences in intelligence. existence has been an indispensable means to evolution . . . Without universal
This very widespread attempt to construct social problems in terms defined conflict there would have been no development of the active powers.' Further-
by biology has deeper roots than can be accounted for on the basis of the influ- more: 'the struggle for existence between societies has been instrumental to
ence of any theory. Thus the increasing tendency of late Victorian reformers to their evolution'.17
treat poverty and social unrest in the East End of London as a problem of racial Driven by the competition among individuals, species, and societies, evol-
'degeneration' to be addressed through a programme of 'national hygiene' re- ution consists in a process of progressive differentiation, that is, in the develop-
flected growing anxieties about domestic class conflict and foreign compet- ment of a more complex and internally articulated organization leading to
ition.rz To appreciate, against this background, the diverse ways in which increased efficiency: 'These differences of function and consequent diff'erences
evolutionary biology was appropriated and integrated into social theory let us of structure, at first feebly marked, slight in degree and f.ew in kind, become, as
consider the ditferences - and the similarities - between two authors strongly organization progresses, definite and numerous; and in proportion as they do
identified with, respectively, liberalism and socialism. this the requirements are better met.'38 The division of labour, first discovered
by economists, also operates in the living world as 'the "physiological division
of labour" . . . Scarcely can I emphasize enough the truth that in respect of this
5.2 Two evolutionists: Spencer and Kautsky fundamental trait, a social organism and an individual are entirely alike.'r')
The progressive differentiation of social organisms leads, over time, to il
(l') Individuulist sociology: Spencer. Spencer's sociology represents perhaps tendency for one form of co-operation to be replaced by another. 'There is a
the most systematic attempt to restate social theory in terms derived from evol- spontaneous co-operation which grows up without thought during the pursuit
utionary biology. As we have already seen, even befbre Darwin published his of private ends; and there is co-operation which, consciously devised, implies
theory Spencer had declared 'the law of organic progress' to be 'the law of all distinct recognition of public ends.' The paradigm case of the first kind of co-
progress'. He further conceived 'organic progress' in Lamarckian terms, de- operation is a market economy where specialized producers co-operate by ex-
fending as 'the only law of organic modillcations of which we have any evid- changing goods and services without any need for conscious regulation to achieve
ence' the proposition that 'acquired peculiarities resulting from the adaptation
of constitution to conditions, are transmissible to offsprinB', and never entirely rr H.Spencer(1882),ThePrinciplesof Socioktey(3vols,London, 1893), I,title of pt. II,ch. II,
abandoning this view after the Origin appeared.r3 pp. 437-50.
'' J. Burrow, Evolution cmd Soc.iett,(Carnbridge, 1966), p. 227 .
rr Quoted in Hofstadter, Social Dorwinism, p. 163.
"' H. Spencer ( 1872-3). The Studt, o.l'Sociologv (London, 1894), pp. 136-41.
'r2 G. Stedman Jones, Outcast Lontlon (Harmondsworth, 1984), chs l6-18. " Slrcncer, Princ:iples of Sociologv, III, pp. 240-l.
rr H. Spencer, Es,r«.r'.r', I, p.9l; cornpare (ltitt6)'The Factors «rl'Organic Evolution'. ibid.. I, pp. '' Slre lrccr. ,\trrrlv.;t.327.
3lJ9-4(r(r.
"' Slrcttt't't. l'r itr,'il,l,'s rtf ,\ttt'ittlrt,g.l', I. p. :140.
ftrl

110 Life and Power Life and Power 111

rl this result. In the case of the second kind, 'compulsory co-opcmtion', 'indiv- the fittest must be produced a social type in which individual claims, consid-
idual wills are constrained, flrst by the joint wills of the entirc gr1)up, and after- ered as sacred, are trenched on by the State no further than is requisite to pay
wards more definitely by the will of a regulative agency which the group the cost of maintaining them, or rather, of arbitrating among them.'aa
evolves'.ao On the other hand, Spencer was well aware that the trend in nineteenth-
Spencer calls societies where this form of co-operation prevails 'militant', century Europe was away from, rather than towards, such a minimal state. He
and those based on 'spontaneous co-operation' 'industrial'. The fbrmer tend rails against the 'power-worship Ithatl idealizes the State', and 'sways in com-
to organizational rigidity; in them, individuals tend to be ranked according mon all orders of politicians, fiom the old-world Tory to the Red Republican'.
to inherited status. 'Under the industrial rögime',by contrast, 'the citizen's He moreover recognizes that the strengthening of state power was driven less
individuality, instead of being sacrificed by the society, has to be defended by by the survival of the old absolute monarchies than by what he regards as mis-
the society. Def-ence of the individual becomes the society's essential duty.'al guided eflbrts at social refbrm which, by keeping the 'unfit' alive, simply weaken
The two types of society have historically existed in various combinations. society: 'if the inf'erior are helped to increase, by shielding them fiom that mor-
In the earlier stages of social evolution, compulsory co-operation was tality which their int'eriority would naturally entail, the el'fbct is to produce,
necessary to produce any fbrm of stable order. The more complex society generation afier generation, a greater int-eriority'.45
becomes, however, the more impossible it becomes to co-ordinate increas- There therefore seems to be no automatic tendency fbr the industrial type to
ingly specialized activities on the basis of coercion: 'in the social organisrn as prevail over the rnilitant. Indeed, the latter springs up in new guises. Thus so-
it advances to a high structure, there develops an extensive and complex trad- cialisnr 'involves in another tirrm the principle of compulsory co-operation'.
ing system'.42 Industrial societies which are firolish enough to adopt any kind of 'communis-
Consequently, societies where the militant type prevails are becoming obso- tic clistribution' will find themselves at a competitive disadvantage, since in
lescent. This involves a change in the fbrm taken by the struggle for existence - them 'the superior' are not alkrwed to keep 'the entire proceeds of their labour',
namely from war to economic competition, as Spencer explains in a passage in some ol'which is diverted 'firr the benefit of the inf'erior and their oflspring'.46
which he demonstrates his willingness to sacrifice the 'unfit' at the altar ol' But, bey«rnd gesturing towards the p«rwer of received tradition, Spencer ofl'ers
progress: very little in the way of an explanation ol'why such rnisguided taith in various
kinds «rl'compulsory co-t-rperation should persist. Despite his etfilrt to form-
Severe and bloody as the process [i.e. warl is, the extirpation of inf'erior races and ulate an evolutionary social theory, he remains strongly wedded to an Enlight-
inf-erior individuals, leaves a balance of benefit to nrankind during phases ol' enment rationalism which treats what it identifies as erroneous beliefs as the
progress in which the moral devekrpment is low, and there are no quick synrpa- products ol' ignorance and prejudice.
thies to be seared by the intliction of pain and death. But high societies. conr-
posed of members fitted to closer co-operutit)n. cann()t carry out destructive (2) Ewlutionurt' sot'iuli,;rtt: Kuut.rk.y,. lf Spencer was a chanrpion of extreme
activities without injurious reactive effects on the rnoral nirtures of thcir n)cn.l- lais,se:,.luirr,. Kautsky was the leading theorctician of thc SPD, and, given the
bers. Afierthis stage has been reached, the puritying process, continuing still an centrality ol'Gcrrttitrt srrcial dcrn«rcracy to the Second International ( ltt89-1914).
important one [src], has to be efl-ected by industrial war by a conipctition bc- of thc w«rrld socialist nrovcn)cnt as wcll.'17 Whcre Spcnccr saw the evolutionary
tween societies during which the best, physically. enxrtionally, and intellecturally. process culrninating in an individualist social orde r, Kar"rtsky conceived human
spread most, and leave the least capable to disappear gradually, fiom lailing to history as a rnovernent fiorn one lilrm ol'communism, that prevailing in'prim-
leave a sufficiently numerous posterity.ll
itivc' societies, to a far nrore advanced lbrm resting on thc developrnent of
the productive fbrces under capitalisrn. Drawing on the rapidly developing
This historical sociology issues in a somewhat ambivalent attitude on Spen- anthropological research of the late nineteenth century, Kautsky estimated that
cer's part towards his own day. On the one hand, he argues that, in cornpetition
among industrial societies, those where the remnants of the militant type are
relatively strong will find themselves at a disadvantage: 'So that by survival of 11 Spencer, Principle,; tlf'Stx'iologv, III, p.607.
'rs Spencer, Stutlt', pp. l-56. l6u-9, 339.
'16 Spencer, Principle,s of kx'iologt', III, pp.604,610.
'10 Ibid., III, pp.245,247. '17 Kar\Johann Kautsky ( I U,5.1- I 938): born in Prague to a theatrical family, and raised in Vienna,
rr Ibi{'I., III, p. 607. but spent most of his lif'e in Germany; editor of Die Neue Zeit. the SPD weekly. 1883-1917; author
1r Spcnccr.51rrr1.r'. p. 330. ol'numerous bo«rks and pamphlets, and editor «r1'various of Marx's w<lrks, rrotahly 'l.lraoria,r ttl'
I lbitl.. p. l().5. ,\tt1tIu.s-Vrt Itrt'.
['ul']1lt

rli 112 Life and Power Life and Power 1 13


I
'primitive communism' had lasted 800,000 years, class society a nrere 10,000- conquest of one society by another. He envisaged a pattern rather like that which
irl
I
15,000 years: 'Measured solely according to its ternporal duration. it is then not Ibn Khaldün depicted in medieval Islam (see § L l above), where nomadic herds-
I
I
classless society, but rather society divided into classes that presents itself to us men conquered sedentary agriculturalists: conqueror and conquered then evolved
as the exception, a mere episode in the history of human society.'48 into exploiter and exploited.
Yet, despite this radically difl-erent perspective on the course of history, This ernphasis on the salience of inter-state competition in the creation of
there are certain important points of convergence between Kautsky and Spen- class antagonisms is associated with a hostility to militarism reminiscent of
cer. The fbrmer's original intellectual fbrmation was Darwinist rather than Spencer's contrast between militant and industrial societies. Marx had called
I
Marxist. He read The Desc'ent of Mon befbre the Communist Mcrni.festo, and force 'the midwife of every old society which is pregant with a new one'.s2
later contrasted his background to that of Mzrrx and Engels: 'They started out Kautsky by contrast declared that 'war has proved to be a terrible obstacle to
with Hegel; I started out with Derwin. The latter occupied my thoughts earlier technological and econornic advancement', and predicted that 'the rnovement
than Marx, the development of organisms earlier than the economy, the strug- in the direction of eternal peace through worlcl cornmerce must finally becorne
,

gle tor existence of species and races earlier than the class struggle.' Indeed, irresistible, all the more so as at the same time technological development is
like Spencer, Kautsky pref-erred Lamarck's tlreory that 'the acquisition and intensifying the devastations of every war to tlre level of diabolical insanity'.51
hereditary trernsmission of new characteristic:s through the influence of new Kautsky was prone to regard historical fbrces as'irresistible'. He saw the
conditiclns' is the mzrin evolutionary fbrce. to Darwirt's theory of evolution by developr-nent of class society as an organic process cr,rlminating in the replace-
natural selection.ae ment of capitalism by socialism. Expounding the SPD's Elfr-rrt programme in
This 'rnaterialist neo-Larnarckisnr', as Kautsky called it, did not in fact issue 1892. he declared: 'The capitalist social systent lras run its course. [ts dissol-
in anything resembling the Social Darwinism discussed in §5.1 above.50 He ution is now only a question of time. Irresistible economic forces lead with the
specifically rejected the idea that society is an organism, argued that the pattern certainty of doom to the shipwreck of capitalist production. The substitution of
of human history could not be reduced to that of biological evolurtion, denied a new social order fbr the existing one is no longer desirable, it is inevitable.'54
that the members of 'prin-ritive' societies were intellectually int'erior to their Kautsky clicl not believe that socialisrn c:or-rld be achieved independently of
counterparts in 'advanced' societies, and criticizecl the racist and nationalist human action; rather, historical necessity would operate throush the agency
theories increasingly influential amorrg German scholars. Yet Kautsky's hist- of class conflict. Thus: 'Socialism is inevitable because the class struggle and
orical materialism has a decidedly more fatalist cast than that of Marx and Engels. the victory of the proletariat is inevitable.'s5
Criticizing Engels tor bein-g too ready to adopt Hegel's teleology,he reinter- This did not mean that Kautsky thought history should be fbrced by precip-
preted the historical dialectic in Lamarckian tenns as ar1 interactiott between itate action. He fanrously called the SPD 'a revolutionary party. but not a party
organism and environment in which it is the latter that play.s the active role in that rnakes revolutiorrs'.'" Thouglr hc opposed his old fiiencl Ecluard Bernstein's
the relationship. Thus: '[t is the environnrent that poses the problem that thc attempt in the great 'revisiclnist' controversy at the turn of the century to turn
mind has to solve.'5r the SPD into a openly refirrrnist party. Kautsky also lracked the party leadership
In response to problenrs posed by the environment, human beings clevelop in resisting the pressllres of R«rsa [-uxemburg ancl the radical lefi fbr a cam-
'artificial organs' - tools and other nleans of production. This creates a new paign of nrass strikes to denrocrtrtize the Gernran inrperial state. Socialism was
kind of environment fbr humankind, a social environment which in turn gener- gradLrally being prepared firr within the bowels of capitalisrn, Kautsky believed.
ates problems whose solution requires the developrnent of new tec:lrnologies In particular. Inodern liberal derlocretcy provided the necessary fialnework for
and fbrrr-rs of organization. Where the artificial organs are unequally distrib- the government of any cornplex industrial society, socialist as wellas capitalist:
uted, clilss exploitation arises. Unlike Engels, whose explanation of the devel- 'democritcy also makes it possible to wrest this whole irnnrense state apparatus
opment of clirsses in Tlrc Origin o.f'the Futrill', Privute Propertv otul the Stute with its irresistible power out of the hands of the great exploiters that still
( 1884) concentrated on a endogenolls process of clilfbrentiation within indiv- hold it today and thus to turn the apparatus of domination into an apparatus of
idual societies, Kautsky claimed that class divisions were the product of the
'ls K. Katttsky (lL)21),Thc Materiuli.;t Conc'eptiou oJ [!i.ttot'y, abbr. ecln. ecl. J. H. Kltrtsky (Netv \r K. Marx. C'apital (3 vols. Harntondsworth. 1976-8 I ). t, p. 916.
Haven, 1988), p. 250.
'le Ibid.. pp. 1,46 1.
'' Katrt*sky , Muterialist Cottt't,1tri<ttt, pp.71 ,19.
50 Quotecl in J. H. Kautsky'. introductior.r to Kuutsky. Muteriuli.st Conception, p. xxxiii.
'' K. Kautsky (1892). Tlte Closs Stuggle (New York. l97l). p.l17.
" K. Kautsky (l9(Xr). litlric.s rtrttl thc Mutcrittli.st ('otrt'clttiotr ol tli,stot'.t' (('hicirgo. l9ltt). p.20(r.
''r lbitl., p. 3rl. 'rr K. Krrrrlskv (l()O()),'l lt,'llrtttrl ltt l'1t11'1'1' (Atlltrllic llir:ltltrltls. N.l. l()(Xr).;t 1-1.
rir

114 Life and Power Life and Power 115

emancipation'. Liberal democracy allowed the working class to take power Auschwitz. 'Abnormality' had become the norm, throwing into question the
peacefully by means of the ballot box, and convert 'the preceding c/ass state' optirnistic cast of Kautsky's version of historical materialism.
into a 'workers' state or social-welfare state' .51
From this perspective, developments after l9l4 represented an aberration.
Consistent with his view of the destructive character of military conflict, Kautsky 5.3 Nature as the will to power: Nietzsche
argued that the First World War was economically irrational. Capitalism was
evolving through mergers and cartels to a phase of 'ultra-imperialism' where Spencer and Kautsky represent two highly influential attempts to treat the course
national economic differences would be progressively overcome. The imperial of human history as a succession of social fbrms whose structure and develop-
rivalries and arms races which lay behind the outbreak of war in August l9l4 ment are best understood on the basis of a general theory of biological evol-
represented a stage of history that was receding into the past: 'the capitalist ution. Their belief that history understood in these terms was moving in the
economy is seriously threatened by these disputes. Every fär-sighted capitalist right direction (even if their views of this direction were strikingly different)
today must call on his fellows: capitalists of all countries, unite!'58 While clp- reflects the self--confident bourgeois society of late nineteenth-century Europe.
posing the war, Kautsky ferociously condemned the Russian Revolution of As this society entered what Eric Hobsbawm has called the 'Age of Extremes'
October l9ll . The attempt to carry through a socialist revolution in an econ- ushered in by the outbreak of the First World War, so the faith in historical
omically backward country was doomed to failure, and could only resull" in a progress expressed by Spencer and Kautsky became increasingly hard to sus-
particularly brutal capitalist dictatorship. Bolshevism, in undertaking this project, tain. The case of Kautsky is especially striking since he survived Europe's de-
represented a voluntarist regression fiom Marxism, a disastrous assertion of scent into the abyss by nearly a quarter of a century, but never abandoned the
will in defiance of material circumstances. world-view he had developed in the ltt70s and 1880s.
During the brief period of stability Europe enjoyed in the l92os Kautsky Evolutionist optimism in fact cilme under challenge well befclre 1914. This
expressed the hope that '[t]he excitement caused by the World War is begin-. . attack was never more forcetully expressed than by Nietzsche.60 His thought is

ning to subside. The economic abnormalities resulting from it are beginning particularly interesting because it dramatizes one of the main tensions in mod-
to give way once again to normal economic conditions in which the fbrce of ern social theory - that between a naturalism that treats humankind as contin-
economic laws is again manifesting itself.' In these circumstances, the labour uous with nature and an anti-naturalism which insists on what sets human
movement could resume its project of winning power by parliamentary rneans, beings apart fiorn other species. Social Darwinisrn and biological racism are re-
since 'It]he more the capitalist mode of production.flourishe.s, tlte better the pellent instances of naturalism; Weber is the most important champion of anti-
prospects rl'the sociolist regime thcrt tutkes the place ol the c:apitalist one.' Amidst naturalism; Marxism, even in its Kautskyan version, seeks to span the two
economic prosperity and social refbrm, the League of Nations' eflbrts to re- positions. Nietzsche develops a critique of modernity that is peculiar in the way
solve international conflicts peacefully stood a good chance of succeeding. in which it combines naturalism and anti-naturalism. The human subject is natu-
Mussolini's attempt to upset the apple-cart was unlikely to be copied elsewhere. ralized, reduced to an incoherent cluster o1' biological drives, while nature is
A fascist coup in Germany would require a million-strong mass fflovement: 'ln subjectivized, since all aspects o1'the physical as well as the social world are
an industrialized country, it is impossible to get hold of such a large number of expressions of the will to power.
scoundrels in the prime of lif-e for capitalist purposes."" It is necessary, then, in the first place to register the virulence of Nietzsche's
These expectations were of course soon overturned, lirst by the outbreak of critique of mcldernity. His contempt firr European bourgeois society is compre-
the Great Depression in 1929 andthen by the National Socialist seizure of power hensive. The various ideological catch-words of his day - progress, evolution,
in Germany in 1933. These events had tragic consequences fbr Kautsky and his democracy, nationalism, socialism - are all dismissed as the merest shibboleths.
immediate family. Kautsky himself died in October 1938 in Amsterdam, where The pursuit of the ideas of the French Revolution - Liberty, Equality, Frater-
he had fled afier the Nazi Anschluss in Austria earlier that year. His son Benedikt nity - has produced the universal mediocrity which Nietzsche sums up in the
spent seven years in the concentration camps, and his wif-e Luise died in image of the Last Man:
()o Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-19(X)): son of a Prussian Lutheran pastor; Prof'essor of Classical
57 Kautsky, Materiolist Cctnception, pp. 387,450. Irhiloloqy at the University of Basle, I 868-79; the decade after his retirement from this post marked
sr1 K. Kautsky ( I9l4), 'Imperialisrn', in J. Riddell, ed., Lenin's Struggle.fbr a Revolutionury' Irt- rrn cxtraordinarily concentrated burst of creativity; in 1889 suff-ered a mental breakdown fiom which
tcnrtrtiorttrl(Ncw York. l9U4), p. 1t30. lrc ncver recovered; during his last years his sister Elizaheth F(irster-Nietzsche turncd hirrr. quite
i') Krrtrtsky. Mtrtt't'irtli,st ('ottt't'1tlitttr,1tp. 1xix, r1.19.,149. 394. ('()r)trilr-y kr thc nrlin lhrtrst «lf his writings, inlo a prophct «ll'(icrnlur rrlrlionalisrrr.
116 Life and Power Life and Power 117
,ll
The earth has become small, and upon it hops the Last Man, who makes every- Self'-mastery, which Rousseau and Kant, Tocqueville and Marx, in their dif-
thing small. His race is as inexterminable as the flea: the Last Man lives longest. f-erent ways saw as potentially the property of all men at least, can now be
i 'We have discovered happiness,' say the Last Men and blink . . . achieved only by a handful of individuals. Moreover, giving a law to oneself
Nobody grows rich arrd poor any more: both are too much of a burden. Who still (Rousseau's definition of freedom: see §1.5 above) is now a matter of self-
wants to rule? Who obey? Both are too much of a burclen. creation. What Nietzsche says here can only be understood in the light of the
No herdsman and one herd. Everyone wants the same thing, everyone is the same: earlier development of German classical idealism. One of the strongest tenden-
whoever thinks otherwise goes voluntarily into the madhouse.6l cies of this philosophical tradition was to treat aesthetic experience as a priv-
ileged mode of access to reality, capable of offering insights denied to rational,
The obverse of this attack on the levelling and homogenizing tendencies discursive knowledge. Hegel strongly resisted this tendency (art is the lowest
allegedly endemic to modern Europe is, predictably enough, a positive evalu- form of Absolute Spirit. subordinated to religion and philosophy), br-rt others -
ation of aristocratic society: Schelling and Schopenhauer, tbr example - gave powerful expression to it.
Alexander Nehemas has drawn attention to what he calls 'Nietzsche's aestheti-
Every elevation of the type 'man' has hitherto been the work of an aristocratic cism, his essential reliance on artistic models fbr understanding the world and
society - and so it will always be: a society which believes in a long scale of life and fbr evaluating people and actions'.6s As this makes clear. Nietzsche
orders of rank and dilferences of worth between man and man and needs slavery does not privilege aesthetic experience on the basis of the doctrine of art fbr
in some sense or another. Without the patltos o.f distant'e such as develops l}om art's sake, as a kind of flight from the world. On the contrary, we must see '[tlhe
the incarnate dif'fbrences of classes, from the ruling caste's looking out and down
worlcl as a work of art that gives birth to itself.'(' The process of self--creation
on subjects and instruments and frorn its equally constant exercise of obedience
which some individual humans are able to achieve is thus merely an instance of
and command. its holding down and holding at a distance, that other, more
the cosmic process of 'selfiovercoming' that is the world itself.
mysterious pathos could not have developed either, that longing for an ever-
increasin-9 widening of distance within the soul itself', the fbrmation of ever-higher,
Artistic creation as Nietzsche sees it is not the discovery of harmonious struc-
ralel', lnore remote. tenser, more comprehensive states. in short precisely the el- tures inrmanent in the worlcl portrayed by clzrssical criticism. Rather, like Mod-
evation of the type 'man', the continual 'self'-overconring of man'.62 ern art, it is a dissorrant, discordant process whose products are tense with the
conflicts fl'orn which they arose. These conflicts are, in the first instance, those
Up to a point, this aristocratic critique of modernity is familiar enough. Ro- constitLrtive of human history. ln On tlte Geneubgv r1f' Morals (1887), Nietzsche
mantic ernti-capitalist denunciations of the present in the name of an idealized dismisses attempts to treat morality in either Kantian or utilitarian tenns as, re-
past were corlmon in post-Revolutionary Europe, Nietzsche's polemics otlen spectively, an autonornous systenr of abstract laws, or actions whose consequences
recall those of Maistre, written in prose as vivid and savage as his (see ch. 3 maxirttize the general welfare. In doing so, he challenges any atternpt to discern
above). But the passage just cited strikes a different note as well. The signifi- in history a unified pattern, whether that pattern is derived fiom Hegelian tele-
cance of aristocratic societies lies in their contribution to the 'self-overcoming ology or fiom the nrore conventional evolutionary schemes discussecl in the pre-
of man'. Nietzsche is uninterested in, indeed contemptuously spurns. the elev- vious section. 'Genealogy', as Foucault pr"rts it, '. . . seeks to re-establish the variitr-rs
ation of humanity collectively as un ethical or political goal, but he is very systems of subjection: nof the antic:ipatory power of nreaning, but the hazardous
interested in the elevation of particular individuals: 'the goal r$' luununity can- play oldominations.'t'7 This implies a sociology of rnoral belief. As Hans Barth
not lie in its end but only in its highest exemplars'.6r These exceptional indi- observes of Nietzsche's later writings, 'It]he traditional rnorals he subjects to
viduals are set apart from 'those who have nothing else to do but drarg the past criticisrl are treated more and more as the expression of certain classes.'68
a f'ew steps further through time and who never live in the present - that is to In petrticular, Nietzsche argues that valuations of good and bad emerge in
say, the many, the great majority. We, however.want to become those we ore - aristocratic societies where they perrnit the ruling class tcl affirnr itself and its
human beings who are new, unique. incomparable. who give thernselves laws, way of lif'e. Morality in its Christialr arnd modern urrclerstandings, which have in
who create themselves.'64

6r F. Nietzsche ( 1883-5 1, Tluts Spoke Zarathu.§/,? (Harmondsworth. I 969). I. p. 4(r (translation


t'5 A. Ne'hemas , Niet..sc'he: Lifb u,s Literoture lCarnbridge. Mass.. 1988), p. 39.
modifiecl).
-5,
(ir F. Nietzsche (190(r), T'he Willkt Pow'er (Neu,York. 1968,). tr797. p.419.
6: (l8it6). Bet,orul Ctxttlond Elll (Harmondsworth. 1973),§251.p.173.
F. Nietz.sche
rri M. Foucault,'Nietzsche. Genealogy. History'. in P. Rabinow. ed..'l-hc Frttrcult Reacler
r)r F.Nietzsche(ltt73 6). I/tttirnclt,Matlitutiotts (Cambridge. 1983),p. lll. (l llrnrorrdsworth. 1986). p. 83.
()r F. Nictzschc ( ltJtt2).'l'ltc (ltn.,\t'iarrt.c (Ncrv Y«rrk. 197,1). ss33.5. p.266. rrii H. Barth.'l.ttrtlt rrrrrl Irltttlo.q.t (Bcrkclcy. l()7(r).
P. I(rO.
',|1

118 Life and Power Life and Power 119


I

i
I

common the idea that the self should deny itself in the irttcrcsts of others, orig- pattern Nietzsche sees in nature generally is the same as that revealed in the
inates in the revolt of the lower orders against their masters. a particularly subtle Genealogy of Morals - the endless struggle for domination among competing
kind of revolt which takes the form, not of open rebellion. but of inverting the centres of power: 'This workl is the will to power antl nothing else besides!
values of the noble rnorality: And you yourselves are also this will to power and nothing else besides!'73
Such assertions appear to represent the most fantastic anthropornorphism
The slave revolt in morality begins when ressentiruent itself becomes creative
-
the megalomaniac projection of the patterns of intentional human action onto
and gives birth to values: the ra.ssentiment of natures that are denied the true nature as a whole. Indeed, Heidegger ascribes to Nietzsche'ct metttphysics of
reaction, that of deeds, and compensate themselves with an irnaginary revenge,
the absolute subjectivity of the will to power' , though not an idealist metaphys-
while every noble morality develops fiom a triumphant affirmation of self. slave
ics, since here 'subjectivity is absolute as subjectivity of the body; that is, of
morality fiom the outset says No to what is 'outside', what is'different', what is
drives and aff-ects'.7a Yet the will to power is nothing like the will as it has
'not itself'; and this No is its creative deed.6"
traditionally been conceived, that is, as the fäculty of a subject which consciously
The apogee of this 'slave morality' is reachecl in Christianity, which system- sets itself goals and seeks to achieve them. Nietzsche indeed denies the indiv-
atically devalues life in the name of a world beyond. The triumph of Christian- idual human subject any coherence or unity: 'our body is only a social structure
ity represents the subjection of the values of the master to those of the slave in composed of many souls . . . L'e.fJet, c'est moi.' 75 As fbr the will to power, it is
the shape of a systematic negation of this world, a process which reaches its 'not a being, not a becoming, buta pathos - the most elemental fäct fiom which
climax in the levelling mediocrity of post-Revolutionary Europe, a 'nihilism' a becoming and effbcting first emerge'.76 As Richarcl Schacht comments,'pa-
in which everything is devalued. Nietzsche proclaims the struggle of 'Dionysus thos' here means 'a fundarnentaldisposition or tendency'. Thus, ' "will to power"
versus the crucffied' .10 The Greek god Dionysus stands for the affirmation of fbr Nietzsche is simply the basic tendency of all forces and configurations of
lif-e, Christ fbr its negation. Nietzsche seeks a 'revaluation of all values': in forces to extend their influence and dominate others'.77
other words, he wishes - rather like Feuerbach and Marx in their struggle with Nzrture in its entirety - the human world as well as the interactions of physical
Hegel - to invert the inversion accomplished by slave morality, and reinstate a bodies anc'l the clevelopment of living organisnis - is thus the continuous process
system of valuation in which select individuals can once again affirm thern- of transfbrmation arising fiom the endless struggle among a multiplicity of rival
selves and life. But in doing so he takes aim not merely at Christianity, but goes centres of power. The natural kinds and physical laws scientists 'discover'repre-
further back, into the history of Greek philosophy: it is Socrates and his pupil sent at best the epherneral outcome of these conflicts; Darwin's theory of evol-
Plato who are responsible fbr transfbrming the world of experience into mere ution by natural selection is an irradequate approximation to the reality of the
'appearance' to which is counterposed an inaccessible 'truth' or 'reality' be- eternal struggle, not to survive and reproduce, but to dominate. Reality is there-
yond the bounds of the senses. 'My philosophy is an inverted Plutonism,' fbre inherently plural: it has no single essence, no inner purpose fiom which all
Nietzsche wrote in 1870-1, 'the farther removed fiom trr-re being the purer, the else flows. It is also inherently ambiguous. The world is constitutecl by a set of
finer, the better it is. Living in sernblance ers goal.'71 shifting relations of firrce. It fbllows that, depending on one's position within
But what is this lif'e, this 'senrblance' which Nietzsche champions? German these relations, the interpretation that one puts on the world is likely to be difl'er-
Romanticism gave rise to a philosophy of nature (Nuturphilosophie) which ent.Indeed, there is 'Inlo limit to the way in which the world can be interpreted.'78
conceived a kind of inner impulse running through the whole of the physical One of the longest-standin-{ themes in Nietzsche's writings concerns the re-
world. inorganic and organic alike, ancl reaching its highest expression in hu- lativity of knowledge to the interests of those concernecl. Thus he declares:
man subjectivity which represented the whole of nature in microcosm. Nietzsche
'Truth is the kind of error without which a certain species could not live. The
also conceives nature as a totality, but its process is in no sense a directional value for liJe is ultimately decisive.'7e It is on this basis that, fbr example, he
one, or oriented towards a goal: events arise fiom no inner necessity, but occur
rather in the realm of accident - they are 'fragrnents and limbs and dreadful " Nietzsche,Will ttt Power, §1067. p. -5-50.

chances'.72 This does not mean that they have no discernible structure. But the " Heidegger, Niet:.yche, lV, p. I47.
" Nietzsch e. Bevoutl Good ond E li 1, § 19, p. 20. 'l am the ef fbct' - a pun on Louis XIV's declara-
tion 'L'dtat c'est moi' -'l am the state'.
6s F. Nietzsche, On tlrc Genealogr- rf hlorals ancl Ecce' Homo (New York, 1969), p. 36. "' Nietqsche,Will to Pow,er, §635, p. 229.
10 Ibid., p. 33-5. "'n R. Schacht, Nial:.rc/rr, (London, 198,1). pp. 201 ,220.
7r Quotcd in M. Hcirlcggcr, Nicl:.rr'/rc (4 vols, San Francisco, 199 l). I, p. l-54. Nietzsche, Will to Power, §600. p. 326.
/' Nir'lzsclte. Ztrnrtlrtr.stnr. ll. 20.p. l(r0. ' lhid.. §4().3. p. 172.
Tl,

120 Life and Power Life and Power 121

counterposes to what he regards as the suffocating historical self'-consciotts- process achieved through education, experience, and debate. On the contrary,
ness of nineteenth-Century Europe ' "the unhistorical" . . the art and power of he seems to envisage something comparable to what Darwin calls the 'artiflcial
Historical in- selection' of species of domestic animals, in which particular human types are
.forgetting and of enclosing oneself within a bounded horizon'.80
terpretation, indeed interpretation generally, is necessarily selective - it omits cultivated through 'breeding'. so that the characteristics which 'hi-eher' men
as well as includes; this selection is relative to the interests, not of 'life' in the have acquired through their self'-formation are transmitted, in the Lamarckian
abstract, but of the particular fbrm of life, the particular ceutre of power from fashion so pervasive in nineteenth-century evolutionary thinking, to their de-
whose perspective the interpretation is made. Nietzsche's 'perspectivism' leads scendants.
him ro the clenial of the possibility of objective truth, and thereby to all the
I

I
This tension between the biological and cultural is one of the many running
difficulties in which any fbrm of scepticism necessarily erttangles itself. He through Nietzsche's thought. The doctrine of his whose interpretation is most
nevertheless comes to see it as one of the main implications of his doctrine of disputed is that of the eternal recurrence of the same, the 'absymal thought'
the will to power. Thus he writes of 'the necessary perspectivism by virtue of that everything etemally repeats itself'.8s This idea represents the extreme limit
which every centre o1' force - and not only man - construes all the rest of the to which Nietzsche takes his rejection of all interpretations of reality which
world fiom its own viewpoint, i.e., measures, feels, forms, according to its own treat it as moving in a definite direction, whether or not this direction is under-
force'.81 stood in teleological terms as movement towards a goal. His formulations of
This process of construing ancl valuing the world from a speciflc perspective the eternal recurence of the same in his published writings are expressed in
is in many respects the decisive f.eature of the will to power. To see the latter as highly metaphorical terms. It is quite unclear whether or not Nietzsche in-
a drive to dominate in primarily socio-political terms is to misunderstand lends us to take the idea literally - thou-eh he does in his notebooks present it
Nietzsche. As Schacht puts it, ' "power" tbr Nietzsche is fundamentally a mat- as a cosrnological theory about the fundarnental tendencies of the universe -
ter of transformation, involving the imposition of sonle new pattern of orderin-u or rather as a kind of ultirnate test of clne's willingness to affirm life even if
relations upon tbrces not previously subject to thern'.82 This process of form- cverything recurs eternally, rather than give way to the ternptation to sink into
giving is essentially aesthetic. Art achieves greatness, Nietzsche argues, in 'the latalist pessimisrn.
grand style': 'This style has in common with great passion, that it disdains to Commentators also disagree over the idea's consistency with the doctrine of
please; that it fbrgets to persuade; that it commands: that it w'ills - To becomc lhe will to power. The latter presents the world in the aspect of 'becoming', as
master of the chaos one is; to contpel one's chaos to become fbrm: to beconic ir process of continual transformation: yet if everything recurs, this movement
logical. sintple, unanlbiguous, mathematics, lav' - that is the grand ambition is ultimately enfblded within an endlessly repeated cycle. As Nietzsche himself
here.'8i This is what 'becoming what one is' means - mastering oneself by lruts it, '[t]hat evertthing recurs is the closest approrimatictn o.f a w,orld. of be-
turnipg one's lif'e into a work of art, shaping the chaos which not simply each t't»ning to u w,orld oJ'being.'86 The stasis of being thus apparently triunrphs over
inclividual but the entire world is into a formed whole. Nietzsche saw his owrt rcstless becoming. For this reason, the Nazi philosopher Alfred Bäumler ar-
lif-e as precisely such a process which, through the revaluation of all values that gued that the will to power represented the essence of Nietzsche's thought, and
it sotrgit to ef-fect, would help make possible the 'overman' (Übermensc:h),thc lhat, inasmuch as the eternal recurrence was incompatible with it, it should be
higher type of humanity in which such creative selt'-mastery is consummated. played down: Heidegger strongly contested this position.
Heiclegger therefore seeks to distance Nietzsche fiom any tbrm of biological These tensions and ambiguities help to explain why Nietzsche's intellectual
deterrninisrn: 'Niel:s che thinks the "biologicol", tlte essence o.f what is olit'e, itt lrcritage is so diverse. The Nazis took fiom him chiefly the idea of the will to
thedirectiono.fc:ontmanclingandpoetizinS'oJ'theperspec'tivalantlthefutr lx)wer', which they understood as the drive of nations and exceptional individ-
i«tntal: in the clirection of freedom. He does not think the biological . . . bio- rurls to dominate. and married it to a vulgar Darwinian conception of life as
logically at all.'8r This is sornething of an overstatetnent. Nietzsche does tlot t'lcrnal stru,qgle, and to biolo_uical racisr-rl, to produce an ideology bearing very
see the fbrlration of the 'highest exemplars' of hunranity as a purely cultur':rl littlc resemblance to Nietzsche's own philosophy. Weber, and more recently
post-structuralists such as Foucault, took over his view of history as the inter-
;rlrry ol'forrns of domination, and his perspectivism, building these into their
)rr) Nietzsche. Ltntimelv Med.iraions. p' 120.
own lhcories. And the later Heidegger, after his involvenient in National
sr Nietzsche. Will to Pc»rer, §636, p. 339.
8r Schacht, Niet..sclrc, P. 229.
itr Nietzsche. Will to Pov'er, §842' p.;144' Ntt'lzst ltt'. /lrrrrtlrtrtlr rr. lll .' .). p;r l7l'i ().
s'l Heidegger. Ni(t:..\(h(.lll. p. 122. ' Nitlzst ltt'.ll'ill t,, l't,ttt t t;(tl I I t lo

E;llir
122 Life and Power
at-
Nietzsche's ultimately unsuccessful
socialism, took what he regarded as of
modernity as one of the starling-points
tempt to escape the subjectirism of
gone wrong'
his meditations on how Europe had
not in any way diminish - indeed they
These conflicting interpretations Jo
force of his rejection of
are symptomatic oi - Xiitrsche's significance'-The
modernity lies in its not being undeitaken
in the name of an idealized past'
progress evoked by the Enlighten-
Durkheim
Nietzsche replaced the vista ,lf hirtori"al
and Kautsky with the grim panorama of
ment and evolutionists such as spencer the arlistic
and at the same time he offered
an endless struggle fbr domination,
way of responding to this situation' In
life - or lile as a work of art - as the best
to press on us'
doing so, he posed questions which continue

6.1 Social evolution and scientific objectivity

Evolutionary social theory came in the mid-nineteenth century, as we saw in


the previous chapter, to conceptualize society as an organism to be analysed in
terms analogous to those used by evolutionary biology. But one potential im-
plication of this way of thinking about society could draw it away from the
attempt to place social phenomena within an evolutionary schema. A key de-
,l velopment involved in the constitution of the life sciences at the end of the
,i eighteenth century was the attempt to analyse organisms in terms of their
i .f'unction. Living bodies were conceived, in other words, as organized systems
composed of interdependent parts, each of which played a specific role in
securing certain states essential to the system's continued existence. The
employment of this kind of functional analysis in social theory implied analys-
ing specific processes and institutions from the standpoint of their contribution
to the overall well-being of the society in question. To the extent that functional
analysis comes to predominate in the study of society the issue of where a
society belongs in an evolutionary sequence of types of social formation - along
with, indeed, the broader question of the historical emergence and trajectory of
the society - tends to recede into the background.
Social theorists have always employed functional analysis: classical polit-
ical economy traces the way in which the interactions of self'-interested actors
t'ontribute, via the 'invisible hand', to a state of market equilibrium which rnax-
itrtizes the general welfare; Marx's concept of structural contradiction is a tool
lirr identifying dysfunctions - the tendencies intrinsic to particular modes of
ptrrcluction which come to impede their effective operation. But a strain of so-
t'irrl lhcory focusing primarily on the analysis of functions only emerges at the
t'tttl ol'thc nirtctcenth century. Durkheim played the main part in its creation.l
' lrrrrile I)rrrkhcirtr (lli5() l()l /): lrkt' M:rrx ol'.lewislr. irrtlcetl nrhhinic. origins: strrrliccl ut tlrc
I t olt' Nrrt.rtutlt' Sttllr'ttt'tu(' rr l':rrr',. li"i /() li.r; slrtrlit'tl in ( ;('l nlln-V. llili.5 (r: t ltttt,qi tlt t',ttrt.s itr
.rrr r,rl :'( r('tt( ('irtt(l l)('(l,u'r,r'\ .rl lltt' l ;r, rrlll'ol l.t'llt'rs. llolrk'lrut. lSli/ l()(1.); r'ltttt',r\t;(l('( (ttt..\ il
Durkheim 125
Durkheim
124
purely methodological replacement of
stood in probabilistic terms. Previously scientists had tended to conceive natu-
It is important not to see this shift as a
ral laws as operating deterrninistically, so that the behaviour of every event
onetypeofanalysisbyanother'Morett,a,.",vothelsocialtheoristofthetjLrst falling under them could, in principle, be predicted by them; statistical laws, by
Iank,Durkheim,o.,gh.toconstitutesociologyaSadistinctandautonomous
infrastructure. Göran contrast, made claims only about the relative frequency with which events would
science with its own theoretical
protocors and prof'essional
to a scientific conform to their predictions.
'the central sociological contribution
1

Therborn ho, ,rgg.rted that ond studl' of The first statistical laws to be fbrmulated were often generalizations from
cttnsistid in the discov'er1'
discourse on society . . . has essentt,lll'
L

,]
data gathered by bureaucrats and reformers concerned to identify the social
of values and norms - in hunton
the ideologic:al ,o'i'*"nit1' - i'e' to"tmunity
l

this concept of the problems generated by industrial capitalism. Ian Hacking writes: 'Many of the
aggregate, o.l,rorrou, artd sizes" and ihat formulating
'ypL, necessitatecl a 'socioiogical critique of political
first law-like regularities were first perceived in connection with deviancy:
.ideological community'
suicide, crime, madness, disease.' Indeed. he suggests that
economy,inwhoseformulationDurkheirnplayedaclecisiverole.2 ,ineteenth cen-
of Western socieiy at the end of the
Certainly the condition statistical laws do apply to classes. It is laws about 'theln'. about the other, that
such as Spencer
tury seemed to rig""iit.limits of laissez.liire'Evolutionists from militant to are to be determined, to be analysed, and to be the basis fbr legislation. The classes
from status to contract'
and Maine had depicted a progression in question ale not abstract entities br"rt rather social realities. Inevitably it is the
words, the course of history was moving towards
industrial society - in ottrer
models
labouring or crirninal or colonial classes that are the chief objects to be changed,
social order which the theoretical for their own good.r
the kind of exclusively market-based But' as Spencer
economists postulated'
of Smith, Ricardo, ancl later marginalist drew to a close'
as the nineteenth century The development of statistical techniques and the results of their application
was painfully aware (see §5.2 above), of and
the trend was in the opposite clirection, towards greater state regulation provided the means to transfbrm sociology from the philosophy of history it
intervention in economic and social
life' had remained in Comte's and Spencer's hands into a form of ernpirical encluiry.
to be called 'collectivism' was' in
part' a
This re-emergence of what came Moreover, the constitution of sociology as an established academic discipline
consequenceofpoliticaldevelopments.BythelatenineteenthCenturyindus- took place in a context where laissez..fltire was widely perceived to have faileC
original, mainly British' base and
was
trial capitalism had broken out of its both intellectually and practically. Durkheirn insists on the inability of unre-
western Europe and North America'This strained economic individualism to provide the prerequisites of a stable social
coming to predominate throughout and assertive work-
of increasingly powerf\l order: 'It is therefbre extremely important that economic lif-e should be reg-
brought in its wake the emergence
(and, to a large degree, consequent)
ing-class movements. The concomitant to offer
ulated, should have its morals raised, so that the conflicts that disturb it have an
extension of the suffrage obliged
liberal and conservative politicians cnd and fufther, that individuals should cease to live their lives in a moral vacuum
threat of these moverlents and to
win
social reforms in orcler to defuse the where the life-blood drains away even fiom individual morality.'a
of social insurance in an unsuccessful This stress on the necessity of moral regulation implies, as Therborn argues,
workers' votes: Bismarck's introduction
Democracy is a classic instance of this
attempt to underlnine Gennan social a critical stance towards political economy. Durkheirn praises 'the econornists

process' ! r-r^ -^^"r'+intof Western socl'eties which these reforms


. . . for having first pointed out the spontaneous character of social life, showing
The increased state regulation lhat constraint can only cause it to deviate from its natural course and that nor-
promotedalsofacilitatedttreoevetopmentofempiricalsocialenquiry.Public rrrally it arises not fiom anangements imposed fiom without, but from its own
gathered growiT* b"*: of data
bureaucracies and private philanthiopists this
llce internal nature'. They have nevertheless failed to see that'liberty itself is
about difterent aspects of social
life. Increaiingty organized numerically' llrc product of regulation'. Therefore, he declares in his first major work,The
information about thc
rnaterial was sought and enrployed in order to provide l)ivision o.f'Labour'(1893), his aim is 'to constitute the science of morality',
social.problems,whichstatepolicyincreasingly'oughttoidentifyandrc- llutt is, 'to treat the facts of moral life according to the methods of the positive
Uoirr tt'e pursuit of specific studies
a,d thc
dress. But it also made possible scicttces'.5
by social scientists' one major ninc 'l'ltis lrnhition su-{gests the continuity between Durkheimian sociology and
forrnulatio, ri"Lfirical'generalizations
was the development of the disciplirrt' tlw rrtontli.r'lc trarlition of early nrodern and Errlightenment French thought -
teenth-century intellectuai achievement
by Adolphe Qudtelet of the cott
of statistics, and in particular the refinenrent wl]ich can tlnly bc Lttttlct'
uf a popu,iation ' I Ilrrt'krrtt.'lltt''llrtttitt,q ttl ('lttrtrt't'{(';rrrrbritlgt'. l()t)0). 1rp. .1. IlO.
cept of a statistical law its a property ' lf l)rrrklrr'irtt. l'ntli'ssittrtttl l..tltir'.ttttttl ('it'it lllt,tttlr (l.orrrlorr. l().51). p l).
l'l)rlklrr'rrtt. Ilrt'l)iyi.:i,'rt1tl Iq1l,t,tu (llorrrrrlrrrrll.,.;ttSl). Ill l.rO.rr,.
](i'.[,ltcI.btlt.ll'.Sr.it,l,r.r,'(,1rr,s,stttttl,\tl<.it,lt'(I,tltttltrtt.l()7(lt.1l1l]]1.].17.
Durkheim 127
126 Durkheim
into an institution alized discipline, Durkheim founded in 1896 the journal
to social institutions and customs
the study of hurnan conduct in its relationship L'Annöe sociologique, and gathered around him, first in Bordeaux and then in
this concern with'moral lit-e'thus
(see ch. t above). But in Durkheim's case Paris, an influential group of pupils and collaborators.
with the clislocations and antagonisms
understood springs from his preoccupation Durkheim's political outlook will be considered in more detail alongside his
and Spencer) industrial society'
of what he tends to call (following Saint-Simon substantive social theory in the following section. But it is worth first noting the
of moral regulation' is responsible
t1
Thus he argues that rtnornie, orthe absence extent to which his work, at least initially, was a development of themes ex-
for plored by earlier evolutionary social theorists. The Division of Laborzr, though
quite distinctive in conceptualizing society as essentially a moral reality, rever-
the continuaily recuning conflicts and
disorders of every kind of which the eco-
berates with echoes of Comte and Spencer. Both understood social evolution as
nomicworldaffordsSosorryaspectacle.For,sincenothingrestrainstheforces a process of progressive differentiation; Spencer treated the development of the
they are obliged
limits to them that
present from reacting together, or prescribes division of labour as the principal mechanism on which this process depended
bounds. each clashing with the other'
to respect, they tenJ to grow beyond all by
other . . . Men',s passions are stayed only (see §§3.1 and 5.2 above). But how would not a society fragmented into speci-
each warding otf an,l weäkening the
autholity of this kind is lacking' it is the Iaw alized individuals be liable to disintegration? Comte's argument that the re-
a moral presence they respect. If all
of the Strongest that rules, and a state of warfare, either latent or acllte, is neces- establishment of consensus would restore the basis of a stable social order seemed
sarilY endemic.t' to threaten the suppression of the individual freedom characteristic of mod-
ernity; Spencer, by contrast, believed that this freedom could be secured only
Ineans of preventing' or at least
This conception of moral regulation as a by uninhibited laissez..faire. a state of affairs which, as we have seen, Durkheim
with a conservative cast' Indeed'
controlling, social conflict suggests a theory is to determine
regarded as the main soulce of anomie and social conflict.
sociology as a whole
Durkheim himself wrote that 'the object of Durkheim posed the problem thus:
oi societies"T He was not' however' a thinker
the conditions tbr the conservation
sueq3sted that '[i]t makes some How does it come about that the individual, whilst becoming more autonomous,
of the political right. Anthony Giddens has
i

as attempting to reconstruct liberalism depends more closely on society? How can he become at the same time more of
lr sense to see both fueber and Durkheim an individual and yet more linked to society? For it is indispr.rtable that these two
the one side' and of conservative
in the context of a critique of Marxism on movements, however contradictory they appear to be, are carried out in tandem.
f by Habermas (see §2'3
thought, on the other.' Or. i, the terms formulated
against Such is the nature of the problem. It has seerned that what resolved this apparent
above), Durkheim and Weber seek
to defend modernity (albeit critically) antinomy was the transformation of social solidarity that arises from the ever-
to
those, such as Nietzsche, who reject
it, and those, such as Marx, who seek
increasing division of labour.r0
revolutionize it.
l

parliamentary institutions of
Durkheim strongly identified with the liberal Durkheim counterposes two types of solidarity. The first. mechanical solidar-
(1871-1940)' When these institutions were chal- ity, is characteristic of what he calls 'segmented societies'. Here each constituent
the French Third Republic
right during the Dreyfus Affair in the part of society is identical to every other - social functions are, in other words,
lenged by the ,ronu..trirt and rnilitarist
defenders of Dreyfus (a Jewish army
1890s, Durkheim was one of the first
relatively undifferentiated. Social solidarity depends in these circumstances on
an active participant in the repub- 'beliefs and sentiments common to all members of the group'. Organic solidar-
oflicer falsely accused of espionage), and
l'Homme. He may have owed his ap-
lican, anti-clerical Ligue des Droils ie ity. by contrast, arises where the division of labour has developed, so that indiv-
sympathies' According to Georges icluals are allocated to different social roles. Here 'the society to which we are
pointment to the Sorbänne to his Dreyfusard
'Durkheimian sociology established it- s«rlidly joined is a system of different and special functions united by definite
Friedmann, ,ubr.que,t to the Affair,
teaching of the Third Repubtic' rclationships'.rr It is in this context that Durkheim introduces one of his best-
self, alongside secular morality, in the official
and in particular through the öcola's;
through the various grades of teaching, krtown concepts, that of,the collective consciousness (conscience collective):
normales [teachers' colleges].'' In his
effort to develop sociology in Francc
'l'wo c«rnsciousnesses exist within us: the one comprises only states that are per-
sortul lo cuch ol'us. characteristic of us as individuals, while the other comprises
6 [bid., pp. xxxii-xxxiii. 97'5 )' p' I 'l() sllrlcs llurl itrc c()rnrn()n (o tltc wlr«llc ol'stlciety. The torrncr represents only our
I Lukes, Emile Drrkltcirt (Harruonclsworth' I
Undated letter to Bougl6. quotetl in s.
EA.Girlt]ens,.WeberanclDurkheim:CoinciclenceanclDivergence',inW'J.Mtltttrttsctrlttttl'l "' I)trrklrt.irrr, /)lyi.rir,rr. l). \\\.
I

('.trlt,ttrprtrttrlc.r (l.tlntlotl. 1987)' p' lltti'


1r1
Osterharnnrcl. r,rls, &/rr.r wcbt,r ttntl lti,r " llrrtl.. p. l-i I
') Qttoltrtl irr Lrrkcs. l)rtrklrt'ittt ' p' '17(r'

hll
128 Durkheim Durkheim
129
individual personality, which it constitutes; the latter represents the collective he opposed' He nevertheless helped to
formulate the version of Romantic anti-
type, and consequently the society without which it would not exist. When it is an capitalism frequently drawn on by the German
nationalist right when attacking
element of the latter determining our behaviour, we do not act with an eye to our moderniry (see §9.2 below).
l'
own personal interest, but are pursuing collective ends.r2 Durkheim, by contrast, is closer to Maine
and Spencer in thinking that the
development of organic solidarity constitutes
Mechanical and organic solidarity are distinguished by the extent to which progress over its predecessor:
'Here, then, the individuality of the whole
the collective consciousness prevails over the individual in them. 'Solidarity g.or. at the same time as that of the
parts' Society becomes more eft'ective
that derives from similarities is at tts rnaxinturz when the collective conscious- in mäving in concert, at the same time as
each of its elements has more movements
ness completely envelops our total consciousness, coinciding with it at every that are pecuriarry its own., But
Durkheim disagrees with both spencer and
point. At that moment our individuality is zero.' Where organic solidarity pre- rönnies in so far as they treat the
division of labour as a utilitarian arrangement
vails, however, 'each one of us has a sphere that is peculiarly our own, and among self-interested individ-
uals, and thus fair to see that 'co-operation
consequently a personality'. The role of the collective consciousness dimin- has its intrinsic morarity,.16
The Division of Labol.lr thus offers an
ishes, taking the form of 'modes of thinking and feeling of a very general, inde- evolutionary theory; indeed Durkheim,
like Cornte and spencer, conceives social evolution
terminate nature, which leave room for an increasing multitude of- individual as a process of diff'erentia-
tion in which progressively more complex types
acts of dissent'. As organic solidarity becornes the main fbrm of social integ- replace their simpler precleces-
sors' Yet he denies that 'the different types
ration, '[i]t is the division of labour that is increasingly fulfilling the role that of society are set out in gradations
according to the same ascending rinear series'.
once fell to the common consciousness. This is mainly what holds together Employing an image used by
Darwin to characterize the direction of biological
social entities in the higher type of society.'r3 evolution, DurkhJi. urgr.,
that 'if it were possible to draw up the .o*!I.t.
The distinction between mechanical and organic solidarity is one of a series of genealogical table of social
types, it would have rather the shape of a
binary contrasts by means of which social theorists have sought to conceptualize bushy tlee, doubtless with a single
trunk, but with diverging branches'. He furthei
the difference between modern societies and their predecessors. Maine's distinc- denies that progr.ess arong a
particular branch - say, that from mechanical
I

tion between status and contract, and Spencer's between militarrt and industrial to organic soridariti_..pr"r.r,,
an increase in the sum of human happiness: 'there
societies are instances of this kind of contrast (see ch. 5 above), as is that drawn ii no connection between the
variations in happiness and the progress in
by Tönnies between Gemeinschafi (community) andGesellschaft (association).ra the division of labour,.rT Finally,
Durkheim criticize.s 'the former philosophy of
Tönnies regarded the transition from one kind of society to another as essen- history,, of which he regards
even Comte as an example, for its teleological
tially a process of loss: individuals in pre-modern GemeinschaJi were bound modes of thinking, i, which ,the
social environment has been perceived as a
into the social whole by a series of primarily affective connections; social re- means whereby progress has been
realized, and not the cause which determines
lationships in modern Gesellschaft are cold zrnd egoistic, based cln individuals' it,.rB
Seeking to distinguish DLrrkheim's theory
rational calculations of their interests. Thus 'Gemeinschaft should be under- of social evolution fiorn that of his
predecessors, Steven Lukes denies that,
stood as a livin-q organism, Gesellschaft as a mechanical aggregate and arti- as commentators such as Talcott par-
sons have claimed, the explanation of
fact.' Genrcinschafthas its roots in rural life, and above all in the Heimor (home social change in The Division of Labour
is 'biologistic''re,l ukes's interpretation relies.h[ny
country) constituted by the ties of tradition and kinship which are found on land on the fact that this ex-
planation, generalize dinThe Rures oJ sociorogir:ar
long settled and worked by the same peasant community. Gesellschaft, whose iethod( r g95), isorates two
factors as chiefly responsible for the develof,nrent
structure was best portrayed by Hobbes and Marx, is urban and cosmopolitan; of the division of labour.
'These are: Iirstly, the number of social
its principal agent is the merchant. the eternal outsider. Its triurnph 'means the units or, as we have also termed it, the
"volume" of the society; and secondly, the
doom of culture'.r5 Tönnies lived to see the victory of National Socialism, which degree of concentration of the mass
of people. or what we have called the..dynamic
density,,.,.u
rr lbid., p.61. Roughly speaking, the idea is thar thqmore
tightry packed together grearer
rr Ibid., pp. 84, 85, 122,123.
ra Ferdinand Tönnies (1855-1936): born in Schleswig-Holstein; studied at Strassbourg, Jena, r" Durkheim , Division. pp. g5, l68.
Bonn, Leipzig, and Tübingen universities; took his Hobilitcttiort (qualifying him as a university r? Ihicl., p. I 00 n. I 7.
teacher), on Hobbes, at Berlin University in l88l;worked for the Prussian Statistical Bureuu; I" lr' I)urkh eint"l-ltt' Rrrlc: rf',\rt'irlo,qicul
Prof'essor of Economics and Statistics at Kiel University, I 9 I 3- I 6; president of the German Socio- ctl. S. Lukt.s. l.«rrr«krrr ( l()lJl). pp. l-10. 143.
rvletlrocl utur s<,rc<.terl re.rt.s ., sctt.i,ptg-t,tttttl it.s Methotl,
Iogicll S«rcicty. I 909-33. r" Lrrkt.s. l)rrt.l,lrt,irtr.l,l,. l(,/ li
rs lr.'f '(irrnics. ('rtrttttrrrnitt'trtttl rlv.sot itrtiotr (l.orrilort. l()74;. pp. l(). 170. " I)rrrklrr'itrr. lltrl,'t.p I t(r
Durkheim
Durkheim 131
130
among them for scarce social structures are the unintended consequences of individual actions. Thus
Tlll numbers of people are, the more intense competition
to this state of atTairs by seek- the Austrian economist Carl Menger, a leader of the marginalist revolution,
resources will be; social actors are likely to react highlighted those 'social phenomena lwhich] come about as the unintended
greater specialization' thereby
ing to maximize their relative advantages through
Durkheim denies Spen- result of individual efforts (pursuing individual intere,sts) without a common
i1 promoting a more developed division of labour' Thus
sufficient condition of func- will directed towards their establishment', and argued that 'human indiy'iduals
cer,s claim that environmental differences are a and their e.ffbrts' are 'the final elements of our analysis' in 'the exact social
divided as societies becotne
tional specialization: 'If labour becomes increasingly
ri more voluminous and concentrated, it is not because
the external circumstances sciences'. the equivalent of forces and atoms in physics.2a
for survival becomes more stren- Methodological individualism is, in effect, a generalization of the concep-
ll are nlore varied, it is because the struggle
tion of explanation which became entrenched in economics as a result of the
il uous.'2'
whatever we think of this Darwinian version of Smith's
'invisible hand' as marginalist revolution, in which the optimization of the general welfare is an
is right to say that the causes unintended consequence of the self-interested choices of individual market
an explanation of the division of labour, Lukes
actors. Although Durkheim was, as we saw above, willing in specilic cases to
are exclusively social
it identifies ones. This does not, however' Settle the
strains in Durkheim's thought' employ this type of explanation. he sympathized with the marginalists'oppon-
question of whether or not there are biologistic
relationship between biology ents, the German Historical School, f-or whom the economy was an evolving
Thus consider these remarks of spencef's on the
social organism rather than the aggregate of individual actions (see §7.1 be-
and sociologY: low). Further, if the reduction claim made by Spencer and Menger went through,
in wl-rich these sciences are then the space for Durkheim's autonomous 'science of morality' would vanish.
There are two distinct but equally important ways
being determined by the actions of Hence his insistence on the autonomy of social facts: thus he argues that the
connected. In the first place, all social actions
being vital actions that confbrm to the existence of 'collective tendencies' as 'things. forces sui generis which dom-
individuals, and all u.iion, of individuals
interpretation of social actions in-rplies knowledge of inate the consciousness of single individuals . . . is brilliantly shown by the
laws of life at large, rational
a whole, considered apart from statistics of suicide', which do not change frorn year to year.25 More generally:
the laws of lif'e. in tt e secon6 place, a society as
structure' and ftrnction analogous
its living units, presents phenomena of growth, 'The deterruining couse of a social Jact must be sought aruong antecedent so-
function in an animal; and these last are useful
to those of growth, structure, and cialfacts and not among the states of the individual. consciousness.'26
keys to the first.22 But if Durkheim's opposition to methodological individualism absolves him
of the charge of direct biological reductionism, the situation is much less clear
Spencer thus proposes two connections between
biology: Iirst' societies are
when it comes to the second connection Spencer posits between biology and
turn must be understood
reducible to the individuals composing them, which in sociology, which consists in their conceptuahzing processes analogously.
as organisms: secorld, social pro."rr", operate
in ways analogical to those in Durkheim systematically contrasts the normal and the pathological. Thus he
the first clain-r' In the Rules he
the living worlcl. Durkheim emphatically denies argues that '[i]f normally the division of labour produces social solidarity, it
the basis that 'social facts must
tarnousty defends the autonomy of sociology on can happen, however, that it has entirely different or even opposite rcsults.'
of social facts will be
be treated as things'. Durkheim's evolving conception These 'pathological' or 'deviant' fbrms include the eft'ects of economic crises
What is relevant for present
considered more ior"ly in the followin-e section' and of bankruptcies, which are'so many partial breaks in organic solidarity',
to individuals and their
purposes is that he 4enils that social fact.s are reducible conflict between labour and capital, and scientific specialization. 'In all these
but the system
prop.rti.r. Thus: 'society is not the mere sum of individuals, cases, if the division of labour does not produce solidarity, it is because the
which has its own
io.Ä"4 by their association represents a specific reality rclationships between the organs are not regulated; it is because they are in a
characteristics' .2' s(ate of anontie.')'
constituting sociology as
This position was crucial to Durkheirn's project of Durkheim says that a social fact is normal when it corresponds to 'the aver-
a science distinct tiom economics. The
development of marginalist economics rgc type' in a historical given society, 'the hypothetical being which might be
the explicit formulation of
towards the end of the nineteenth century involved cons(ituted by assembling in one entity, as a kind of individual abstraction, the
what has come to be known as methodological
individualism, the doctrine that
'' ('. Mcrrgcr ( ltilt3), Pntblctn.s o.fEtononit'.v ttnd ,\ociolop.r, (Urban'r. 1963). pp. 133, 142n.1.
li I)trklrcirrr (It3()7), .\rrititlt (l.ond«itt. l9ti9). p. -307.
rr Durkhe in. Divi'sion, P. 20ll' ''' I)rrlklrt'irtr. /lzlr'r'. p I l.l
rr H. Spcnccr.
'l'lrt,Strtlt,p.l Stt<'iofutgt'(l,otttlilrt. I8t)-1 ). p 326'
" l )trr klrt'irrr. l )it i.:irtrr.1r| .)(l l , .)().). l(l l
'' l)trrklrt'iltr. /itt/r'r. pp' 15, I 2()'
132 Durkheim
Durkheim 133
most frequently occurring characteristics of the species in their most frequent from the average. But how far must a case deviate from the average
before it
fbrms'. He conceives normality thus understood in broad terms, so that, for becomes abnormal? Canguilhem concludes:
example, 'crime is a phenomenon of normal sociology', since it is inevitable
that individuals will not always conform to the collective consciousness. Never- To set a norm fnormer'), to normalize. is to impose a requirement on
an existence,
theless, '[t]he principal purpose of any science of life, whether individual or a given whose variety, disparity, with regard to the requirement.
present them-
social, is in the end to define and explain the normal state and to distinguish it selves as a hostile, even more than an unknown, indetenninant.
It is, in fact, a
from the abnormal.'28 polernical concept which negatively qualifies the sector of the given
which 6oes
There is therefore an important respect in which Durkheim conceives society not enter into its extension while it tlepends on it for its comprehension.r/
as an organism, capable of experiencing both health and illness. It is, indeed, by
seeking to identify the normal condition of a specific society that sociology can The difficulty of drawing a non-arbitrary divicling-line between the
normal
offer moral and political guidance as well as describe and explain: and the pathological is brought out by Durkheim'i discussion of crime.
He
declares that 'to make crime a social illness would be to concede
that sickness
if what is desirable is declared to be what is healthy, and if the state of health is is not something acciclental, but on the contrary clerives in certain cases
fiom
something definite. inherent in things . . . [t]here is no longer need to pursue des- the fundarnental constitution of the living creature'.r2 Crime cannot
be a path-
perately an end which recedes as we move fbrwald; we need only to work stead- ological condition because it is so universally present in society: so persistent
ily to maintain the normal state, to re-establish it if it is disturbed, and to rediscover an abnormality would imply that society itself is inherently jefective.
Thus
the conditions of normality if they happen to change . . . His role [i.e. that of the Durkheim's employment of the distinction between the normal and
the path-
i
statesmanl . . . is that of the doctor: he forestalls the outbreak of sickness by main- ological is not merely indicative of the presence of biological forms
l

taining good hygiene, or when it breaks down, seeks to cure it.r') of reason-
ing in his writings; it demonstrates the extent of his atrachment to
social stability.
In his conception of sociology (though not in his substantive social theory),
This medical conception of sociology reflects a widespread assumption in Durkheim remainecl in many ways a royal follower of comte. comte,
the nineteenth-century life sciences. Thus, when Durkheim writes that'the study rike
Durkheim, argued that sociology is an autonomous science whose
of deviant fbrms will allow us to determine better the conditions for the exist- object is
irreducible to the results of individual action. Like Durkheim also, he
ence of the normal state', he echoes the great physiologist Claude Bernard, who neverthe-
less regarded sociology and biorogy as closely related, and indeed
declared: 'Every disease has a corresponding normal function of which it is prayed an
important part in developing the theory of the normal and the pathological.
only the disturbed, exaggerated, dirninished or obliterated expression.'r0 Claims None of this is to diminish the significance of Durkheim's work, or to
of this nature implied, flrst, that the mechanisms at work in normal and path- ignore
the respects in which it differs from, or goes beyond, comte. yet
ological states are identical, and, secondly, that the distinction between the while, as we
shall see, Weber strongly resists the tug of evolutionary social theory,
two conditions is an objective one, as Durkheim puts it, 'inherent in things'. Durkheim,s
thought in certain crucial ways rests upon and creatively develops its
But the second of these implications at least is very hard to def-end. As Georges assurnp-
tions.
Canguilhem puts it. '[t]o define the abnormal as too much or too little is to
recognize the normative character of the so-called normal state. The normal or
physiological state is no longer simply a disposition which can be revealed and
explained as a fact, but a manifestation of an attachment to some value.' In his
6.2 Society as a moral reality
great study of nineteenth-century medical thought, Canguiihem demonstrates Durkheim in The Dit,ision of Labour characterizes the process of social
the difficulty of finding an objective criterion by means of which to distinguish differ-
cntiation as consisting in. among other things, the progres.sive liberation
the normal and the pathological. Defining the normal sttrtistically, in terms of of the
individual personality from the collective consciousness. While this
the average, for example, as Qudtelet and Durkheim do (though in different concep-
tion of social evolution thus contrasts the relative weight of the
ways), täces the problem that, by definition, many individual cases will deviarte collective con-
sciousness in two types of social solidarity, it does nät
rely chiefly on beliefs
Ittttl t'cprcsentations in order to explain the movement from
rrj one to the other. On
Durkheim. Rule.s, pp. 9l-2, 106 n. 10. 104. lltc cotllrltry. thc main crtuses of sociul diff'erentation are, as we
re Ibid.. p. 104. have seen. what
1(r Dtrrklrcirrt. I)ivi.siott. p. 2()l; llertrartl. clttotctl in G. Clngtrillrcru, 'l'ltc Nttrtnrrl ttrttl tltc Ptttlro ':rrrluillvrrr. Nttrtttttl. p1l
't (
-5(r 7. I l().
Io,qir'trl(Nt'rv Yolk. l()()I). 11.
(rt{.
'' I )rrr l.lrt'inr. /irrir,r, yr. ()li.
134 Durkheim
i Durkheim 135
l

Durkheim calls the volume and density of society. He even writes: 'Everything neo-Kantian philosophers who accused him of a kind
occurs mechanically. A break in the equilibrium of the social mass gives rise to of metaphysical collect-
ivism, he tends in effect to equate these facts with collective
conflicts that can only be resolved by a more developed form of the division of representations.
Thus in 'Individual and collective Representations,(lg9g),
labour; this is the driving force fbr progress.'r3 Indeed, Lewis Coser suggests he writes:
that 'in The Division of Labour he is largely a structural analyst not as far re- while one might perhaps contest the statement that all social facts
moved from Marx as certain commentators have sometimes been inclined to without excep-
tion impose themselves from without upon the individual,
the doubt does not
think'.ra seem possible as regards religious beliefs and practices,
the rules of morality and
Yet, subsequent to this work, Durkheim increasingly comes to conceptualize the innumerable precepts of law that is to say, all
- the most characteristic mani-
society as a moral entity constituted by collective representations which are no festations of collective life. All are expressly
obligatory, and this obligation is the
less mental states for being irreducible to the properties of individual conscious- proof that these ways of acting and thinking ,.. ,ot
the work of the individual but
ness. The extent of this shift may be registered in a review he wrote in 1897 of come from a moral power above him, that which
the mystic calls God or which
can be more scientifically conceived.3T
Antonio Labriola's Essavs on the Materialist Conception of History.Here,while
agreeing with Marxists that 'social life must be explained not by the conception
Thus, having made exteriority and constraint necessary
of it formed by those who participate in it, but by the profound causes which conditions of the
existence of social facts, Durkheim reached a position
escape their consciousness', Durkheim nevertheless argues that 'the economic where he could only
confidently treat collective representations as melting
factor' given explanatory primacy in historical materialism 'is secondary and these conditions. He fur-
ther argued that these representations are 'partially
derived': autonomous realities, that
develop independently of their 'substratum' in the 'morphological,
facts that
had preoccupied him in The Division of Labour:
Not only is the Marxist hypothesis unproven, but it is contrary to facts which
appear established. Sociologists and historians tend increasingly to come together
in their common atfirmation that religion is the most primitive of all social phen- They [collective representationsJ have the power to attract
and repel each other
omena . . . But we know of no means of reducing religion to economics, nor of and to form amongst themselves various syntheses
which are determined by their
any attempt really at effecting this reduction.ss natural affinities and not by the condition of their matrix.
As a consequence, the
new representations born of these syntheses have
the same nature: they are im-
mediately caused by other collective representations
Relative to this shift, The Rules of Sociological Method is generally seen by and not by this or that
characteristic of the social structure.rs
commentators as a transitional work which, in seeking to make explicit the
approach employed in The Division of Labour, also in certain respects points
Durkheim therefore afflrms: 'collective psychology
towards Durkheim's later view that 'religion is the most primitive of all social is sociology, quite
sim_
ply'"0 His mature sociology is thus what David Lockwood
phenomena'. Thus in the Rules he offers the following definition of social fäcts: calls ,normative
functionalism', that is, '[t]he idea that society is a moral
'A social fact is ct way of ttcting, whether or not fixetl, capable of exerting over and ultima tely arelig-
ious entity whose intrinsic feature is a set of commonly
the individual an external constraint' As instances of social facts, he includes held values and be-
liefs.'a0 one can appreciate how serious a probrem
both 'collective representations' and 'social facts of an "anatomical" or mor- the .pathorogicar forms, of
the division of labour constitute for this perspective:
phological nature'. The latter include 'the number and nature of the elementary economic crises and class
conflict in particular represent at best the partial effectiveness,
parts of society, the way in which they are articulated, the degree of cgales- at worst the break-
down, of any unifying moral consensus.
cence they have attained, the distribution of the population over the earth's
Durkheim's most famous monograph, suicicl.e (lgg7)
surfäce, the extent and nature of the network of communications, the design of displays a similarpre_
tlccupation with the consequences of moral regulation
dwellings, etc.' - all the factors, in other words, which Durkheim had cited
Consistent with his general method, he insists that
- ancl of its absence.
when seeking to explain the development of the division of labour.36 suicide has social rather than
individual causes which may be ascertained through
Yet when Durkheim comes to def-end his conception of social facts against the analy.sis of statistical
t'cgtrlarities. This analysis clemonstrates, he claims,
that, in modern societies at
'rr Durkheim, Dirti.sion. p.212.
'r'r Ci. Bougle< ([-orrdon. l9-53). p. 2-5.
L. Coser, introdr-rction, ibid., p. xviii.
'5 Durkheirr, /ür1r',r, pp. 171.114.173.
"' Ibitl.. pp. -5(). .57.
Durkheim Durkheim 137
136
of the social and passions. It is because these appetites have escaped regulation that mod-
any rate, 'suicide varies inversely with the degree of integration
Durkheim proceeds to isolate two ernity is out of joint.
g.äup, of which the individual forms apart'.
and anomic/fatalistic' How, then, is this condition to be remedied? The answer is implicit in the
pui* of contrasting types of suicide - egoistic/altruistic
^Egoistic diagnosis: through the establishment of an appropriate kind of moral regul-
suici{e is a consequence of individualism; it arises from the despair
asthenia' or social ation. This requires, Durkheim believes, a series of institutional reforms. In
cJused by 'the relaxation of social bonds, a sort of collective
insufficient Suicide and the preface to the second edition of The Division of Labour (1902),
malaise'. But, '[i]f ... excessive individuation leads to suicide.
Altruistic suicide 'is surely very common he advocates the restoration of a modernized version of the medieval guilds,
individuation has the same effects.'
people kill themselves out of a sense of social what he calls 'the occupational group or corporation', arguing that 'the corpo-
among primitive peoples', where
they have, through age or illness, become a ration has everything needed to give the individual a setting to draw him out of
obligation - for example, where
die'al his moral isolation; and faced with the actual inadequacy of the other groups, it
burden on society, or when their superiors
alone can fulfil this indispensable office'.aa Durkheim argues that such corpor-
Anomic suicide is the direct consequence of the weakness of moral
regul-
evident in the ups ations, operating on a national scale, should undertake 'functions of mutual as-
ation in modern society. Anomie - 'de-regulation' - is most
which are directly related to rises in the sistance', '[m]any educational activities', and 'a certain type of artistic activity' .4s
and downs of the business cycle,
'in state' in trade and industry generally: This remedy might seem to smack of a conservative nostalgia for the Middle
suicide rate; indeed it is a chronic
Ages. Yet Durkheim rejects any attempt 'to revive traditions and practices that
normal. From top no longer coffespond to present-day social conditions' and argues that 'to find
There the state of crisis and rmomie is constant and, so to speak,
of the ladder, greed is aroused without knowing where to find its ulti- ways of harmonious co-operation between those organs that still clash discord-
to bottom
mate fbotholcl. Nothilg can calm it, since its goal is far beyond
all it can attain' antly together' requires 'diminishing those external inequalities that are the
with the dreams of fevered imaginations; source of all our ills'. This would involve, at the very least, establishing equal-
Reality seems valueless by comparison
abancloned, but so too is possibility abandoned when it in turn ity of opportunity by eliminating all competitive advantages that derive from
reality is therefore
pleasures' nameless sen-
becomes reality. A thirst arises for novelties, unfamiliar hereditary privilege. But, though sympathetic to the more moderate wing of
Hencefbrth one has no strength
sations, all of which lose their savour once known' French socialism represented by Jean Jaurös, Durkheim argues that 'the progress
to endure the least reverse.'2 of the division of labour implies . . . an ever-increasing inequality', because of
diff'erences in natural talents and the necessity of hierarchical organization to
If, '[iln anomic suicide, society's influence is lacking in the basically indiv- secure efficient performance.46 He does not believe that collective ownership of
fatalis-
idual passions, thus leaving them without a check-rein', its counterpart, modern industrial technology would end the present 'state of anarchy . . . fbr.
of 'excessive regulation, that of persons with futures
tic suicide, is a consequence let me repeat, this state of anarchy comes about not from this machinery being
passions violently choked by oppressive discipline" by
pitilessly blocked anä in these hands and not in those, but because the activity deriving from it is not
i"^..rrir" physical or moral despotism'. Yet Durkheim's primary concern is regulated'.47
with those fbrms of suicide which arise from a lack of social constraint
and
Nor, on their own, would national corporations overcome anomie. Indeed,
he relegates fatalistic suicide to a fbot-
moral regulation, not with their excess: by powerfully articulating the interests of specific occupational groups, they
note on the grounds that it is of 'little contemporary importance''+3 might promote further social disintegration. 'The only means of averting this
'everlast-
Durkheim's description of anomie recalls Marx's evocation of the collective particularism and all it involves fbr the individual, is to have a
of 'the bourgeois epoch' in the Communist lVlani-
ing uncertainty and agitation' special agency with the duty of representing the overall collectivity . . . vis-
of this condition are very diftbrent' For Marx the
.fe,sto. But their explÄations ä-vis these individual collectivities.' This duty is performed by the state. Unlike
constantly disturbld state of modernity is a consequence of the competitive
Marx and Weber, Durkheim does not conceive the state as primarily a coercive
accumulation of capital, and of the dynamic instability it brings
in its train'
institution. A properly functioning state is a necessary condition of the realiz-
of anomie,by contrast, recalls long-standing themes of
Durkheim's diagnos is ation of the individual. More particularly, 'the State is a special organ whose
Western thoughi- in particular, Plato's argument that both a
healthy self and a
desires
properly governed city require reason to direct and control our sensual
rr lhitl.. pp..t7tl 9.
r' I )trr.klrt'irrr. /)i li.rrorr. p. liii.
al Durkheinr' ,srricir/c. pp' 209. 2lr4'211'219' r'' Ilrtrl..;lp. ilt) .l(). II
1r Ibicl.. pp. 2-53. 254. '156 (trrtrtslrrtiott lrt«xlil'ictl )'
I

I lhitl.. pp 251'i. l7(r rr. 15. ' l)tttkltt'rnt. l'11t11's.tirtrrrtl l'llrtr t.1t \l
Durkheim 139
138 Durkheim

good for the is the interpreter of God, so he . . . is the interpreter of the great moral ideas of
responsibility it is to work out certain representations which hold his time and country."'
in exterior action, in making changes,
coliectivity'. Its 'whole life . . . consists not The importance he ascribed to education helps to explain the intellectual
. . . Strictly speaking, the State is
but in deliberation; that is in representations prominence Durtheim gained in the Third Republic. The politically dominant
the very orgall of social thought.'a8
Fur- Radicals, fiercely anti-clerical but socially conservative, relied on the system of
The state is thus the highest expression of the collective consciousness'
more clearly articulated' they lay, public, elementary schools as the key conduit for instilling republican val-
thermore, as collectir" ,.pr.r"ntations become
debate' De- ues in the mass of the population: Durkheim provided a social-theoretical justi-
become the objects of conscious reflection, and of criticism and
lts development is a fication for this strategy. Georges Sorel, then a Marxist. accurately described
mocracy is the institutional expression of this process'
changing modern societies: him in 1895 as the theorist of the 'new ideas of conservative democracy, estab-
response to the needs of complex, rapidly
lishing more justice in economic relations, tävouring the intellectual and moral
for conduct' but development of the people, encouraging industry to develop in rnore scientific
When things go on happening in the same way, habit will suffice
aie changing continually, habit. on the contrary, must not be directions', and supporting'the intervention of the State'.s2
when circurnstances
in sovereign control. Reflection alone makes possible the discovery of new and
that the future can be ztnticipated'
ef-fectual practices. for it is only by reflection
That is why delibelative assemblies are becoming evel more widely
accepted as 6.3 Meaning and belief
They the means by which societies can give considered thought
an institution. are
of the almost contin-
to themselv"r, unä therefore they becorne the instrument Durkheim'sconceptionof societyas'ultimatelyareligiousentity'(asLockwood
of collective existence demand'4"
uous changes that present-day conditions puts it) reaches its apogee in his last major work, The Elementary- Forms of the
Religious Life (1912). This study of the religious beliefs and practices of 'prim-
The development of democratic institutions also teflects, Durkheim
concedes.
itive' societies, drawing heavily on case-studies of Australian aboriginal bands,
But this freedom does not 'consist
the modern demand for individual freedom. reflects Durkheim's growing preoccupation with the evidence which anthrop-
in rebelling against nature such a revolt being futile and fiuitless, whether
- ological research provided about the nature and sources of social order. Though
attempted against the fbrces of the material world or those of the social world' his thought continued to display evolutionist assumptions - as Lukes points
necessities he
To be autonomous means, for the human being, to understand the out, '[hle simply took it as axiomatic that there is an identity between (cultural
with full knowledge of the facts.'s0 This essen-
has to bow to and accept them a and .structural) simplicity and evolutionary priority' - this shift in focus implied
1

tially Stoic conception of freedom as the recognition of necessity is one of a


that the problematic Durkheim had inherited fiorn Cornte and Spencer of
Durkheim's political theory recalls that of Hegel
number of respecis in which placing individual societies within an evolutionary sequence of progressive
all advocated a revival of corporations as a means
(see §2.1 above). Hegel after differentiation no longer occupied the tbreground of his thinking.sr In this
of helping to overcome the conflicts and instability of civil society; he also sense, the Elementory Forms is one of the harbingers of the reaction against
conceived the modern state (admitteclly without the structures of
representative
evolutionary theories of all kinds which reaches its clirnax in structuralism and
regarded as ildispensable mechanisms of collect-
democracy which Durkheim post-structuralism (see ch. I I below).
ive reflection and deliberation) as the ernbodiment of the interests of society as
Rather than seek to offer a necessarily inadequate summary of an extra-
a whole. ordinarily rich and complex work, I shall simply isolate four key themes of the
had also
There are other echoes in Durkheim's political theory. Tocqueville Elementnry Fonns. First, Durkheirr-r criticizes the rationalistic conception of
believed that a combination of democratic public life and vital private associa-
religion which informs the writings of the mainly British anthropologists on
(§3'2 above)'
tions was necessary to reconcile the individual and society whose researches he drew. Thus for F. W. Tylor and other theorists of animism.
Rousseau, like Durtheim, sought to find institutional rneans to channel and
who see supernatural beings as projections of human mental states, 'religious
to the com-
control individuals' private desires so that they were subordinated bcliefs are so many hallucinatory representations. without any objective found-
mon interest (the general will). One such means was education' on which
luti«ln whatsoever'. Durkheim rejects such interpretations, which have their
he wrote of the teacher: 'Just as the priest
Durkheim also laidlreat stress. Thus
''l (Ju«rtcrl in Lukes. I)urkltein. p. ll6.
1,1
'ln lbid., PP. 62, -50, -51 . ' (.)rrolt'rl ihitl.. p. .120.
re lhid.. P. 90. '' llrrtl.. p..15(r.
r, lhitl.. 1t ()l
140 Durkheim Durkheim
141
«rrigins in the Enlightenment view of religion as 'a vast error imagined by the Nevertheless, as Lukes points out, 'Durkheim,s
dichotomy between the sa_
priests': cred and the profane . . . derives from
and is explained by the basic, and multi-
ple' dichotomy between the social
and the individual' that is at the heart of
It is undeniably Lrue that errors have been able to perpetuate themselves in history; thought'5e Thus he argues that the his
but, except under a union of very exceptional circumstances. they can never per-
Australian aborigines' classification of natu-
ral kinds' including the totemic objects
petuate themselves unless they were true prctctic'ully, that is to say, unless, without attached to particular clans to which
interdictions apply, mirrors the internal
giving us a theoretically exact idea of the things with which they deal, they express structure of their societies, and in par-
ticular their sub-division into clans, marriage-classes,
well enough the manner in which they aff-ect us, either for good or for bad.sa and moieties (or phatries).
Thus 'the classification of things reproduces
the classification. ,J'ntert, ,so that
The 'practical truth' of religious beliefs lies not in their formal correspondence
'if totemism is' in one aspect, the
grouping of nren into clans accor6ing to
ral objects (the associated totemic species), natu-
with the world but in the needs they answer. The mistake made by the Enlighten- it is arso, inversery, a grouping of
ment and its successors among students of 'primitive' religion ari.se.s in part from natural objects in accordance with social groups,.60
their treating religious belief as a matter of the transactions between human be- From this perspective, Durkheim- orgr.J, .[r]erigion
ceases to be an inexpric_
able hallucination and takes a foothord in
ings and their natural environment. Once the problem is defined in these terms, it .*iirylln fact, we can say that the
is easy enough to demonstrate the inadequacy of most religious representations believer is nof deceived when he believes in thl
upon which he depends and from which
.*,änä'"r""'rr"r"l
power
fiom the standpoint of the modern physical sciences. But, Durkheim suggests, he receives all that is best in himself:
'[llet us suppose that religion responds to quite another need than that of adapt- this power exists, it is society.' This theory
amounts to a functional explanation
ing ourselves to sensible objects: then it will not risk being weakened by the fact of religion as 'the systenl of ideas with
which individuals represent to them-
that it does not satisfy, or only badly satisfles this need.''5s selves the society of which they are
members, and the obscure but initimate
The need which religion fulflls is sctcial. This brings us to our second fheme, relations which they have with it'.6r
Like any runltional account of a social
Durkheim's theory of religion proper: practice' Durkheirl's theory must specify
the rnechanisms through which this
practice perforrns the role he claims fbr
it. we may consider his a.alysis of
The power thus [i.e. through religionl irnposed on his [i.e. the inclividual's] re- religious ritual, our third theme. as an attempt
to meet this requirement.
spect and become the object of his adoration is society. of which the gods were Durkheim argues that curts pray.a .pr"ponä"rating
rore . . . in arr rerigions . .
only the hypostatic fbrni. Religion is in a word the system of symbols by means This is because society .ornoi-ot . its influence .

of which society becomes conscious of itself: it is the characteristic way of think- it is not in action unless the individuals who.ornpor.
rit unless it is in action, and
ing ol' col lective existence.s" it are assembled together
and act itt common'' Religious rituals serve
to Lring the rnernbers of society
together in a shared reafltrmation of their
Society is therefbre 'ultimately a religious entity' because what is venerated collective identity. Thus .the eff-ect of
the cult is to recreate periodically a moral
in religion is society itself. 'One must choose between God and society', being on which we depencl as it
depends on us', namely society- But
Durkheirn says, but he declares himself 'quite indifferent to this choice, since I the effect or the ceremonies involvecl in
the cult is not simply intellectual or
seein the Divinity only society transfigured and expressed symbolically'.57 He spiritual; they act on the collective senti-
ments of those gathered there. Through
famously defines religion in terms of the polarity between sacred and protäne: their common actions, the assembled
participants in the rituars achieve an
emotional high pitch, a conditi.n of
'collecti ve effervescence'. 62
the real characteristic of all religious phenomena is that they always suppose a ,When
emotions have this vivacrity,, Durkheirn
bipartite division of the whole universe, known and knowable, into two classes arglres, .they may well be
which embrace all that exists, but which radically exclude eerch other. Sacred llainful, but trrey are not depressing; on the contrary,
they denote a state of
cl'f'ervescence which implies a mobilization
things are those which the interdictions protect and isolate; profane things, those of utl ou active forces and even
to which these interdictions are applied.sE It sttpply of external energies.' These states
of eft'ervescence thus involve
:r .cle,se <lf surprus energy which finds
5r expression ,in supplementary and
E. Durkheinr (1912), The Elententatlt fe7'se of tht: Religious Lff? (New York. 1965). pp.u6.
87, 98-9.
55 Ibid.. p. I02. "' l .rrkt's. l )trrl,ltt,ittt, p. )6:
56 Dtrrkhcinr. .Stricitlc, p. 3 12. corrrl.rlrrc 1t1;. lO l.
l"l)trrklrerlrtltrltl M Nllttrssrttlrlti.-l't'i,titirr'('lrt.t.tilit.tttirtir(l..rrtl.n,
'r l)rrrkltcirtt.,!rrr'lrrlrr,(r'tutrl l'ltilt,,sr,/,/rr', p..5J (lrurrsllrliolr rtrotlilictl ). 'l l )rrrklrr.irrr. l)lt.tttr,rrlrtr.\. I ttnu\.1,
196.i).pp. II,l7-lu.
.r57
't I)rrr.klrr'irl. l..l(,tu('nl(ttr' /.illr.r. P. 5(r. llrrtl . p;r .l()^l. ll'i() lO\
142 Durkheim
Durkheim
143
superfluous works of luxury, that is [o say, works of art', and in the 'exuberant society was not sirnply a model.*.hi"h
classificatory thought fbllowed: it was
movements' pertbrmed. less fbr well-deflned cultic purposes than because of own divisions which served as divisions its
fbr the ;y;, of classification. The
the pleasure they give, by participants in rituals. But this 'recreational' dimen- logical categories were social categories, Ilrst
the first classes of things were classes
sion of the cult is subordinate to its predominant function: to send the members men into which these things were of
integrated. It was because men were
and thought of themselves in the fbnn grouped,
of society back to their mundane, proläne lives with a renewed sense of their äf groups, that in their ideas they grouped
shared identity: other things, and in the beginning the
two n,od", of grounding were merged
the point of being indistinguishable.6i tcr

For a society to become conscious of itself and rnaintain at the necessary degree
of intensitl, the sentiments which it thus attains, it must assernble and concentrate Thus Durkheim argues that the
various basic categories western
herited from th.e Greeks space, time, thought in-
itself. Now this concentration brings about an exaltation of the mental life which - crass, number, cause, personality,
takes form in a group of icleal conceptions where is portrayed the new Iife just originated in these primitive classifications: etc. _
'they are a procluct of r.eligious
awakened; they correspond to this new set of psychical fbrces which we have at thought', and therefbre are, like religious
beriefs änd .on..pts generaly, ,es_
our disposition for the daily tasks of existence. A society can neither create itself sentially collective representations',
äisplaying 'the mental statesof the group,.
nor recreate itself without at the same time creatirlg an ideal.nl consequently' 'they. should depend on
the way in which this is founded
and organized, upon its morphuiogy,
upon its religious, moral ancl economic
Durkheim's analysis of these states of 'collective effervescence' is one of his institutions, etc.,66
rnost striking ideas. It would seem to admit of application to social practices Durkheim calls these fundamental
categories 'the fiamework of the intel-
other than religious rituals - tbr example, to collective movements whose aim ligence'' His general conception of
their role reflects the influence of
is not to reaffirm, but rather to refbrm or even to revolutionize society. But of Kantian's like one of his teachers, neo-
the philosopher Emile Boutroux. But
more immediate relevance is an irnportant implication of this analysis: if the regarded the categories of the uttderstanaing Kant
continued existence of a society depends on its renewal through collective acts u, th" necessary condition of any
possible experie.nce' In assigning
the categäries a historical origin,
whose emotional dynamic requires the postulation of an 'ideal', then not sim- might appear to be weakening their Durkheim
force, or relativ izingthem to specific
ply is society the real object of cultic veneration, but all societies necessarily conditions. This is not, however, his social
intention. Thus he writes:
have a religious dimension. Indeed, Durkheim says that 'there is something
eternal in religion: it is the cult and the f.aith'.64 This remark indicates the dis- If men did not agree upon these essential
ideas at every molnent, if they
tance he has travelled fiom Enlightenrnent rationalism: he trcats precisely those have the same conception of tirne, clicl not
space. ..;;;, ;;;;;r, erc., all conra* berween
features of religious life which even those philosophes who were not atheists their minds woul«J be inrpossible.
and with that. ail Iif'e together. Thus
were inclined to disrniss as debased superstitious practices as indispensable could not abandon the categories to society
the free choice of the inclividual
cloni,g itself' If it is «l live there is without aban-
requirements of any functioning society. not merery need of a satisfhctory
fbrnlity' but also there is a ntinumum nroral con*
The same distance is also measured by the fourth theme fiom Durkheinr's of logicaiconfornrity beyond which
saf-ely go' For this reason it uses it cannot
l
theory of religion, namely the sociology of knowledge it implies. He attaches all its iuthority ,p,r, i,, members to fbrestall
such dissidence' Does a rnind ostensibly
r

great significance to the systems of categories characteristic of 'primitive' relig- ti'ee itself
frorn these tbrnrs of thought?
It is no longer consiclercd a hurnan mincl in the
ions - for example, those embodied in the Australian totemic beliefs touched treated accordingly
f'ull sense of the word and is
on briefly above. Durkheirn's discussions of them in the Elementarv- Forms and ' ' ' This seems to be the origin of the exceptional
which is inherent in reasotr and whic-h authority
makes us accept its suggestio,s
in Primitive ClassiJicotiort, written.iointly with his nephew Marcel Mauss, rep- fidence' It is the very authority of with con-
society. trunsf'en'i'g irself to ä
resent one of the starting-points of Ldvi-Strauss's structural anthropology (see thought which is the indispensable cer-tain lnanner of
c.ndition of all common action.67
§ I L2 below). As we have seen, Durkheim and Mauss claim to have discovered
'a close link, and not an accidental relation, between the [Australian] social This rather ararrning passage, in imprying
that those who 6o not accept the
system and this logical system' of totemic classifrcation. But this is nrerely thc P.cvailin-e categories wiil be the object o, sociar
(',ltsLrilheln'si suggestion sanctions, ca[s to mind
starting-point of a much more ambitious thesis: that to normalize is to inrpose requirements
on an

(ri lhid.. pp. 451-4. 126.47(t. 4() t. tt]_l


lrr lbitl.. p. -l7ll.
144 Durkheim
Durkheim
145
often recalcitrant reality (see §6.1 above). It also implies that the compelling force whereby what we hold
true 'imposes itself on us'. The
force which leads us to accept certain arguments as valid and certairl sentences light of the foregoing discüssion. answer is, in the
a predictable one:
as true ultimately derives from the power of the collective consciousness to
overwhelm the individual. Durkheim makes out this claim nrost fully in lec- In the Iife of the human t,,"., it
is the collectivity which maintains
tures he gave in 1913-14. Here he sought to respond to an attack mounted on reprcsentations' and all collective ideas and
representations are by virtue
the classicalconception of truth as the conespondence of our representations to invested with a prestige which of their origin
means that they have the power
reality by Williarn Janres and other American pragmatist philosophers. James selves' They.have a greater to impose them_
psychologi.ul.n..!y *on ."o..rentations
argued that, instead of measuring our beliefs by what he claimed amounted to from the individual' rnat is wrry emanati,g
they settre *i;:;;.; force
That is where the very strength in our conscirrsness.
an unattainable ideal, we should appraise them in terms of their practical utility. of truth lies.70
This critique necessarily represented a challenge to Durkheim, who had in-
herited from Comte, and indeed tiom the rationalist tradition stemming fron'r so society makes sentences true.
This hardly seems like a convincing
to Jarnes and his co-thinkers' answer
Descartes, the conception of science as objective knowledge. He declares that A contemporary pragmatist such
might readily concecre rhe poinr, as Richard Rorty
'Io]ur whole French culture is basically an essentially rationalistic one . . . A
society itse-lf constantly changes. ü;;#;,
but thln .subverr it by pointing our
total negation of rationalism would thus constitute a danger, fbr it would over- that
what is wamantedly a.ssertible at
throw our whole national culture.' Durkheim nevertheless brings to the patri- time is thus undermined by srccessive ,redescriptions, one
social changes' Truth the, becomes bound up with rarger
otic task of def-ending rationalism a significant degree of sympathy with a protean concept, its content
changing along with the society constantry
pragmatism. Not only has it awakened philosophy from its dogmatic slumber, from wiich it oe.ires its power
it is' moreover' hard to resist the of imposition;
but 'it has, in common with sociology, a sense of lift and action. Both are susp,icion that too.upio a series
might weaken this power' The resulting of rcdescriptions
children of the same era.'''n climate of'uncertainty and scepticism
is indeed part of what Durkheim
James plays this sense off against the traditional conception of truth, thinks is ,.org *rth moder,iry _
or lack of moral its anomie,
counterposing to what he regards as an abstract conception of reason the vzu'y- His failur. ro...ogr?r. r,.,o,
his defence of rational-
ism is open to this'egulation.
ing contexts of action from which beliefi derive their actual rneaning. Sociol- kind of objection seems to reflect
society into an eternal"rr.n... a tendency to hypostatize
ogy goes part of the way with pragmatism here, satys Durkheirn, since it too As E. E. Evans-p.it"iura pul
nol the savage who made society it, .it was Durkheim
'introduces a relatit,i^rrl which rests on the relation between the physical en- into a god,.zr
vironment on the one hand and man on the other'. But, in the central role which This tendency is incleed the rnäin
sollrce of the wider difficulties
theory' Durkheim's preoccupation in his social
sociology (at least as practised by Durkheirn) gives to society and to collective with the *oy in which values and
contribr-rte to social beliets
lepresentations lies the means of trumping James's attempt to dernolish the 'stability has been rnnu.ntiar on twentieth-
concept of obiective truth. Durkheim focuses on what he calls 'the rnore or less
century social thought. Theorists "no.rouriy
fiom such aifferent backgrou'ds parsons
irnd Habe'mas bear his brand. as
physical impossibility of not admitting the truth. When our mind perceives a But Durkheim,s ,ro.rotiue functionalism,
l'crs from an evident flaw. sut_
true representation, we f'eel that we cannot but accept it as true. The true idea Anomie, as we have seen, is principaily
cconomic instabirity ancr sociar caused by
inrposes itselJ on us.'6" co,flict. yet, as Lockwoocr observes, , ..crass,,
Thus viewed. truth assumes a different aspect.: 'The problem is not to know
l'ld "econornic life".are concepts in Durkheini,s
ttttlst entirely unexplicatecl. They sociorogy which remain ar_
by what right we can say that a given proposition is true or f-alse. What is ac- refer to fbr-ces whose disordering
lrlways analysed by reference effects are
cepted as true today may quite well be held to be frilse tonlorrow. What is t; the normative structure; they are themserves
rl()[ conceived of as having
important is to know what has made men believe that a representation con- a structure which is worthy
of detailed considera_
littll''7r D,rkheim.offers ,ih.ory
tbrms to reality.' Durkheim seems ready to concede to the pragmatists that the of'the sources of sociar order.
tlrc lirrces undermining it. but not one of
sentences we hold true are at best warrantedly assertible - in other words, they From ihi, ,h..r. stems the pecuriar
it provided no pathos of his soci_
are simply what, given our existing beliefs. we are entitled to assert, rather than ',rgy: rneans of expraini,g the
.iirt worrd war, in which
representing the way the world actually is. His interest lies in identifying thc
l)r''khcirn's son an. many of
his pupirs perished, nor the
t'.rrllict which rhar war u.snered
era of heightened
ir. ffrr, iJ*'i;,ä;;;.rr.
hri R. Drrrkhr'irn tlt)-5-5\. Pnr,qtttttti,t'rtr tttrd,§or'lalo,g.r'. crl. I:. Ctrr,illit'r iuttl .1. B. Alli'rtk (('url " llrirl . pp li5 (r.
hritlrc. lt)fi.j). p. I. ' l, l, lrr,;rrrs l,r.ilt.lr:rr«1, Ntr,.r. li,.li.t1i,,l (()rlirr.rl.
tt) llrirl . pp (l) lll.l \ l(J5(rt. P. I I l
I rx ks o<trl,,\'rtf 111111/I\.
lr /S
Weber 147

The honesty of a present-dpy scholar, and above all, a present-day philosopher,


can be measured by attitude to Nietzsche and Marx. Whoever does not admit
{üs
that considerable parts of his own work could not have been carried out in the
absence of the work of these two, only fools himself and others. The world in
which we spiritually and intellectually live today is a world substantially shaped
by Marx and Nietzsche.2

Weber Yet, if Weber oriented himself with respect to Marx and Nietzsche, he never-
theless hewed his own path. Reconstructing the precise content of the theories
which resulted is perhaps more ditficult than it is in the case of other major
social theorists. This is partly because, as Keith Tribe says, 'Weber's work is
fragmentary not only in the sense that his efTorts were spread over several fields,
any one of which was usually the defining province of a scholar; much of his
published work was radically incomplete, hastily written, unrevised, proof-ed at
speed. afier publication the manuscripts discarded.'3 Moreover. Weber, par-
7.1 Prussian agriculture and the German state ticularly in his methodological writings. often expressed himself obscurely and
elliptically. Recent scholarship helps to provide a better understanding of the
of modernity: the
Durkheirn and Marx offer two starkly counterposed images soLrrces and development of his thought, but offering an overview of the results
integration of
first is so preoccupied with the dangers posed to the normative is a particularly hazardous enterprise.
he believes to be sub-
society that he cannot offer an account of the processes Weber seerns to have regarded himself primarily as an economist. As late as
theory of the con-
versive of social stability; the second ofTers a comprehensive
l

1918. he spoke of 'we political economists'.4 [n his 1895 inaugural lecture at


yet predicts their
1

flicts and uncertainties endernic to modern bour-ueois society' Freiburg, Weber included himself among 'the disciples of the German Histori-
of his critics argue)
resolution in a future communist society without (so many cal School'.5 The Historical School represented the dominant version of econ-
which would
providing the conception of the nature and ends of human action omics studied in Germany during the nineteenth century. Its leading practitioners
be required to justifj this prediction. The particular
inteiest of Weber lies in the
conceived economics as primarily a historical and descriptive science concerned
signihcance of cap-
thct that he develops a distinctive account of the historical with understanding society as a concrete, evolving whole. Thus Karl Knies
a sense of the
italism as part of u toOy of thought which displays as strong wrote in 1853:
and Marx did' but
inherently conflictual character of social reality as Hegel
played by ineducibly dif-
combines this with an attempt to understand the role If . . . political economy genuinely bases itself on the real f'acts of people and
conduct'l
I

ferent, ald indeed antagonistic, values in governing human state, if it seeks to solve the problems arising in people and state, then it should
sumound most major social theorists: weber is no excep- not detach its dornain and task from that of life in its entirety, but must rather treat
Misunderstandings
reconstruction
tion to this rule. His tate has been to enrerge, in the American-led both as a living mernber of a living body . . . Since political economy has to
World War, as the patron saint of 'value-fiee' so- respect this context, and in its own concerns contributes to the solution of the
of sociology after the Second
interesting thinker moral-political problerns of the whole, it is therefbre enjoined to take its place
cial science (see § 10.2 below). Fortunately, he is a much more
points of reference were with the moral and politit:al .sciences.6
than this conventional portrait suggests. That Weber's
sought to envelop hinl
very diftbrent trom those of the postwar orthodoxy which
his death in 1920: Such a conception of political economy was plainly quite at odds with the
is suggested by a remark he made a few weeks before
vcrsion formulated by J. S. Mill, which became entrenched, especially in Brit-
r a prominent National Liberal menrber ol
Max weber (l tt64-1g20): born in Erfurt, the son of rrirr itnd Austria, as a result of the 'marginalist revolution' of the 1870s (see §3.1
the Gernrain Reichstag and Prussiltr Landtag: studied
law at the universities of Heidelberg' Berlirr'
at the University of Freiburg' I894-6; lnoved to the Urti
ancl Göttingen; Prof'essor of Economics ' Qtrotccl irr W. Hennis, Ma.rWeber (London. 1988), p. 162.
versity of Heidelberg to take over Karl Knies's chair in
Politicirl Science in 1 u96; suf'fbred a sevcr.('
' K 'l'rihc. 1l'lu)sllrl()r"s introductiorr. ibid.. p. 10.
r.nental breakdttwnin 1897,frorl1whichittookhirnseveral yearstorecover;resignedhischlrilirr
in 1904 took over. with EdgarJaffi ttncl wctttt'r ' Il ll. (it'r'tlr rrrrrl ('. Wriglrt Mills. crls. lintnr Mtr-r Wclttr (1.«rnrkrn. l()70).p. l2().
1903 but sufliciently recovcrecl to resumL'wtlrk: ' N'|. Wt'lrr'r.l'rtlitit'ttl llrilil.r3r. l'. l.rrssrrr:rrr rrrrrl ll . Sgrcir.s t'tl. (('lrrrrhlitlgc. l()()-1). 11. 19.
'' (.)ttrrlr'rl irr l lt'rrrris. Ä/rrr ll ,'l,t r .1, l.)ll
lit'ottolttics lrl lhe [ ]rtivt'r'sitv ol Mtrrric'h' l() l() l0'
Weber Weber 149
148
The presence of the Social Denlocratic Party (SPD), with a mass working-
above). Here economics was conceived as an abstract and deductive theory
con- class base and a substantial bloc of deputies, both created pressure for derno-
which artificially isolatecl one aspect of human behaviour for study. These
in the debate which developed cratic refbrms and suggested to the Gern-ran ruling class that sumendering to this
flicting conceptions of economics were at stake
pressure would be dangerous. Meanwhile. rivalries among the Great Powers be-
in the I ggOs known as the Methotlenstreit - the battle over methods - pitting
came increasingly threatening as the nineteenth century drew to a close, chiefly
Austrian marginalists, led by Carl Menger, against German historical econ-
because of the destabilizing consequences of Germany's emergence as a world
omists, headed by Gustav von Schmoller'
power. On the Continent, Germany and Austria-Hungary faced France and Rus-
Weber was eventually to adopt a methodological position that was, as we
shall
closer to Menger than to sia; moreover, Germany's decision in 1898 to build a battle fleet unleashed an
see in the following section, in certain crucial respects
like the Historical School, to ex- arms race with Britain (which interpreted the move as a challenge to its naval and
Schmoller and Knies. Nevertheless, he sought,
colonial supremacy) that helped drive Europe into the First World War.
plore the wider social context of economic processes, and to relate them to the
In this context, the condition of Prussian agriculture - the economic base of
pu.rrit of moral and political objectives. This can be seen in his first writings to
a key section of the German ruling class - was more than a merely academic
hur. u general impact, published between 1894 and 1897, and devoted to the state
question. In l89l-2the Verein für Sozialpolitik (German Social Policy Associ-
of prussian agriculture. These were far from being works of disengaged scholar-
elite' ation) surveyed 4,000 landowners on the condition of rural labour east of the
ship, but insteacl resonated with the contemporary concerns of the German
greatest Elbe. The Verein had been set up in 1873. lt reflected mainly the influence of
The German Reich, unifiecl in 1871, was from its foundation the
Schmoller and other historical economists: it was critical of Mttnchestertum, or
military power in Europe. By the outbreak of war in l9l4' it had also surpassed
unrestrained free-market economics, and sought to devise state policies that
Britain and established itself as the second biggest indtrstrial economy. Rapid
would limit the attraction of the SPD for workers. Weber was asked to analyse
industrialization transformed German society - in the rapidly expanding cities.
Rut the the results of the survey on rural labour.
an affluent bourgeoisie and an industrial proletariat both took shape'
of the nineteenth century was a Weber's writings of the I 890s reflect both Marx's influence and the distance
modernity Germany had achieved by the end
between the two men. Weber's researches into ancient economic history, which
complex and troubled one. The Reich's constitution provided for a parliament.
extensive immediately preceded his study of Prussian agricr-rlture, already showed an an-
the Reichstag" electecl by universal male suffrage, but allowed such
head of state and king of Prussia alytical interest in distinguishing between types of economic structure - 'natu-
powers to the emperor in his role as German
and military hierarchy ral' or barter economy (a concept he owed to the historical economist J. K.
ihat ttre predominantly Prussian civilian bureaucracy
Rodbertus), the basis of feudalism; slave society. which permitted the limited
were able targely to evade political accountability. The Junkers, as the landed
developrnent of commerce; and modern capitalism with its roots in free wage-
nobility east of the Elbe were known, traditional base of the Prussian monar-
labour. Weber's explanation of the decline of classical antiquity was essen-
chy, benefited liom a variety of state subsidies. TarifTs introduced by Bismarck
tiallyan economic one: 'It is clear, therefore, that the disintegration of the Roman
in 1879 were widely seen as consummating a'marriage of iron and rye', bind-
Empire was the inevitable political consequence of a basic economic develop-
ing together the Junkers and the chiefs of increasingly cartellized heavy indus-
policy nlent: the gradual disappearance of comrnerce and the expansion of a barter
tries such as coal and steel. Weber hirlself described the outcome of this
cconomy.'8
as 'the t-eudalization of bourgeois capital"T
It is a sound generalization that when any European intellectual considers
By the end of the nineteenth century, Germany was undoubtedly a highly
pol- the decline of Rome, he is usually wondering whether his own civilization will
successful modern capitalist state. But any claims on its behalf as a liberal
National Liberals (of whom Weber's father succumb to a similar fate. In the Freiburg Address Weber. speaking on behalf
ity were much more dubious. The
ol'his own, younger generation of German bourgeois, conjures up the threat of
was a leading member) represented the wing of Prussian liberalism which
hacl
aftel' lristorical decadence: 'At our cradle stood the most frightful curse history can
abancloned their opposition to Bismarck's defence of absolute nronarchy
he had, through a succession of diplomatic manoeuvres and victorious wars. rivc any generation as a baptisrnal-gift: the hard fäte of the political epigone.")
'l'lris preoccr-rpation with decline is probably in part a response to Nietzsche's
secured German uniflcation. They played an important part in developing
approximating a genuine parliament, thott-[h its t'orrrprclrcnsive critique ol European nihilisrn. But it also arose fion"r more
the Reichstag into something
a subordinate one' rrrtcnl sociirl lrncl politiczrl concerns.
position in the state remained

r M. Wcbcr cd., Rttrtlitr,t Wclx'r (l'otttlort' l\l Wt'lrt'r. l'ltt',l,qr.tttitrrt .\'rtt ittlrt,t:t rtf ,\ttt it'trl ('ivili:.trlirttr.s (l,otttlott, 197(r). J0li.
( ltJ()7). '(icrnrlrny lrs llr Intltrstliul Stlrtc'. in K. Tribc, 1t.
' \\'r'lr,'t . l',,1111,,,1 ll rilirr,;r. p '.1
()l(() p. 2 I 5.
| 1.
it

150 Weber Weber 151

Weber's writings on East Elbian agriculture are concerned to draw attention necessary experience in exercising political power. As for the
working class,
to changes in what he calls 'the labour-organization lArbeitsverfassungl of the despite the organizationaT and electoral successes of the SpD, it
lacks the
large landed properties'. This had been 'a form of communal economy, dynamism or courage either to constitute a threat to the existilg order
or to
patriarchally ruled and directed'. based on a legally subordinated workfbrce of reinvigorate it: the SPD leader.s are 'infinitely more harmless than
they think
peasant smallholders required to provide the landowner with their families' they are, fbr there is not a spark of that Catilinarian energy to act in
them, nor
labour. The Junkers, however, in response to their political decline and under the slightest trace of that rnighty nationalisl passion' shown by the
Jacobils
competitive pressure from 'the wealthy commercial bourgeoisie', were trans- during the French Revolution.rs
forming themselves into 'entrepreneurs working according to commerc:ial prin- Implicit in this diagnosis is a second theme: there is no necessary coffes-
ciples': 'world-wide conditions of production ... now began to rule the pondence between economic and political processes. Germany's
industrial
enterprises'.r0 This implied a move towards the intensive cultivation of cash- might is no guarantee that it will enjoy political leadership of the iequired qual-
crops such as sugar beet, and, as a consequence, the proletarianization of the ity. Thus Weber argues fbr the closure of Germany's eastern border with
rural workforce. The beet estates, in particular, were becoming increasingly Poland and a policy of systematic land purchases and colonization
by German
reliant on low-paid and unskilled Polish seasonal labourers. peasants east of the Elbe in order to preserve the 'national'
character of the
Weber's concern with the consequences of these developments is, in part, region even though these measures will produce economically sub-optimal
re-
national and racial. Thus he warns of 'a Slavic invasion which could mean a sults: '[ do not believe that the colonization of the German East initially
cultural regression of major proportions'.rr His writings on East Elbian agri- least - will lead to an irnprovemenf in agricultural technique .
- at
. . but I regard it
culture contain odious racist remarks, fbr example. about 'Polish animals'.r2 as necessary and possible because the prevailing international
relations of com-
But he is also concerned with the negative impact which the decline of the petition render the land of the German East valueless from the point
of view of
traditional Prussian estate may have on the German polity. For '[t]he East production fbr the world market.'16 Where the national interest
commands it,
Elbian estates are not merely economic units, but local political centres of domin- the state must be willing to override the dictates of economic rationality.
tttion lHerrscha.ftscentrenl. Based upon Prussian traditions, they provided the This did not mean that Weber advocitted simply defying the logic of
the
material basis fbr a stratum of the population accustomed to possessing both market. He opposed proposals to make Gerrnany an autarki. ..onoÄy
whose
political authority within the state, and the political and military forces of state grain supply would be provided by a highly protecred East Elbian
agriculture.
power.'13 Their decline implies that the Junkers can no longer play a leading Higher tariffs would transform Germany into an internationally uncompetitive
role in the state: 'the centre of gravity of the political intelligentsia is shifting 'rentier capitalism' and promote 'the proliferation of this.fe ttda-1izatio,
i1'bour-
irresistibly into the cities. i"/zis shift is the decisive politicalfactor in the agrar- geois capitul' which under Bisrnarck had preventecl the bour_eeoisie
from cle-
ian development of eastern Germany.'ra veloping its political capacities. Moreover maximizing grain yieicts
would require
Four dimensions may be distinguished in the broader reflections which this the further capitalization of East Elbian agricultur", in. reiulting
increases in
analysis provokes in Weber. In the frrst place, the erosion of Junker power productivity would reduce the size of the rural workfbrce and theieby
promote
represents a crisis tbr the German state, since there is no other class capable of the very process of depopulation Weber was seeking to prevent.
To prevent this
assurning the role of political leadership. Though he proclaims himself 'a mem- «rutcome, Germany must buy an increasing proportion of its foocl
supply abroad,
ber of the boLrrgeois [bürgerlicltl classes' and identifies with 'their views and rrnd finance tlrese imports by a corresponding growth in its
of -unr-
ideals', Weber denies that 'the German bourgeoisie has the maturity today «r lirctured goods. Weber acknowledges 'the enormous risk which "^po.i
the inevitable
be the leading political class of the German nation'. This is a consequence of its .utward economic expansion of Germany places upon us,, but regarcls it
lack of political education. It was not the bourgeoisie but Bismarck who unihed as 'unavoidable'.r7
Germany; his 'Caesarist' rule, moreover, denied it the opportunity to gain thc Thirdly, economic processes are not to be understood primarily as a means of
wclfare-maximization, but from a perspective of eternal struggle which
smacks
r0 M. Weber (1894), 'Developmental Tendencies in the Situtrtion of East Elbian Rural Labour- ,l'htlth Nietzsche and Social Darwinism: 'Our successors will hold us answer-
ers' , Economy ond Sot:iety, B ( 1979), pp. 177 , 179, I 80. ;thlc ttl history ntlt primarily fbr the kind of economic organization
rr lbid., p. 200.
we hand down
rr Quoted in K. Tribe, 'Prussian Agriculture - German Politics: Max Weber 1892 1' . in Trilrt'. '' llritl" PP' 2 t. l-5 (r. ('lrlilirlc wits thc lcrttlcr.l'an unsucccsst'ul insurrccti«rnary cor.rspiracy gncler
etl.. Rcutling Wcbt'r. p. I 14. tIrt' llorrlrn l{e prrblit. irr Ilrt. lir.sl (.(,t)lut.,v u(,.
B Wchcr.'l)r:vckr;'lrtrcnlirl'l'crtrlcncics', p. l7li. " (.)rrolt.rl irr 'llllrt.. 'l,r'rrssi:rrr Artrit.ullrrn.'.
1t. I I5
|
|
\&'t'ht't'. l'ttlitit trl lli llia,{.,,r. p. I } ' \\'t'lrr'l . '( it'r rrr;ur\''. pp .) I L) I () ) )l)
Weber Weber 153
152
bequeath to them' In into newly independent states such äs Poland and Czechoslovakia, Weber vig-
to them, but for the amount of elbow-room we conquer and
pov)er struggles too''r8 orously supported the armed resistance mounted in their areas by the Freikorps,
the lrnal analysis. proceSSeS of economic development ate
on foreign trade is groups of extreme right-wing ex-oflicers many of whom later joined the Nazis.
Thus the risk involved in Gerrnany's increased reliance
He declared in December l9l8: 'He who is not willing to employ revolutionary
the same risk that all great trading industrial peoples of the
past' all leading peoples methods in regions where a German irredenta will emerge, and risk the scaffbld
in the past at the time of their greatness have taken upon and prison, will not deserve the name of nationalist in the future.'24
in cultural development
iiis my opinion that we are not pursuing a policy of national corn-
themselves, ancl
take this burden upon our shoulders if
.fort bürather of greatness, hence we must r')
we wish to have a national existence other than that of switzerland, fbr example' 7.2 Science and the warring gods
analyt-
Finally. economics is not a neutral science: 'As an explanatory and Eternal conflict and struggle thus fbrm one of the main elements of Weber's
ical science, political economy is international,but as soon aS it
rnakes value-
thought. Yet his writings of the 1890s could, at a pinch, be treated as the work
find
judgemenrs ii is tied to the particular strain of mankin d (Menschentunt) we of an especially talented historical economist strongly influenced by Social
'[t1he science of pcllitical economy is a
within our own nature.' Accordingly, Darwinism. Thus he argues that 'it is not the alleged export policy, but rather
of the enduring power-political interests of
potiticalscience. It is a servant . . .
the increase in population - whatever may be the economic organization of
theorist' can
the nation', and'the criterion of value of a German economic the earth - which will in future intensify the struggle fbr existence, the struggle
policy or criterion''r0 Weber here echoes long-
therefore only be a German of man against man'.25 There is no evidence that Weber ever abandoned this
Historical School. Thus Friedrich List
standing formulations of the German essentially Malthusian prognosis. Nevertheless, his writings from 1903
had accused Adam Smith of seekilg 'to prove that "political" ot national
onwards, after he had recovered from his mental breakdown, rnake it clear that
economy must be replaced by "cosmopolitical" or world-wide
economy''''
Weber was strongly opposed to the attempt to assimilate physical and social
of weber's writings, however. strikes a new note'
The strident nationalist tone processes characteristic of evolutionists such as Spencer (see ch. 5). Thus he
the 'eudaimonism' of those economists who, influ-
He dismisses what he calls rejected the idea of an evolutionary process of progressive differentiation
Bentham, see the maximization of human welfäre as the goal of their
enced by irnplicit in 'the familiar value-free concept of the biologists: "higher" = "more
science: 'We do not have peace and human happiness to hand
down to our suc-
differentiated". or more simply, "more complicated". As if the embryo and
struggle to preserve and raise the quality of our
cessors, but rather the eternal placenta. etc., were not the most complicated things known to biology.'2r'
a world away from the cosmopolitanism
national species.'22 Such statelnents Seem In doing so, Weber was participating in a widespread trend in European
his theoretical
of the Enlightenment. Weber was by no means alone in relating thought at the start of the twentieth century. Anti-naturalism - the denial that
of national interests. Durkheirn, as we saw
preoccupations to the construction human beings and the social world they created could be understood using
to defencl French rationalism against American
iSO.: above), invokecl sociology the same methods and concepts as those of the physical sciences - represented
pamphlets during the First World War'
piagmatism: he also wrote anti-Gernian a powerful reaction to the evolutionism and empiricisnr which had become
major theorist whose thought most profoundly inter-
Weber is, however, the cntrenched in Western intellectual culture, particularly as a result of the
the end of the
nalizes the world of Great Power rivalries that took shape at in-rpact of Darwin. This reaction took diverse, and often rnutually incompati-
German nationalism rutls through all his writ-
nineteenth century. An assertive ble, forms. The most important version of anti-naturalism in Germany was
ings. He respondld to the outbreak of war in August 1914 with enthusiasm'
rrco-Kantianism, represented by various schools which developed Kant's dis-
offbring his iister, who had just lost her husband i. the battle of
Tannenberg'
linction between a realm of appearances governed by the laws of nature and
e, this war is great and wort'
the rather doubtful comfbrt: 'Whatever the outcom
of her territory
l 'rloumenal' realm in which the subject could give itself moral laws into an
derfttl.'23 After Germany's defeat, and the incorporation of parts
olrposition between the worlds of external nature and human culture.
rs Weber. Political Writings,p. 16. 'fhe 'htrman' or 'cultural' sciences (Geisteswissenschaften, an expression
re Weber. 'Germany', P.213. r'oirrcd irr the Germitn translation of J. S. Mill's S1'stem o.f Logic to designate
r0 Weber'. PoliticulWritin,qs,pp' 15, 16.
rr Quoted in Hennis, Mux Weber, p. I ltt. '| (.)rrott'rl in ihirl.. pp. ll2 l-1.
rr Wcber. Polirit'ul Writirr,qs. p. l6' ' Wt'lrr'r. '( it'r rtr;rtt,v',
rr l,cttcr.t0 Lili schlil'lcr, ltl Aug. 1914, tlrrotctl in w..1. Morttlttsctt' Mtr.t \lt'ltct'ttntl 1l ")lli
'' l.r'llt't ltr l{lt l.t'r1. .) Nor l()O7. rlrrolr'rl irr llt'rrrris. Lltrt \l:r'l,t't. p 2JJ rr. 25.
l,t,litit..s. l,\t)O l())() (('lric1go. l()fi.l). l)l). l(X) l.
Weber 155
154 Weber

,moral sciences'27) therefore required a different method tion'. Here he presents value-pluralism as a consequence of a historical pro-
what he calred the
this method cess. The 'disenchantment' of the world - in other words, the collapse of tran-
from that of the physical sciences. ForWilhelm Dilthey, for example'
identifi- scendent religious interpretations of reality (see §7.3 below) - has produced a
is essentially interpretive, consisting in understanding: the empathetic
actions he seeks to state of affairs resembling that of classical antiquity, in which different gods -
cation of, for example, the historian with the subjects whose
is not Aphrodite, Apollo, and the like - made competing, and equally valid, claims to
reconstruct: 'The basis of the human studies lGeisteswissenschaftenl
veneration: 'Many old gods ascend from their graves; they are disenchanted
conceptualization but total awareness of a mental state and its reconstruction
and hence take the form of impersonal forces. They strive to gain power over
based on empathy. Here life grasps lif'e''28
the var- our lives and again they resume their eternal struggle with one another.' Since
Weber was undoubtedly influenced by neo-Kantianism, particularly
iety developed by Heinrich Rickert. Like Rickert, he conceived cultures
as sys- we no longer believe in a single transcendent deity who is the source of all
Hennis has meaning, we are confronted with 'an unceasing struggle of these gods with one
tems of values irreducible to physical processes' But, as Wilhelm
pointecl out, 'for weber's generation. Nietzsche was the decisive
intellectual another. Or speaking directly, the ultimate possible attitudes toward life are
The Nietzsche on whom Weber drew was not the biologist of irreconcilable and hence their struggle can never be brought to a final con-
"*p"rience'.2e partic- clusion.'33
power he was frequently construed as being by his German readers,
a result oi tt publication of his notebooks under the
title The Will to Where does value-pluralisrn leave the status of science itself? Values operate
utarty as
" in scientific research at a number of different levels. In the first place, they
Pov,erin 1906. Weber dismissed what he called 'theweake,.t/ part of Nietzsche'
moral- govern the selection of those phenomena which are considered worthy of study
the biological embellishments which are heaped around his thoroughly
in the lirst place:
istic teaching'.tt'
derives fiom
Nietzsche is of importance fbr weber for two reasons. First, he
the significance of cultural events presupposes a y,alue-orientation towards those
Nietzsche a belief in the primacy of power in social life. Thus:
events. The concept of culture is a value-conc'ept. Ernpirical reality becomes 'cul-
most inlportant ture' because and insofar as we relate it to value ideas. It includes those segments
Domination fHerrscha.ffl in the most general sense is one of the and only those segments of reality which have become significant to us because
of dominancy and its unfblding is of
elements of social action . . . The structure
the fbrm of social action and its orientation of this value-relevance. Only a small portion of existin-q concrete reality is col-
decisive importance in determining
decisive role particularly in the oured by our value-conditioned interest and it alone is signilicant to us. It is sig-
toward a 'goal'. Indeed, domination has played a
viz" the manor on the nificant because it reveals relationships which are important to us due to their
most important social structures of the past and present,
connection with our values. Only because and to the extent that this is the case is
one hand, ancl the large-scale capitalist enterprise on the
other'31
it worthwhile for us to know it in its individual t'eatures.ra

Secondly, however, Nietzsche is important to Weber as a


moralist' For
creative process of impos- We ascribe meaning to social events rather than finding it there: 'the meon-
Nietzsche, the will to power consists prirnarily in the
ing a new pattern, new values, on an inherently chaotic reality (see §5'3 above)' ing we ascribe to the phenomena - that is, the relations which we establish
in domination between these phenomena and "values" - is a logically incongruous and het-
while. as the passage just quoted indicates, weber is interested
are for him ulti- erogeneous factor which cannot be deduced tiom the "constitutive" elements
as a mundun", ,o.i,o-political phenomenon, power-struggles
pluralism and perspectivism' of the event in question'. Furthermore, ' "[m]eaningfully" interpretable human
mately conflicts of value. He takes over Nietzsche's
way of adjudicating be- action ("action") is identifiable only by reference to "valuations" and "mean-
and in particular his denial that there is any objective
of the world stand irl ings".' Weber therefbre agrees with Dilthey that the Geisteswissenschaften are
tween rival systems of values: 'the various value-spheres
interpretive sciences. Nevertheless, research in them, just as in the physical
ir-reconcilable conflict with one another''32 sciences. consists in discovering the causal relationships in which the events
a Vocit-
Weber makes this assertion in his famous 1918lecture 'science as sclected for their 'value-relevance' are involved. Furthermore, the knowledge
21H.-G.Gadanrcr,Trtü|tandMethtltl(London.1975.)'pp.5and.500n.l. gained through scientilic research is logically independent of our evaluations:
selected writings.eit. H. P. Rickman (cambridge. 1916),
28 W. Dilthey, p' l8l' "l'here is simply no bridge which can span the gap from the exclusively
2e Hennis, MoxWeber, P. 148'
r0 l-etter to Jatfb' l3 Sep. 1907, quoted in ibid" p' 150'
rr Wittick (2 vols' Berkelcy' l()7li " hit l., pp l -1(). 1 52.
M. Weber (1922). Et'ontttnv- ttrttl So(iett', ecl. G. Roth and C'
t l

II, p. 941.
" M. Wr'ht'r', Iltt' lllt'tltrttlolo.g.t' ttl llrr' ,\rtt itrl ,tllr'rtr'r',r
\r (icltlt rrrrtl Mills, ctls. l"rrrrrt Mttt Wt'l>r't'';l' l'17' Yrrrk. |().1()). p. 7(r.
156 Weber Weber 157
"empirical" analysis of given reality with the tools of causal explanation to the effofts to establish the distinctive properties of the Geistesw,issenschaften. phys-
confirmation or refutation of the "validity" of our value-judgements.'35 ics is an example of what Rickert called 'nomological science'. It employs, in
Weber seems to think that these 'tools of causal explanation' are, in principle other words, the tbrm of explanation most f-ully analysed by Carl Hempel as the
at least, capable of providing objective knowledge of the world: 'All scientifrc 'covering-law' model (nomos is the Greek word for law). Here events
are ex-
work presupposes that the rules of logic and metirod are valid; these are the plained by being deduced from a universal law of nature. This model is not
general foundations of our orientation on the world and, at least for our special relevant to the study of the social world: 'The logical ideal of such a
[nomologi-
question, these presuppositions are the least problematic aspect of science.'36 call science would be a system of fornrulae of absolutely general validity . . .It
What is problematic is the value of science itself: 'The objective validity of all is obvious that historical reality, including those "world-historical" events and
empirical knowledge rests exclusively upon the ordering of the given reality phenomena which we find so significant, could never be deduced fiom these
according to categories which are subjective in a specilic sense, namely, in that .formulae.'ao
the presuppositions of our knowledge are based on the presupposition of the The covering-law model of explanation cannot therefbre capture the indiv-
value of those truths which empirical knowledge alone is able to give.'37 But iduality of the historical processes which our value-judgements pick out as be-
the validity of this presupposition, as that of all value-judgements, cannot itself ing of cultural significance. This argument suggests that the study of social
be established by scientific means: 'It can only be interpreted with reference to phenomena must take the form of accounts of specific historical episodes. This
its ultimate meaning, which we must reject or accept according to our ultimate would, however, rule out the possibility of any general social theory. But
position towards life.' 38 Weber does not take this course. Instead, he argues that, while seeking to dis-
The methods of scienti{ic research may thus be objective, but they operate cover social-scientific 'laws' is futile, another form of conceptualizationplays
within an inherently subjective framework, since the objects of study, the pur- an indispensable role in the study of the social world. This is the construction of
poses for which specific researches are pursued, and the overall cultural role of ideal types which portray in heightened, indeed sornetimes caricatured, fbrm
science itself all derive fiom value-ascriptions which are subject to no rational characteristic social relationships, and thereby serve to illurninate the workin_us
adjudication. The famous 'value-neutrality' of social science comes down to of actual processes and institutions:
the requirement that scholars should sharply distinguish between the objective
nleans they employ and the subjective goals they pursue. Weber was disgustecl The ideal typical concept will help to develop our skill in imputatio n in re,sectrch:
by the tendency of nationalist scholars such as the historian Heinrich von it is no 'hypothesis' br-rt it offers guidance to the constmction of hypotheses. It is
Treitschke to use their intellectual authority to Iegitirnize their political views: not a description of reality but it airns to give unambiguous means of expression
to such a description . . . An ideal type is formed by the one-sided ctccentuatirtn of
One cannot demonstrate scientilically what the duty of zrn academic teacher is. one or more points of view and by the synthesis of a great many diffirse, discrete,
One can only demand of the teacher that he have the intellectual integrity to see more or less present and occasionally absent concrete intlividual phenomena,
that it is one thing to state facts, to determine mathematical or logical relations or which are alranged according to those one-sideclly emphasized viewpoints into a
the internal structllres of culture values, while it is änother thing to answer quest- unified analytical construct (Gedankenbild).lnits mental purity, this mental con_
ions of the value of culture and its individual contents and the question of how struct (Gedankenbild) cannot be found empirically anywhere in reality. It is a
one should act in the cultural community and in political associations. These are utopia. Historical research faces the task of determining in each individual case,
quite heterogeneous problems. If he asks further why he should not deal with the extent to which this ideal construct approximates to or diverges from reality.lr
both types of problem in the lecture room, the answer is because the prophet and
the demagogue do not belong on the academic platfbrm.r" ldeal types play an important role in Weber's historical sociology. Thus he
llrltttlusly distinguishes between 'three pure types of legitimate domination'
-
This rather tortuous attempt to square Nietzschean perspectivism with rr rrttitlnall-legal domination, 'resting on a belief in the legality of enacted rules',
conditional commitment to scientilic rationality is closely related to Webcr's ;rrlcl finding its purest fbrm in bureaucratic administration; traclitional domin-
;tliott. 'resting oll iltt cstablished belief in the sanctity of immemorial traditions';
3s M. Weber (1903-6). Rctscher and Knies (New York. 1975). pp. 10t3. ltt5. ;ttttl cltltristttittic tltllttiltation, 'resting on clevotion to the exceptional sanctity,
I 17.
16 Gerth and Mills, eds, From lVlct,r Welter. p. I43. Itt't'oisltl ot' cxctttPlitt'y cluu'itclcr ol'irrr inrliviclrrll pcrsolr. anc'l of the normative
37 Weber. Merhodology, p. I I0.
'1r1 Cicrtlr and Mills, ctls. I;ntnr Mtu W't'ltrr, p. l-13. Wt'lrt.t. lir,tr ltr't rtttrl lltttt'.t. lt (tl
"'
'" lbitl.. p. l-1(r " Wt'lrrr , Al,llt,trl,,l,,r;t. P (l( )
Weber Weber 159
158
Consequently, as Lionel Robbins puts it, '[t]he phenomena of the exchange
patterns revealed or ordained by him'.a2 These ideal types are often exemplified
economy itself can only be explained by going behind such relationships and
ty historically variable concrete combinations: thus modern 'plebiscitary de- invoking those laws of choice which are best seen when contemplating the
mocracy' involves a form of charismatic authority grafted onto bureaucratic-
behaviour of the isolated individual.'46
legal structures of domination (see §7.4 below).
Weber in effect makes the procedures of marginalist economics the para-
But the most important use to Weber of the concept of ideal types is that it
digm case of social explanation. Sociology, he says, is 'a science concerning
allows him to situate his sociology with respect to marginalist economics.
itself with the intepretive understanding of social explanation and thereby with
Durkheim, writing tiom a standpoint sympathetic to the German Historical
a causal explanation of its course and consequences'. Interpretive understand-
School, conceived his sociology as a theory of collective representations irre-
ing primarily involves identifying the subjective meaning of the action for the
ducible to the self-interested actions of individual market actors (see §6.1 above).
person performing it - the beliefs and desires from which it arose. 'Action in
Weber, however, attacks the Historical School for its tendency to hypostatize
the sense of subjectively understandable orientation of behaviour exists only as
abstract concepts, which he regards as 'a consequence of the bioanthropological
the behaviour of one or more individual human beings.' This implies a commit-
aspects of the various influences which the atrophied remains of the great
ment to methodological individualism, the doctrine that social phenomena are
Hegelial ideas exercised upon the philosophy of history, language, and cul-
the unintended consequences of individual actions: 'When reference is made in
ture'.0, A proper understanding of political economy requires resort to the con-
a sociological context to a state, a nation, a corporation, a family, or an army
cept of ideal types:
co{ps, or to similar collectivities, what is meant is only a certain kind of devel-
pure economic theory, in its analysis of past and present society, utilizes ideal- opment of actual or possible actions of individual persons.'47 Thus, while
typical concepts exclusively. Economic theory makes certain assumptions which
Durkheim counterposed his science of 'social fäcts' to methodological indi-
scarcely correspond completely with reality but which approximate it in various vidualism, 'Weber's interpretive sociology', as Göran Therborn points out, 'is
degrees and asks: how would men act under these assumed conditions" if their a generali zation of marginalist economics.'48

t1
actiorls were entirely rational? [t assumes the dominance of pr'rrely economic in-
terests and precludes the operation of political or other non-economic consider-
ations.aa 7.3 History and rationalization
This folnulatiol is very similar to that used by Carl Menger during the Weber does not simply take marginalist economics as a model: he offers a
Methotlenstreit when he argues that 'exact economics' (as opposed to those historical account of the circumstances in which its assumptions come to seem
aspects of the science clevoted to historical research or policy-oriented research) valid. Not long before his death in 1920, he wrote:
studies 'the formations of social life . . . fiom the point of view of the free play
of human self-interest uninfluenced by secondary considerations, by error, or A product of modern European civilization, studying any problem of universal
ignorance'.a-5 The marginalist revolution, crucially, involved a redeflnition ol' history, is bound to ask hirnself to what combination of circumstances should be
the concept of value. The remnants of the Ricardo-Marx labour theory of valuc. attributed the fact that in Western civilization, and in Western civilization only,
cultural phenomena have appeared which (as we like to think) lie in a line of
according to which commodities are exchanged in proportion to the socially
development having universal significance and value.a!)
necessary labour-time required to produce them, were removed. Henceforth.
value was understood subjectively and from the standpoint, not of production. This 'line of development' consists in 'the specilic and peculiar rationalism
but of consumption. A theory of the market economy was constructed startinu of Western culture', which is manifested in a variety of spheres - law, art,
from the preferences of the individual consumer, on the assumption that thc rtrusic, architecture, education, politics, and economic life.s0 This characteiza-
consumer can arrange his or her preferences in an order representing the relat
ive intensity of the wants they express, and acts rationally in the sense of choos "' [,. Robhirts, Arr /].s.rrt.y on thc Nature untl Significance of Ecrtnomic Science (London, 1932),p.20.
in_e the means best suited to achieve the ends specified by these preferenccs. " Wcbcr, lit ottortr.\, tttttl Srtcict.t',I, pp. 4, 3, 14. 1

r' (i.'l'lrcrhrrrn..tr'ir,rrcr,, ('1rr.r'.r tttrtl ,Srx'it'l.t' (1,«rndrln. lc)16\,p.293.


12 ''' M.Wt'lrt'r'(l(X)-1 .5).'l'lrt'l'nttr.tttttrtl'.'tlti< rrtrtl tltt,\ltiritttf'Cultituli.sttr (l-ondon, 1r976),p. l3:the
Weber, Econonty and Societv, l, p. 21 5 .
rrrlrrrtlrrt'IiorrPrrlrlislrrtl irrtlrcl:rrglislrlllrrrsllrliorr(PP ll.]l,)',virsirrltrcl writtcnlor'(it.strttrtrrclttAu.fsiit:c
'13 Weber, Roscher untl Knies, p- 207 .
!4 Weber, Metfuxktlogv, PP.43-4. .trr lit'ligi,,trt.trt ittltt.r:it' (l().)0). lt tollt'tliott ol Wt'lrct'sr.vritirtysptt(ltt'sot'igl69yrrl religirrrr.
'" llrtrl.. p .'(,
.1.5 1, P. lili
C. Mengc.r(ltttt3), Pntltltrtr.tof l'.'t'ottttrnit'.ttttrtl ,\tttittlo,qt'(llt'hlttt:r' l()(r.l
160 Weber Weber 161

tion of the historical trajectory of the West naturally poses the question of what is nothing less than identical with the development and continual spread of
Weber means here by 'rationalism'. He argues that action can be rational in one bureaucratic administration.' s-5
of two ways. It may be'instrumentally rational (zweckrational), that is, deter- Weber's most famous work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capital-
mined by expectations as to the behaviour of objects in the environment and of ism (1904-5), represents his first major study of this process of rationalization.
other human beings; these expectations were used as "conditions" or "means" Rather like Marx in his theory of capital accumulation (see §4.2 above), Weber
for the attainment of the actor's own rationally calculated ends'. Alternatively, identifies the spirit of capitalism with 'the earning of more and more money,
action may be 'value-rational (wertrational);thatis, determined by a conscious combined with the strict avoidance of all spontaneous enjoyment of life . . .
belief in the value for its own sake of some ethical, aesthetic, religious, or other Man is dominated by the making of money, by acquisition as the ultimate pur-
form of behaviour, independently of the prospects of success'.5r pose of life.'s6 Marx explains the priority given to the self-expansion of capital
Value-rationality is concerned with the ends of action, instrumental rational- by the pressure of competition on individual lirms. In speaking rather of the
ity with the means: capitalist spirit, Weber is expressing his interest in 'acquisition as the ultimate
purpose of life' as an ethic, as a way of organizing one's life, as Lebensfiihrung
Choice between alternative and conflicting ends and results may well be deter- - conduct of life.
mined in a value-rational manner. In that case, action is instrumentaily rational Viewed in this light, the capitalist spirit is a form of asceticism, in that it
only in respect to the choice of means. On the other hand, the actor may, instead requires us to subordinate our satisfäctions in the pursuit of ever more wealth. It
of deciding between alternative and conflicting ends in terms of a rational orient- differs radically, however, from the best-known form of Western asceticism,
ation to a system of values, simply take them as given subjective wants and ar- that of the monasteries of medieval Catholicism, where the flesh was denied as
range them on a scale of consciously assessed relative urgency. He may then part of an attempt to escape the world for the contemplation of the goodness of
orient his action to this scale in such a way that they are satisfied as far as possible a transcendent God. The capitalist spirit is a fbrm of what Weber calls 'inner-
in order of urgency, as formulated in the principle of 'marginal utility'.52
worldly asceticism': self-denial is part of a process through which we shape
and control this world. As such it bears a resemblance to the Protestant concept
As this reference to 'marginal utility' suggests, the assumption made by neo-
of a 'calling' (BeruJ), according to which '[t]he only way of living acceptably
classical economists that actors optimize - that is, select the best means to real-
to God is not to surpass worldly morality in monastic asceticism but solely
ize their wants * is an important source of Weber's concept of instrumental
through the fulfilment of the obligations imposed upon the individual by his
rationality. 'Why the human animal attaches particular values . . . to particular
position in the world.'s7
things is a question we do not discuss', Lionel Robbins says.'53 The wants ex-
Weber argues that the origins of the capitalist spirit are to be found in the
pressed in agents' preferences are simply taken as given. Instrumental rational-
form of inner-wordly asceticism which developed from the Protestant Refbrma-
ity is therefore not concerned with choosing the ends of action: it pertains only
tion of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Calvinism, the most radical ver-
to the selection of the means best suited to achieving these ends.
sion of Refbrmed Christianity, accepted the dogma of predestination. This held
It is this form of rationality - instrumental rationality - which, Weber be- that all humans were inherently sinful, but that, by virtue of divine grace and
lieves, comes increasingly to prevail in the different culture-spheres in the modern
that alone, some had been chosen for salvation. Humankind was thus divided
West. Thus what characterizes modern capitalism is 'the rationalistic organiz-
between the elect and the damned. How could the believer expect that
ation of (formally) tree labour'.sa Similarly, bureaucracy - in other words,
Ite or she was among the flrst rather than the second group? By resolutely
hierarchically organized systems of administration based on a clear division of
helieving that one has been chosen, 'since lack of self-confidence is the result of
labour and stafl'ed by technically qualified officials who are paid a salary and
insuflicient faith, hence of imperfect grace . . . In order to attain that self-
appointed and promoted on the basis of merit - is, 'from a technical point ol'
confidence intensely worldly activity is recommended as the most suitable means.
view, capable of attaining the highest degree of efflciency and is in this sense
It and it alone disperses religious doubts and gives the certainty of grace.'58
formally the most rational known means of exercising authority over human
The Calvinist's self-assurance in being one of the elect fbund expression
beings'. Indeed, '[t]he development of modern fbrms of organization in all fields
in lhe systematic effort to control both his or her own life and that of the
sr Weber, Econorny and Societv,l, pp.24-5. " Wt'lrt'r'. l')'ttttottt.t' tuttl ,\rtt'it'l.t'.1, p. 223.
5r Ibid., I, p. 26. ''' Wt'lrt't. l'ttttr'sltrtrl l'.tlri,',p. 5\.
5r Robbins. Nuttrrc und .\igtti.licrtrtct', 1t. ll(r. ' lhrrl.. p, SO
' llrirl .pp lll l)
'r We hcr, l)t'olr'.tlrrtrl litlrit'. p. )l
.
162 Weber Weber 163

surrounding natural world. The purpose of this eflbrt was not, however, prlma- historically variable interactions between dif-ferent, relatively autonomous
rily the grati{ication of material needs, but rather to provide confirrnation of aspects of social life:
salvation. Thus: 'The Reformation took rational Christian asceticism and its
methodical habits out of the monasteries and placed them in the service of ac- For the forms of social action follow 'laws of their own' . . . and even apart from
tive life in the world.' In doing so, it provided 'the most powerful conceivable this fact, they may in a given case always be codetermined by other than economic
lever for the expansion' of the capitalist spirit: 'When the limitation of con- causes. However, at some point economic conditions tend to be causally impor-
tant, and often decisive, for almost all social grolrps, at least those which have
sumption is combined with this release of acquisitive activity, the inevitable
majorcultural significance: conversely, the economy is usually also influenced by
practical result is obvious: accumulation of capital through ascetic compulsion
the autonomous structures of social action within which it exists. No signilicant
to save.'5e generalization can be made as to when and how this will occur. However, we can
The Protestant Ethic provoked an enormous, and far from resolved, histor- generalize about the degree of elective afflnity between concrete structures of
ical debate about the relationship between the Reformation and the rise of mod- social action and concrete forms of economic organization; that means, we can
ern capitalism. Our interest here is less in the validity of Weber's historical state in general terms whetherornot they furtheror impede orexclude one another
interpretation than in the light it casts on his broader social theory. One issue - whether they are 'adequate' or 'inadequate' in relation to one another.6l
concerns how he situates his argument relative to Marxist accounts of the de-
velopment of capitalism, which tend to deny religious ideologies an auton- The concept of 'elective affinity' (Wohlverwandtschaft) is one of Weber's
omous role in the process. Kautsky, for example, argues that 'the Puritan ethic main tools of historical interpretation. Michael Löwy writes: 'For Weber it
arises out of the class struggle of the self-confident and defiant bourgeoisie, designates the kind of active relationship (based on a certain structural
especially of the craftsman against the feudal nobility, hence out of an eco- analogy) between two social or cultural configurations, leading to mutual
nomic basis'.60 In the flnal lines of his essay, Weber denies that he is offering an attraction, mutual influence, and mutual reinfbrcement.'64 Thus there is an
idealist theory of history in which capitalism is simply a consequence of the elective atfinity between the Protestant ethic and the capitalist spirit, both of
Reformation: 'it is, of course, not my aim to substitute for a one-sided material- which are fbrms of inner-wordly asceticisrn. Similarly, capitalisrn and bureau-
istic an equally one-sided spiritualistic causal interpretation of culture and of cracy, two types of instrumentally rational social organization, are bound
history'.6r together by an elective affinity for one another:
Weber is at his most elliptical when discussing the role played by economic
forces in history. Thus he distinguishes between 'the so-called "materialistic On the one hand, capitalism in its modern stage of development requires the
conception of history"', which he says 'is to be rejected most emphatically', bureaucracy, though both have arisen from dilterent historical sources. Con-
and 'the economic interpretation of history', which he advocates. The first versely, capitalism is the most rational economic base fbr bureaucratic admin-
depends on 'the antiquated notion that all cultural phenomena can be deduced istration and enables it to develop in the most rational fbrm, especially because,
as a product or function of the constellation of material interests'; the second from a fiscal point of view, it supplies the necessary money resources.t''t
involves 'the analysis of cultural and economic phenomena with special refer-
ence to their economic conditioning'.u' The distinction is ultimately a conse- An elective affinity is a relationship of functional compatibility between two
quence of Weber's epistemology. Reality is infinitely diverse; our theories simply social forms; to posit the existence of such a relationship is therefore to make no
pick out those aspects whose study is relevant to our values. A theory of history claim about the causal primacy of one form over another. Weber thus regards
which, like Marx's, claims to have discovered the underlying structure of social explanation as inherently pluralistic: while one form of social power may
social reality, seeks to impose an inappropriate 'nomological' conception o1' prurvide the focus of study in a particular case and relative to certain valueinter-
scientilic explanation on the inhnite variety of cultural phenomena. Rather csts, in general none can claim explanatory priority over the others. This
than seek a one-way causal chain linking the economic base to the ideologico- cxplanatory pluralism is reflected in his treatment of social stratiflcation, where
political superstructure, the Geisteswissenschaften must seek to capture the lrc clistinguishes class, conceived primarily in terms of shared economic situa-
liott. plrticularly in the market, from status, that is, 'an effective claim to social
5e lbid., pp. 235 n.19, 172. t'slccttt irt lcrtns of positive or negative privileges'. Thus: 'Classes are stratified
60 K. Kautsky (1921),The Materiolist Conception cf Histotp,, abr. edn., ed. J. H. Kautsky (Ncw
Haven. t9B8), p. 369.
r'r
"1 Weber, [)rutlc.tlunl 1rtlrlr', p. lll3. Wt'llt't , l'.t t,n(,ntv ttntl ,\'ttr'ir'tr', l. 1l l.ll
{r) Wcl-rcr, Mrtltrxlolo,q.r', p. (tll.
r'l
M l.iiuy. ()rr ('lrrrtrr:trrrl tlt,'ll ,'rl,l 1,,\tl;rrrtir'lli1'lrlltrrtls. N.l. l(X)i). p.,l(r
Wr'lrr't lt t'tt('ttt\ itttrl \ttr tr'tt I l' " l
164 Weber Weber 165

according to their relations to the production and acquisition of goods; whereas stylization of life, with the organization of one's appetites, dispositions. and
status groups are stratified according to the principles of their consumption of capacities according to a particular set of values. The world religions represent
goods as represented by special styles of lil-e.'66 'different fbrms of "rationalization" of life-condtct (Leben,sfiihrung)'. More
Weber treats class and status as potentially rival principles o1 social organ- specifically, they constitute particular answers to what theologians call the prob-
ization, arguing that 'the principle of status stratification', which fbrrns the lem of evil, that is, to the essentially metaphysical question of why so many
basis of caste societies, tbr example, is opposed to 'a distribution of power suffer, in particular as a result of occupying an inferior social position, without
which is regulated exclusively by the market'. But both are specific instances apparently having done anything to rnerit this fate. At the core of every major
of the unremitting struggle fbr power among rival groups. Thus, as Weber religion is a'theodicy of suff-ering' which offers 'an ethical interpretation of the
fämously puts it, "'[c]lasses", "status groups", and "parties" are phenomena of "meaning" of the distribution of fortunes among nlen'.70
the distribution of power within a conlmunity.' One characteristic pattern of Weber believes that only three theodicies provide coherent answers to the
this struggle is the striving to create socially closed relationships: 'Usually one problem of evil. Hinduisrn does so through the doctrine of karma, according
group of competitors takes some externally identiliable characteristic of an- to which every living being's present lot is a consequence of the good and evil
other group of (actual or potential) - race, language, religion, local or social it has committed not simply in its present but also in its past lives; the transmi-
origin, descent, residence, etc. - as a pretext fbr attenlpting their exclusion . . . gration of souls, through which an individual soul may pass in successive
Such group action nlay provoke a corespclnding reaction on the part of those lives through different kinds of existence - animal, vegetable, and rnineral -
against which it is direct.,l.r67 On this view, the sources of social division are as well as different social statuses, provides the mechanism through which
diverse, and therefbre do not admit of explanation on the basis of any single rewards and punishments are allocated, a cycle from which the individual
factor, whether material or ideal. may escape through the pursuit of salvation by contemplation and the renun-
There is, however, one famous, but characteristically obscure, passage where ciation of wordly existence. Zoroastrianism posits a dualistic universe divided
Weber seems to assign historical primacy to ideologies: 'Not ideas. but mat- between two separate and opposed orders of being representing respectively
erial and ideal interests, directly ,eovern rnen's conduct. Yet very frequently the the forces of light and dark, good and evil, spirit and matter: suffering is a
"world images" that have been created by "ideas" have, like switchmen, deter- conseqllelrce of the fact that good does not always triumph over evil in the
rnined the tracks along which action has been pushed by the dynamic of inter- eternal struggle between these two equal powers. Finally, the Christian doc-
est.'68 He makes this remark in the introduction to a series of essays with the trine of predestination, formulated by St Augustine and taken over by Calvin-
collective title Die Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen (The Economic Ethics ism, af{irms the omnipotence of a single, transcendent God. Evil is a
of the World Religions) - which were published between 1915 and 1919. Em- consequence of man's fieely chosen rebellion against divine iaw, arnd sutTer-
bracing detailed studies of Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism ing is its just punishment: the salvation for which we must hope arises fi'orn
(one on Islam was planned but never written), these essays broadened out the the inscrutable, and therefore from a human viewpoint apparently arbitrary,
analysis of rationalization which Weber had broached in the Protestant Ethic operation of God's grace.
into what Friedrich Tenbruck calls 'a general inquiry into the role of rationality Weber thus attaches great importance to the theoretical content of the vari-
in history'.6e ous systems of religious beliefs: 'We are interested in . . . the influence of those
How does Weber view religion? He denies that 'the specific nature of a rel- psychological sanctions which, originating in religious belief and the practice
igion is a simple "function" of the social situation of the stratum which appears of religion, gave a direction to practical conduct and held the individual to it.
as its characteristic bearer'. In doing so he seems to have in mind less the Marx- Now these sanctions were to a large extent derived from the peculiarities of the
ist theory of ideology, than Nietzsche's interpretation of Christianity as the rcligious ideas behind them.'7r The relative autonomy of these ideas, and their
product of lower-class r"essentiment, of 'a slave revolt in morality' (see §5.3 ability to act as 'switchmen', setting the direction in which the 'dynarnic of
above). Nevertheless, his interest in the great religions reflects a Nietzschearr iltterest' nloves derives from the intrinsic logic they develop as particular sol-
preoccupation (seen also in his definition of status in terms of lif.estyle) with thc tttions to the problem of suffering and injustice. Weber writes in the passage
irtrrrccliatcly preceding that in which he uses the metaphor of 'world images' as
66 Ibid., I, p. 305; II, p. 937.
'switchrncn':
67 lbid.. 1I, pp. 936, 927: l. pp. 341-2.
()s Gertlr and Mills. eds. I;ntttr klttr Welter, p. 21t0.
6r F. H. Tcnhruck, "I'hc Prohlcnr ol''lhcurir(ic Unity in (he Works of Mlrr Wchcr'. rrt'l'r'ibc. ,',1.. '" ( it'rtlr;rrrtl Mills. r'rls. / r orrt Al,tr lli'/rr'r. PP .r75. l()(). 170.
llt't r tI i tr,q Wt' l»t' t', 1t. 51).
'r W'('lX'l . l'trtlq'1111111 I tlttr .1r1t t) I 5
166 Weber Weber 167

In the past, it was the work of intellectuals to sublimate the possession of sacred absolute monarchies of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, helped lay the
values into a belief in redemption. The conception of the idea of redemption, as basis of modern bureaucracy. The interests of these proto-bureaucratic states in
such, is very old, if one understands by it a liberation fiom distress, hunger, drought,
turn interwove with those of the emerging bourgeoisie in the cities of early
sickness, and ultimately suffering and death. Yet redemption attained a specific
modern Europe:
significance where it expressed a systematic and rationalized'image of the world'
and represented a stand in the face of the world. For the meaning as well as the
intended and actual psychological quality of redemption has depended upon such
This competitive struggle [among states] created the largest opportunities for
a world image and such a stand.72
modern western capitalism. The separate states had to compete for mobile capi-
tal, which dictated to them the conditions under which it would assist them to
power. Out of this alliance of the state with capital, dictated by capital, arose the
The dynamic of rationalization thus depends crucially on the work of intel-
national citizenship class, the bourgeoisie in the modern sense of the word. Hence
lectuals in developing religious ideologies into rationally articulated theoreti- it is the closed national state which afforded to capitalism its chance for develop-
cal systems, and thereby drawing out the logical consequences of the particular ment.76
theodicies they embody. This does not, however, mean that Weber treats the
history of religions as essentially the autonomous development of different sets Weber's analysis of charisma is closely related to his sociology of religion.
of beliefs. On the contrary, he argues that 'the nature of the desired sacred The paradigm case of the charismatic leader is the founder of a new religion -
values has been strongly influenced by the nature of the external interest- the teacher (Buddha), saviour (Christ), or prophet (Muhammed). Charismatic
situation and the corresponding way of life of the ruling strata and thus by the authority is sharply counterposed to traditional and legal domination. The lat-
social stratification itself', though he characteristically goes on immediately to ter's most typical forms, respectively patriarchalism, where obedience takes
add that the influence goes the other way as well.73 the form of personal loyalty to a ruler whose customary authority is modelled
More generally, Weber's sociology involves what Michael Mann calls "'or- on that of a master over his household, and bureaucracy, 'are antagonistic in
ganizational materialism": Ideologies are attempts to grapple with real social many respects, but they share continuity as one of their most important charac-
problems, but they are diffused through specific media of communication and teristics.In this sense, both are structures of everyday life'. Charismatic author-
their characteristics may transform ideological messages, so conferring ideo- ity, by contrast, responds to 'needs . . . which transcend the sphere of everyday
logical power autonomy.'14 Or, to put it in another way, the relative autonomy economic routine'. Its bearer represents the irruption of the exceptional into the
of religious systems derives not simply from their intrinsic content but also everyday. His authority derives from the recognition that he is 'extraordinary
from the power-dynamics of the organizations through which they are trans- and . . . endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically excep-
mitted and preserved. Every form of authority - including religious authority - tional powers'. Indeed:
requires 'the existence and functioning of an administrative staff . . . For the
habit of obedience cannot be maintained without organized activity directed to charisma in its most potent forms disrupts rational rule as well as tradition alto-
application and enforcement of the order.' But every administrative organ- gether and overturns all notions of sanctity. Instead of reverence for customs that
ization develops its own distinctive interests irreducible either to the forms of are ancient and hence sacred, it enforces the inner subjection to the unprecedented
legitimate domination or to economic class-structures, so that 'historical reality and absolutely unique and therefore Divine. In this purely empirical and value-
involves a continuous, though for the most part latent, conflict between chiefs free sense charisma is indeed the specifically creative revolutionary force in
and their administrative staffs for appropriation and expropriation in relation to history.TT

one another'.7s
Thus one force promoting Western rationalization was the interest of the History therefore displays according to Weber an alternation between rule-
managers of competing European states in developing more efficient means for bound routine, whether the source of the rules is tradition or a system of bur-
extracting resources from their subjects and thereby strengthening their mili- cattcratically administered laws, and short-lived bursts of creative transformation
tary machines: the resulting organizational innovations, particularly under thc inspired by ideas which admit of no rational justiflcation. Charismatic domin-
ltliort is necessarily unstable since it derives from the personal qualities of the
'72 lirrnrclcr, which cannot outlive him: 'Every charisma is on the road from a
Gerth and Mills, eds, From Max Weber, p. 280.
7r lbid., p. 287.
11 M. Mann. -l'hc,Sotrn'e.r tl'*tciul Povtcr. Il (Canrhriclgc. 1993). p.36. '' l\4.Wt'lrt'r (l().)\1.(;.ttttttl lr',t111t111i, lli.sttttt' (Ncwllltrrrswit'k, l()li l),,..1.17.
/t We lrct', Iit otrottn' rrtrtl ,\ttt'it'tt'.1. p. 2(r4. ' Wt'lrt'l.l'tttnt'nt\ rutrl.\rttr,tr. ll I llll. l.P .r.ll. ll.P lll-/.
168 Weber Weber 169

turbulently emotional life that knows no economic rationality to a slow death irrational.' lntellectuals' attempts to develop a coherent theoretical articul-
ation of religious 'world-images' eventually expose the 'irrational presuppos-
by suffocation under the weight of material interests; every hour of its exist-
ence brings it nearer to this end.'There thus develops'the routinization of itions, which have been accepted as "given" and which have long been
incorporated into such ways of life'. Religious experience then becomes the
charisma' - the attempt to preserve the founder's authority by transforming it
into a more everyday form of traditional or legal domination (or some combin- domain of the inational, of the search for mystical states of being as a kind of
compensation for the thorough rationalization of the world by modern sci-
ation clf the two). This process springs tiom 'the desire to transform charisma
ence, bureaucracy, and capitalism: 'The unity of the primitive image of the
from a unique, transitory gift of grace of extra-ordinary times atrd persons into
a permanent possession of everyday life', but its effect is progressively to de-
world, in which everything was concrete magic, has tended to split into ra-
stroy the necessarily exceptional sources from which the charismatic claim to tional cognition and mastery of nature, on the one hand, and into "mystic"
rule derived in the first place, while simultaneously permitting 'the appropri- experiences, on the other.'8r
This denouement is arguably implicit in Weber's theory of rationality. Re-
ation of powers and of economic advantages by the fbllowers or disciples'.78
Weber's account of this dialectic of routine and charisma is no doubt in part call that he distinguishes between instrumental and value rationality (or, as he
tends to put it when discussing economic processes, formal and substantive
a generalization from the history of world religions - for example, the transfor-
rationality). Instrumental rationality pertains to means, value-rationality to ends.
mation of the egalitarian moral communities of early Christianity into the great
worlclly power of the Catholic Church. But it also reflects his sense of the sheer But Weber does not believe it is possible rationally to justify the ultimate val-
ues on the basis of which the ends of action are chosen. Reason cannot adjud-
weight with which everyday routine bears down on brief outbursts of creative
icate between the warring gods, the rival value-spheres. A great world religion
innovation. Although Weber presents charisma primarily as a break with trad-
can still this conflict by integrating the different possible ends of action into the
ition, he argues that'rational discipline' is 'the most irresistible fbrce' in the
'waning of charisma'. Rationalization is thus the greatest threat to individual particular theodicy it offers its followers. In doing so it makes possible a certain
rationalization of lif-e-conduct - the value-rational ordering of life according to
I creativity: 'Discipline inexorably takes over ever larger areas as the satisfaction
the ethical scheme irnplied by the theodicy. But once reason focuses critically
of political and economic needs is increasingly rationalized. This universal
on the values central to this scheme, the irrational foundations of the religious
phenornenon more and more restricts the importance of charisma and of in-
'world-image' are exposed - not because of the nature of the particlllar values
dividually differentierted conduct.'7'
As we have seen, Weber believes that the Calvinist doctrine of predestin- in question. but because all values lack rational justification. And then we are
ation played a crucial role in the most developed form of the rationalization left, as Weber describes the plight of us moderns in 'Science as a Vocation',
process, in the modern West. The world is no longer seen as a complex of
torn between the warring gods.
ascertainzrble meanings and purposes which it is possible to manipulate by means
Plainly this argurnent is only as strong as its premiss, the doctrine of value-
pluralism, according to which there is no objective, rationally defensible cri-
of the use of magic intended to secure the co-operation of individual deities or
terion on the basis of which one can accept or reject evaluative judgements. If
rl
lesser spirits. Rather. it is the apparently meaningless product of the inscrutable
one denies this prer-rtiss - as. fbr example, Habermas does (see § I 1.4 below),
will of a single. transcendent God. 'The great historic process in the develop-
ment of religions, the elimination of magic fiom the world lEntzauberung der
then one's assessment of Weber's philosophy of history, for that is what his
account of rationalization amounts to, is likely to be highly critical. Weber in
Welt) which had begun with the old Hebrew prophets and, in conjunction with
l' Hellenistic scientific thought, had repudiated all magical means to salvation as any case believes that the role of the Protestant ethic and other religious
rationaf izations is over. The rationalization process now has an autonomous
superstition and sin, came here to its logical conclusion-'80
dynamic, driven by the fbrces of economic and political competition:
Disenchantment reaches its climax when the process of rationalization di-
rects itself onto the central dogmas of religion itself - a stage only fully achieved
The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so. For when ascet-
in the modern West. 'The general result of the modern form of thoroughly
icism was carried out of the monastic cells into everyday life, and began to dom-
rationalizing the conception of the world and of the way of life, theoretically
irratc worldly rnorality, it did its part in building the tremendous cosmos of the
and practically, in a purposive manner has been a shift into the realnl of thc rttorlcrn econornic orcler. This order is now bound to the technical and economic
r^olrtlitiorrs ol'rnuchitrrr pnrtluclion which todly dctcrnrine the lives of all the
rr lbid.. II. pp. 1120. ll2l; I. p.249.
t' lhitl., ll. pp. I l4tt 9. I l5(r. '|
rr) Wt'lrt'r', I'rtttt,,ttrrnl l'.tltir'.1't. 105 (grlrsslrgt'lrrltlt'tl irr l()lO ctliliort) (icrllr;rrrrl I\'1 rlls ,',1', /r,,rtt lll,rt ll ,'1,,'t. P;r )li l. )l"iJ.

!,r
170 Weber Weber 171

individuals who are born into this mechanism, not only those who are directly feature of liberalism, as Hennis does, is to give too one-sided an account of this
concerned with economic acquisition with irresistible fbrce. Perhaps it will so tradition. Weber is arguably the most important representative of what John
determine them until the last ton of fossil coal is burnt. In [the Puritan divine Gray calls 'agonistic liberalism': like Tocqueville and Mill before him (see
Richardl Baxter's view the care for external goods should only lie on the shoul- §4.2 above), but far more systematically than they, he regards modernity as
ders of the 'saint like a light cloak, which can be thrown aside at any moment'. constituted by the irresoluble conflict between rival values.
But fate decreed that the cloak should become an iron cage.82 Weber certainly brings to political debates a powerful sense of the historical
specificity and the fragility of liberal institutions. Thus during the Russian
Revolution of 190-5 he warned Russian liberals not to rely on 'the "automatic"
7.4 Liberal imperialism and democratic politics effect of material interests' to produce the reform of the tsarist autocracy they
advocated. 'Modern "liberty" arose from a unique, never to be repeated set
Wolfgang Mommsen, perhaps the most important student of Weber's politics, of circumstances', he argues: the expan,sion of the Atlantic economy, the dis-
has commented on Weber's tendency to think in antinomical terms, adopting
tinctive structures of early modern capitalism, the scientific revolution, and the
apparently starkly countelposed positions - notably liberalism and nationalism Protestant ethic combined to produce 'the particular "ethical" character and
- and rendering the tension between them explicit by formulating each in ex- the cultural values of modern man'. The further development of capitalism is
treme terms: likely, however, to undermine rather than to reinforce these values:

positions which had originally co-existed in an unclear relationship started pro- If it were only a question of the 'material' conditions and the complex of interests
gressively to diverge until, finally, they took on an antinomical structure. The directly or indirectly 'created' by them, any sober observer would have to say
unconditionality of Weber's thinking, which the latter owed to Nietzsche, and the that all economic indicators point in the direction of growing'unfreedom'.It is
clear appreciation of the power character of all social relations, which he learned absolutely ridiculous to attribute to the high capitalism which is today being im-
from Marx, led him finally to abandon the framework of classical liberal theory ported into Russia and already exists in America - this 'inevitable' economic
and to search for a new, more solid foundation for liberal postulates. This ex- development - any elective affinity with democracy, let alone with liberty (in any
treme radicalization of alternative positions, so typical of Weber's political think- sense of the word). The question should be: how can these things exist at all for
ing, reveals as it were the flaws and contradictions within the liberal system of any length of time under the domination of capitalism? In fäct they are only pos-
values which appears when the latter is confronted with the conditions of ad- sible where they are backed up by the determined wil.l of a nation not to be ruled
vanced industrial societies.8l like a flock of sheep. We 'individualists' and supporters of 'democratic' institu-
tions must swim 'against the tide' of material constellations.E5
Wilhelm Hennis, another, equally distinguished, commentator, denies that
Weber can be considered as a liberal: '[w]ithout some degree of success, some Weber's view of capitalism is in many ways very similar to Marx's. He does
faith in the course of events, there is no Liberalism.' Weber is not a liberal not see it, as Adam Smith and his laissez-faire successors did, as an econom-
thinker, nor a sociologist. He belongs rather to the tradition of classical political ically efficient means of realizing individual freedom. It is, on the contrary, a
thought. Along with Machiavelli, Rousseau, and Tocqueville, he is concerned system of domination. 'Capital accounting in its most rational shape thus pre-
with 'the unfolding of the soul, an unfolding that appeared to be possible not supposes the battle of man with man' in the shape of competition. 'strict capital
on an individual basis, but rather communally, associatively, ultimately in thc itccounting is further associated with social phenomena of "shop discipline"
ancient sense of politics'. From this perspective, 'it would appear that Weber's irnd the appropriation of the means of production, and that means: with the
real concern was with the historical genesis of "the rational Lebensführung" cxistence of a "system of domination".'86 Weber indeed endorses Marx's view
[conduct of life]'.84 of the ambiguous 'double freedom' of the worker: 'only when in consequence
Relating Weber in this way to the classical republican tradition is a valuablc ol'the existence of workers who in the formal sense voluntarily, but actually
corrective to misleading treatments which turn him into the tutelary deity ol ttttder the compulsion of the whip of hunger, offer themselves, the cost of pro-
postwar American sociology, and throws an important light on his theoreticrrl tlucts rnay be r-rnambiguously determined in advance.'ri7
concerns. But to make the belief that value-conflict can be overcome a definirrg
)ii M. Wt'lrt'r','l'ltt'lltt,s,sitrtr
I

llcrttltrtiotr,v. ctl. C. C. Wills iurrl P. Bacl.rr (Carnbridge. 199-5), pp. 108-


I

tt2 Weber, Proteslunl Erftir'. p. l8l .


r).

tr Lir' Wt'lrt't, ()n(tutv () l.


W. J. Morrrrnscn. 77t, I)olitit'ttl tttrtl ,Srx'ittl 'l'lrtor.t'of'Mtr.r'Webcr (Currrhrirlgc, l9tt9), ll. l7 l.( tttttl ,\'ttr'it'lt'. l. 1lP. lOl(
sr I lcrrtttis. Mrtt Wrlx'r, pp. I 7-1. l()6. )].
Wt'lrt'l . ( ir'ttt't.,tl l)r'ttnttnltr llt\lttt\'. lt. .' I I .
Weber Weber 173
172
Weber nevertheless insists that the effort to preserve liberal values and instit-
The separation of the worker from the means of production which, according
utions "'against the tide" of material constellations' must be based on a realis-
to Marx, makes capitalist exploitation possible is, however, one instance of a
tic recognition that 'the future belongs to burcaucratization'."4 The only coherent
much broader process of bureaucratization. 'Everywhere we find the same thing:
alternative to this standpoint is a religious rejection of the world on the basis of
the means of operation within the factory, the state administration, the army
consciously chosen values, of which Weber regarded Tolstoy's pacifistic rural
and university departments are concentrated by means of a bureaucratically
socialism and some forms of anarchism as contemporary examples. He presents
structured hurnan apparatus in the hands of the person who has command over
(beherrschfl this human apparatus.'8s There is no alternative to bureaucratization this choice most starkly in a letter to Robert Michels. when the latter was a kind
of Marxist syndicalist:
in the modern world:

The primary source of the superiority of bureaucratic administration Iies in the There ate tv,o possibilities. Either: (I ) 'my kingdom is not of this world' (Tolstoy,
role of technical knowledge which, through the development of modern technol- orathontughlyrhought-outsyndicalism...)...Or:(2)Culture-(i.e.,object-
ogy and business methods in the production of goods, has become completely iue, a culture expressed in technical, etc.,'achievements') ffirntation as udctltt-
inclispensable. In this respect. it makes no diff'erence whether the economic sys- ation to the sociolo-eical condition of a// 'technology'. whether it be economic.
tem is organized on a capitalistic or a socialistic bitsis.
8" political or whatever . . . In the case of (2). all talk of 'revolution' is farce, every
thought of abolishing the 'domination of man by man' by any kind of 'socialist'
Not only will the introduction of social ownership of the means of produc- social systern or the nto.st e\aborated fbrm of 'democracy' a utopia. . . Whoever
tion not improve the situation. By eliminating the private entrepreneur, 'the wishes to live as a 'modern man' even in the sense that he has his daily paper and
only social type who has been able to maintain at least relative immunity from railways and trtrms -he renounces all those ideals which vaguely appeal toyou
subjection to the control of rational bureaucratic knowledge', it will actr"rally as soon as he leaves the basis of revolutionism/ar its own soke, witltr)ut trny
'objective', without an 'objective' being thinkable.'s
make matters worse.'" Although 'high capitalism' involves a considerable cen-
tralization of econornic power in the hands of cartels, corporations, and banks.
Any atternpt to adapt to existing reality, and to calculate instrumentally, seek-
it preserves a separation of private and public spheres and thus makes it possi-
ing to adjust means and ends, necessarily imprisons us in the'iron cage'. To
ble to play off rival oligarchies against one another. Socialism would eliminate
escape it, we must unconditionally reject the world. The alternatives Weber
this roorn for manoeuvfe:
poses here form a rrrajor theme of his writings on the sociology of religion. and
The emban'assing thing woulJ be that. whereas the political and private-economic are most fully developed in the famous contrast he draws in his l9l9lecture
bureaucracies (of syndicates. banks, and giant concerns) exist alongside one an- 'Politics as a Vocation' between the ethics of 'responsibility' and those of
other at present, as separate entities, so that economic power can still be curbed 'principled conviction' :

by political power, the two bureaucracies would then be a single body with iden-
ticäl interests ancl coulcl no longer be supervised or controlled.er there is a profbund opposition between acting by the maxim of the ethic o1'con-
viction (putting it in religious terms: 'The Christian does what is right and places
'There is a paradox here', Mommsen points out.e2 Weber believes that the the outconle in God's hands'), and acting by the maxim of the ethic of respons-
dynamic of capitalisrn is driving us into the 'iron cage' of bureaucracy; but at ibility, which means that one must answer fbr the (fbreseeable) consequenc'es of
the same time he argues that by preserving, as far as possible, the market com- one's actions.e6
petition that is a main element in this dynamic, we can stave off the inevitable.
Thus he writes that 'the much revilecl "anarchy" of production and the equally Action based on the ethic of conviction is value-rational: everything is subord-
reviled "subjectivism" . . . alone can take the individual out of the broad mass inated to the pursuit of certain ultimate values. But agents thus motivated must
and throw him back on himself '.qr As long as it is preserved. capitalisrn retains confronf the problem of the means used to achieve the ends defined by these
a degree of dynamisrn and openness to individual self-assertion. vlrlues. Rev<llutionary socialists, for example, are willing to use violence to
rcnrovc capitalisnr. 'Anyone who makes a pact with the ffleans of violence -
nri Weber. PoliticcLl Writittgs, p. 281.
ne Weber. Econorn ,- ancl Soc'iety, l, p. 223 rrrrtl ulty politiciarr cloes this - is at the mercy clf specific consequences.' Revol-
.

1i eo lbid.. I, p.225.
"r Wt'llr't. l'.t'()tt(tntv rtrttl ,\t,r'ir'tt.ll, 1t l-lOl
"r Weber. Politi<'«l Writin,qs, p. 2116.
'' l.t'ltr'r rrl L,\ul. ltl{ }S. rlrrolt'rl rrr llr'rrrtrs. llltrr \l','l,t'r. ) l(r rt. J.i (lrrrrtslltliorr ntorlilicrl).
e-' Mtrttrttsctt. l'rtlitit'trl trtrtl '\ttt ittl 77tr'or t'. p. -j9.
P.
I
r)l Wt'lrt'r-. llrt.t.titttt lit'r'rtlrrlirttt.s.11. I 10. '' Wr.f rt'r . l',,ltlt, ,tl ll r tltrt',t.1t1t 1'r() (r(
)

il

iiil]
174 Weber Weber 175

utionary action requires the development of a movement whose followers will imperialist' policy of expansion into eastern and central Europe, where Poland,
be governed by the material interests that promote the routinization of char- the Ukraine, and the Baltic states would gain political independence subject to
isma: 'the emotionalism of revolution is then fbllowed by a return to trad- German hegemony within 'a middle European tariff and economic union'. r0r
itional, everyday existence' which negates the objectives for which the movement The successful assertion of German interests depended, however, on the estab-
was founded in the {irst place.eT The only coherent fbrm of the ethics of convict- lishment of responsible parliamentary government:
ion therefore involves abstaining from all violent means, and therefore renounc-
ing this world altogether. Those who wish to engage in political life must adopt There are only two choices: either the mass of citizens is left without rights in a
the ethics of responsibility, and, using the tool of instrumental rationality that bureaucratic 'authoritarian' state which has only the appearance of parliamentary
rule, and in which the citizens are 'administered' like a herd of cattle; or the
binds them to bureaucracy, carefully wei-eh the consequences of their actions.
citizens are integrated into the state as 'co-rulers' . A nation of masters (Herrenvolk)
Socialist revolution therefore has no place in a world increasingly dominated
by bureaucracy: 'Such an apparatus makes "revolutions", in the sense of the - and only such a nation can and may engage in 'world politics' - has no choice
in this matter.ro2
lbrceful creation of entirely new formations of authority, more and more im-
possible - technically, because of its control over the modern means of com-
The concept of Herrent,olk now has Nazi resonances, but for Weber the term
munication (telegraph etc.) and also because of its increasingly rationalized seems to have had, at least in part, the classical republican connotation of a
inner structure.'eS Weber wrote these lines before the First World War, but the people whose free political institutions allow them to enjoy collective autonomy
actual occurrence of impossible'revolutions in Russia in l9l7 and in Ger- within the international state system (though where this would leave small na-
many itself in 1918 did not alter this assessment. He dismissed the Bolshevik tions in a German-dominated Mitteleuropa is another matter). Nevertheless, his
regime as 'a military dictatorship, not it is true of generals, but of corporals'.e') advocacy of a form of democratic government for Germany after the fall of
He called the German Revolution 'a bloody carnival that does not deserve the the monarchy does not spring tiom the belief that this would allow the people
honourable name of a revolution', and declared of the leaders of the extreme- to govern. On the contrary, Weber's view of politics is resolutely elitist. The
left Spartacists: '[Karl] Liebknecht belongs in the madhouse and Rosa Lux- rnodern state is not even potentially a political community but is necessarily
emburg in the zoo.'100 (Shortly after Weber made the latter remarks in January based on domination and coercion - 'an institutional association of rule
1919 Luxemburg and Liebknecht were murdered by the Freikorps.) (Herrschaftsverband) which has successfully established the monopoly of phys-
Weber nevertheless saw the fall of the imperial regime in November 1918 as ical violence as a means of rule within a territory'.r03 'Political action is always
an important opportunity to reform the German state. In the years befbre the tlctermined by the "principle of small numbers"', he writes, 'that means, the
November Revolution he had developed a systematic critique of what he de- superior political manoeuvrability of srnall leading groups. [n mass states, this
scribed as the system of 'personal rule' in the Reich. The remnants of absolute cuesarist element is ineradicable.' r01
monarchy behind a faEade of 'pseudo-constitutionalism' permitted both Kaiser
Nevertheless. rule by 'small leading groups' of democratic politicians is one
Wilhelm II himself and the civil and military bureaucracy to evade political inrportant way of f'ending off the complete triumph of bureaucratization. The
responsibility for a series of blunders in foreign policy culminating in the out- ('xperience of bureaucratic administration is a poor training for the inherently
break of war in 19 14. The origins of this set-up could be traced to the timidity volatile and creative process of formulating, winning support for, and imple-
of the German bourgeoisie at the time of unification, and its readiness to sub- rrrcnting policies. "'To be above parties" - in truth, to remain outside the realm
ordinate itself to Bismarck's 'Caesarism' (see §7.1 above); among its ef'fects ol'struggle for power - is the official's role, while this struggle for personal
was Germany's defeat and the collapse of the monarchy in 1918.
l)()wer, ancl the resulting personal responsibility, is the lifeblood of the polit-
Weber's advocacy of initially relatively limited constitutional reforms there- rt'irur as well as of the entrepreneur.' One reason fbr the fäilure of the German
tbre sprang less from any discrepancy between the Wilhelmine regime and ab- l(cich's firreign policy befbre and during the First World War was that political
stract norms of democratic legitimacy than fiom his belief that existing political rlt'cision-rnaking was largely in the hands of bureaucrats lacking the skill
structures prevented Germany from effectively pursuing its interests as a worltl ,,r irrclination to take initiatives and run risks. 'The essence of politics', by
power. During the war he advocated what Mommsen describes as the 'liberrrl
')l rirr lhitl . pqr. lO.5ll
lbid., pp. 364, 36-5.
t)s Wcber, Econorrtl,trrrl Socict1,.ll. p. 9tt9. "' Wt'lrr'r. l'ttlitir'trl ll/t itittt..t.l) I .)().
'x) Wcbcr, Politit'ttl Writitrg.t,ll. 299. llrrrl.p ll{r
r{xr ' 'r \\'t'lrt'r l'r'rrttttttt\ rtttrl.\,,, t,'lt ll 1r I I I
Qtrttlctl it't Moltttttsctt. ll"t'ltt't rrtrrl (}t'ttrttttr l'ttlitir 's' 1lP' J(xl' '10'5' I

I
176 Weber Weber 177

contrast, '... is struggle, the recruitment of allies trnd of avoluntarl'follow- Fährer-Demokratie - is a variant of charismatic authority, which hides behind
ing.' Therefore '[p]oliticians must be the countervailing force against bureau- a legitimacy that isfonnalll'derived from the will of the governed.'r08 The
cratic domination', both by rnaking the executive accountable fbr its decisions, formal character of popular ratilication suggests that 'plebiscitary democracy'
and by providing the creative qualities required fbr etfective leadership of a will contain as large an element of personal rule as the quasi-absolutist monar-
Grcat Power.r"s chy of which Weber became such an unremitting critic. Indeed, in the debates
This political critique of bureaucracy implies the contrast. central to Weber's on the constitution of the Weimar Republic which replaced the imperial re-
historical sociology, between the routines common to traditional and bureau- gime, Weber advocated the establishment of a popularly elected president in-
cratic mocles of dornination, and charisma as the revolutionary and creative dependent of parliarnent and enjoying many of the emperor's powers. In the
irruption of the exceptional into the everyday (see §7.3 above). Democracy is event, a more limited version of this proposal was adopted, though even under
indeed a rationalized form of charismatic domination. In the case of the great this arrangement President Paul von Hindenburg used his emergency powers to
religious movements, the followers' recognition of the leader arises tiorn the undermine parliamentary institutions after 1930 and to enable the Nazis to sup-
latter's charismatic qualities: 'But, when the charismatic organization under- press their political opponents.
goes progressive rationalization. it is readily possible that, instezrd of recogni- Weber's authentic commitment to liberal values would no doubt have led
tion being treated as a consequence of legitimacy, it is treated as the basis of him fiercely to oppose Hitler's rise to power had he lived to see it. But his
legitinracy : dem oc rcr tic
g it in tdc,\'. ""0
Ie conception of 'plebiscitary democracy', by according the initiative to a charis-
Democratic charisma does not, however, derive solely from the recognition rnatic leader and giving the people a purely passive role, held strong attractions
of the electorate. The cornpetition of politicians to gain election to parliament, lbr the anti-parliamentary right. Outlining his views in May 1919 to General
and once there to secure advancement, acts as a mechanism tbr the selection E,rich LudendorfT, Weber said: 'ln a democracy the people choose a leader
of those individtrals exercising creative political leadership. With the develop- whom they trust. Then the chosen man says, "Now shut your mouths and obey
ment of modern mass politics, involving the competition of bureaucratic party rne. The people and the parties are no longer free to interfere in the leader's
machines using the press and other media to win the suppol't of an electorate business."' I-udendorff, who had exercised quasi-dictatorial powers in the last
increasingly coextensive with the adult population" the ultimate test of politi- years of the Great War, and who was to take part in Hitler's abortive Bavarian
cal leadership becomes the capacity to win popular support: ;rutsch in October 1923, comrnented: 'I could like such a democracy.'rOe
Weber's reduction of the role of democratic procedures to the formal ratifica-
Active political dentocratization means that the political leader is no longer pro- tion of the leader's initiatives was exploited by the most brilliant representative
claimecl as a cancliclate because he has proved hirnself in a circle of honorüiores ol'the authoritarian right under Weimar, the legal theorist Carl Schmitt. Dismiss-
[notables]. then becoming a leader because of his parliamentary acconrplishttrents, ing parliamentary institutions as a rnere shell. Schrnitt relocated sovereignty in
but that he gains the trust and the faith of the tnasses in him and his power with lhc president, whose capacity to intervene and to resolve crisis situations consti-
the nreans of mass demagogy. In substance, this nreans a shift towards acaesarist trrted the fount of all legitimate authority (see §9.2 below). As Mommsen puts it,
nrode of selection. Indeecl, every democracy tends in tltis clirection. After all. the 'Schmitt's theory of the plebiscitary authority of the Reich president . . . is a one-
specilically caesarist technique is the plebiscite. It is not an ordinary vote or elec- sitlcd but conceptually consistent extension of Weber's own programrne.' I rt)
tion, but a prot'ession of faith in the calling of him who clelnands these acclamations.r'r7
The theory of 'plebiscitary democracy' displays the polarity that runs through
Wcber's thoLrght between the fornral, instrumental rationality of bureaucratized
Weber seems to have modelled his conception of the 'democratic Caesarist'
t'rrpitalisrn and the substantively irrational interventions - in this case provided
political leacler on the great Victorian Liberal Glitdstone and his famous catrr-
lr_y tlte charismatic leader - through which values are creatively transformed.
paigns in support of an enlightened foreign policy and Irish Home Rulc.
llcrbcrt Marcuse sardonically commented: 'It is difficult not to think here
Gladstone is hardly the most alarming of political figures, but the theory ol ol' l lcgel's f'hilo,sopltt, of Right where the state of civil society, the rational
'plebiscitary leader dentocracy' (Führer-Demokrotie) Weber developecl irt .,lrrlc. culrninates in the "accidental" monarch who is determined only by the
post-revolutiolary Germany makes the 'Caesarist politician' a largely trrt r'orrlitttcttcy ol'birtlr.'rrr BLr[ it is, of course. Nietzsche who is the most direct
accountlble figure: 'Plebiscitary democracy - the most importarrt typc ol
llritl . ll. p. JrrS.
r():! Ibicl.,ll, pp. l'10-1, l4l-:1. 14t7. (.)tto(t'tl irr [Vl W't'lrt'r'. [[rr lli'/,r'r (Nt'rr'\'ork. l()75). P. {r5 I
rlxr lbid., I, p1't.266-7. l\lottrtttst'tt. ll', lr, t ,rtt,l (;t t nttut l','lttir .s. P1r lli.) I
r" lhitl.. ll. p. l-15l. l l. Nl,rrr rtrr' rVr'r',//rr,rrr t l l.tt nnlrl'.\\ orllt. l t) i.) ). ;t .).) l
178 Weber

philosophical influence here: the 'democratic Caesarist' leader bears a suspi-


cious resemblance to the 'overman' who fashions himself into a coherent whole
by the destruction of old values and the invention of new ones.
Weber's political theory certainly displays what Mommsen calls the
'antinomical structure' of his thought - its tendency. in other words, to seek to
I
combine sharply formulated and apparently antithetical positions. With the ex-
ception of Hegel and Marx. Weber, mor€ than any thinker discussed in this The lllusions of Progress
book, seems to hold all the tensions of modernity in a conflicted unity. But
;tllr
these tensions constantly threaten to become polarities that rip his thought apart.
Consider, for example, the contrast between the disdain he evinces for what
Lyotard would call 'grand narratives' - the attempts by the Enlightenment,
Hegel, and Marx to offer interpretations of the whole of human development -
and the fact that his theory of rationalization amounts to a philosophy of world
history; or the closely related tension between the privileging of historical con-
tingency implicit in his account of the Geisteswissen.schaften, and the repeated
declarations that humanity's imprisonment in the 'iron cage' of bureaucratized
capitalism is 'inevitable'. Then again, capitalism is both one of the main levers 8.1 The strange death of liberal Europe
of rationalization, but its preservation will prevent the complete triumph of
bureaucracy. Finally, Weber's theory of rationality is relentlessly paradoxical. The struggle that runs through Weber's thought over the theoretical and practi-
Instrumental rationality conquers the world through the means of bureaucracy cal role of reason is symptomatic of a much larger shift in Western intellectual
and the scientilic knowledge it applies. But the value of this knowledge cannot culture around the start of the twentieth century. Those form.s of rationality,
be justified, and a thoroughly rationalized world will sink into a torpor as stag- particularly associated with the modern physical sciences, which the Enlight-
nant as the most traditional form of patriarchalism unless it is shaken up by cnment had seen as a liberating force, were now subjected to widespread
bursts of irrational charismatic creativity. questioning. Their ability to provide an adequate account of the world, and in
No wonder then that Weber's writings could provide a starting-point both llarticular of the sources of human motivation, was liercely disputed; equally,
for the root-and-branch critique of capitalism developed by Lukäcs and thc lhe process of historical development from which modern societies heavily
Frankfurt School and fbr the functionalist sociology of Talcott Parsons. His tlcpendent on the systematic practical application of scientific knowledge had
thought is enormously rich and suggestive, but it gives the impression of being crnerged became the object of close critical scrutiny.
so riven by irreconcilable conflicts that, as soon as any pressure is applied. The anti-naturalist reaction to the evolutionist. naturalistic materialism
it shatters into a thousand fiagments. The ambiguity of Weber's intellectual which had apparently triumphed in the mid-Victorian era was one symptom
heritage is a consequence of the contradictions that define his most basic ol'this shift (see §7.2 above), though the general trend among German neo-
concepts. Kantians and American pragmatists was less to deny any validity to the
Itlc:tlrods of the natural sciences than to offer a different interpretation of their
ttrlltlre, and to restrict their domain of application. More explicitly irrationalist
;rlrilosophies were also available - for example, in the reception of Nietzsche's
rvrilings, and in the doctrines of vitalist philosophers such as Henri Bergson,
Ior whorn lit-e was a dynamic fbrce underlying and overwhelming the flimsy
slrrrclures erected by human reason.
A silrtilar revalr,rittiott of fhctors lying outside the domain of scientific ratio-
rrrrlity wrts visiblc irt s«rciokrey. Whatever their differences, Durkheim and
Wt'lrt't' hl'okc l'lttlicltll.t, rvillr thc Iinlightcnrncnt critic;rrc o1'rc-ligiorl ils lt cynical
It;ttttl pt'l'pt'lt'rtlt'tl ott lltt'l'rrllilrlt'nr,irsst.s lry plicsts lrrrtl rrrlcrs: religiorrs bc:licl.s
\\'('l('l() lrt't'onsrrlt'rt'rl lt()nt llt(..,1;rrrrlPoinl ol lllt,ir lurrcliorurl rrrlt., wlrt,llrcr. llt.:rl
180 The lllusions of Progress The lllusions of Progress 181

was seen as lying in their contribution to the normative integration of society. death-knell of both laissez-Jctire economics and liberal politics. The spread of
or in the solution they offered to the universal human experience of suffering suffrage in the late nineteenth century enouraged the developrnent o1'bureau-
and injustice. The Italian economist and sociologist Viltiedo Pareto argued that cratic party machines - the German Social Democratic Party was one of the flrst
human actions largely originate in 'non-logical' motivations that represent the examples - organized to mobilize the votes of a mass electorate.
'residues' - all that is excluded fl'om the instrumental rationaiity which, ac- The widespread sense of dislocation produced by these developments found
cording to marginalist economics, governs the behaviour of market actors. The its most powerful expression in the artistic revolution occurring roughly be-
British Fabian political scientist Graham Wallas similarly proposed to study tween 1890 and 1930. Modernism, as it is usually knowr.l, represented a
the workings of liberal polities on the assumption that human beings are moved radicaliztttion of the Aestheticism often championed by nineteenth-century
largely by irrational fbrces. French writers. 'Art for art's sake' was the slogan ol' those who sought in
This intellectual shift was related to larger social and political developments. aesthetic experience a refuge from a debased and mediocre social world: for
rl

Commenting on the first major modern anti-semitic movement, Karl Lueger's Baudelaire, fbr example, the aristocratic values which no longer had a place in
Christian Social Party, which took control of Vienna in 1897, Joachim Fest bourgeois society could be transnruted into those of an art which held the vul-
writes: 'The mass party Lueger formed with the aid of emotional slogitns was garity of everyday life in contempt even when it provided the 'pure' artist with
living proof that anxiety was - as happiness had been a century before - a new his raw material.
idea in Europe, powerful enough even to bridge clitss interests.'i The emer- The variety of movements now included under the label 'Modernism' - for
gence of radical racist nationalism as a popular tbrce (Hitler was a great ad- example, Art Nouveau, Jugendstil, Cubism, Expressionism - take the f'urther
mirer of Lueger) was one symptom that liberal values and institutions were step of increasingly making the work of art itself their subject. so that art be-
coming under increasing pressure. ln 1934 the historian George Dangerfield comes reflexive, concerned primarily to explore the processes through which
published a famous book called Tlrc Strange Death of Liberal Englandin which the art-work is constructed. This process of self--exploration often leads Mod-
he argued that the great reforming Liberal administration of 1905-1-5 was ernist artists to capture in their works the new rhythms of the industrialized,
already being seriously challenged by movements willing to use extra- massified, urban world in which they now lived, but in doing so they often
parliamentary, indeed violent, methods - militant trade unionists, feminist sut: evoked chiefly the disintegration of the subject, the individual self's dispersal
fragettes, and lrish Republicans and Unionists - even befbre it was swept away amid the fragments of an atomized social world. The oblique relationship which
by the Great War. Norman Stone argues that 'what Dangerfield said of Great a Modernist work of art characteristically took up towards its object is well
Britain can be applied, almost without qualification, to the countries of the con- cxpressed in this rather baffled description of the style of Henry James's later
tinent. Befbre the First World War, parliamentary government was in crisis novels by his brother, the philosopher William James:
everywhere.'l
The anxieties tuelling the mass movements of the left and the right which by yours being to avoid naming it straight by dint of breathing and sighing all round

l9l4 were emerging to threaten the survival of liberal political institutions and round it, to arouse in the mind of the reader who may have had a sirnilar
perception already (Heaven help hirn if he hasn't!) the illusion of a solid object,
reflected the transformation Europe had undergone in the previous generation.
made . . . wholly out of inrpalpable materials, air, and the prisrnatic interf-erences
Industrializat"ion meant that a growing proportion of the population were wage-
of light, ingeniously fbcused by mirrors on empty space. But you do it, that's the
earners living in a relatively small number of large towns and cities. Urbaniza- clueernessl And the complication of innuendo and associative reference on the
tion combined with the great agricultural depression of the late nineteenth century enormous scarle to which you give way to it does so build out the rnatter for the
in turn eroded traditional nrechanisms of social control, and undermined what reader that the result is to solidify. by the sheer bulk of the process, the like per-
htrd been predominantly agrarian ruling classes, as Weber observed in the casc ception fiorn which fte has to startlr
of Prussia (see §7.1 above). The two most advanced industrial economies, thc'
United States and Germany. were pioneering fornrs of organization based ort Onc other feature of the exceptionally intellectually and artistically creative
large corporations often closely linked to investment banks and allied to each pu'iocl at the turn of the centr.rry is that it marked the moment when Jews gained
other in cartels. The emergence of what its chief analyst. the Austrian Marxist ;:r'rrtltirtu itdrrtission to elite'society'. The genererl secularization of European
economist Ruclolf Hilf-erding, called 'organized capitalism' seemed to soutrd thc sot'icl) wlrs rcllcclcrl irr lhc clirtrirtation ol'r.r.r«rsI surviving frlrms of legal

| .1.C. licst. //illr'r'(llrtttttotttlsn'orlh. 1977). p.'1.-]. ' |.t'llt't lo I lt'ttt\ .llttttr'r. I l\l;rr l1)()/. ttt l'lrr'.\','1,', tr'rl I r'tlt't.t r,l ll'illitrttr .lrrrtt,.'t. ctl. l:. I lltltlwit'k
' N. Sltrltt', l rrt'rt1tt"l ttrrttfittrrtt'rl l,\7,\ lt)lt) ll.otttkrtt. lt)li l;. p. l() rNr^tt \otk. l()')l). I 'll
182 The lllusions of Progress The lllusions of Progress 183

discrimination. At the same time a small minority of Jews came to occupy ln The Philosophy oJ Money and the closely related essay 'The Metropolis
positions of considerable economic power, though nowhere, with the excep- and Mental Life' (1902-3), Simmel seeks to understand the new fbrm of social
tion of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where they dominated high finance and existence represented by Berlin and cities like it, from a perspective that is less
industry, did they have the primacy of which anti-Semites accused them. in any conventional sense sociological than distinctively philosophical. One
The development of racial anti-Semitism as a mass political force signifled contemporary reviewer wrote that 'behind Simmel's whole work there stands
by Lueger's capture of Vienna and, more or less simultaneously, the Dreyfus not the ethical but the aesthetic ideal'.7 Nietzsche's attempt to rethink the role
Affair in France indicates how contested Jewish advancement was; the immi- of values in human life so that they did not purport to express universal moral
gration into western Europe and North America of Jewish peasants fleeing pov- laws or the order of the universe, but rather guided the aesthetic shaping of
erty and pogroms in the tsarist empire provided racist demagogues with a individual lif-e according to certain ideals (see §5.3), had an enormous impact
ready-made outlet for the anxieties of the age. But, for whatever reason, the on German intellectuals of Simmel's generation. One of Simmel's most influ-
liberal, secularized Jewish middle class which was the chief beneflciary of cntial works was Schopenhauer and Nietzsche (1901), and he was attracted by
emancipation provided the age with many of its most gifted intellectuals, among the circle around the poet Stefan George, who made a cult of 'Holy Art'. why
them Durkheim, Freud, Lukäcs, Simmel, and Wittgenstein. Perhaps among the did a philosopher with these interests concern himself with that most mundane
benefits of an all too precarious advancement was a privileged insight into the and vulgar of social phenomena, money?
world to which they had suddenly gained admission. The answer is that money symbolizes the essential structure of reality itself:
'The philosophical significance of money is that it represents within the pract-
ical world the most certain image and the clearest embodiment of the formula
8.2 Objectivity and estrangement: Simmel of all being, according to which things receive their meaning through each other,
Itnd have their being determined by their mutual relations.' Value - which
Richard Hamann, in a pioneering study of Modernism (which he called 'Im- Simmel seems to treat as simultaneously an economic, an ethical, and an aes-
pressionism', using the term much more broadly than is usual), wrote in 1901 lhetic concept I runs parallel to reality (or being) itself. It is 'never a "quality"
that 'impressionism as a style goes along with a centralizing tendency, a devel- ol the objects, but a judgement upon them which remains inherent in the sub-
oped money economy, the domination of capitalism and the commercial and
icct'. In that sense Simmel's theory of value, like that of marginalist economics
financial strata who provide its distinctive tone. Modern impressionism as art but unlike Marx's labour theory of value (which he explicitly rejects), is a
and lif-e is totally at home in metropolitan centres - Berlin, Vienna, Paris, Lon- subjective one.8
don.' Hamann described Simmel's The Philosoplty of Money (1900) as 'a But if value originates in the rankings we impose on things in the world, it
completely impressionistic philosophy'.4 lirtds expression in a set of objective relationships among them. We value de-
Simmel's writings represent an exceptionally interesting theoretical responsc sirable objects that we cannot immediately enjoy, but which it is in some way
to the developments described in the previous section. His thought does indeed tlil'ficult to obtain and thus are at a distance from us. On the market we ex-
seem to have gained much of its momentum fiom living in the capital of the t'ltange something desirable for something we desire yet more. But exchange
new German industrial and military superpower. 'Berlin's development fiom a Itits a significance that transcends its function of need-satisf'action. Through
city to a metropolis in the years around and after the turn of the century coin- tlrcir market relationships things acquire an objectivity arising from the dis-
cides with my own strongest and most extensive development', he told his son.' lrtttcc they thereby gain from individual subjects and their needs. Moreover,
David Blackbourn describes Berlin in these years as 'metropolis, world city r'xchange is 'the economic-historical realization of the relativity of things'. Truth,
and epitome of the modern spirit: it had a vigorous cafb culture, abundant Sinrntel argues, is 'a relative concept like weight'. lt is not a quality that inheres
theatres, journals and publishers, alongside dealers, galleries, and privatc rrr olr.iects which we can see or touch or taste. Rather, the truth of any sentence
patrons of avant-garde art, especially among the wealthy Jewish bourgeoisie'." r ['pctlds ttn that of others on which we rely when deducing or empirically cor-

a Quoted in D. Frisby, Fragments of Modernity' (Cambridge, 1985), p. 85. Georg Simmel ( I U5lt rrtlxrt'atiltg it. Br"rt the totality of the sentences we hold true serves primarily
1918): born in Berlin, son of a Jewish businessman; took his doctorate on Kant at the University ol ;rr:rclicul cncls: it 'has validity only in relation to specific physio-psychological
Berlin, I 88 I ; repeatedly passed over for chairs at the universities of Berlin and Heidelberg: rr pr i
vate income allowed him to pursue his career as a scholar: finally appointed to a chair at tlrc Urrivcr
sity of Strassberg. l9lzl. (.)rrott'tl in l) lil islrv. irrlrorlut'tiorr lo (i. Sirrrrtrel. lltr, l,ltilrt,yoltln ol Morrt'.t, (l,rlntlrln, l97ll),
' Qttolt'tl ihitl.. p. (r(). l'l'
" I). IJlrrckbotu'tt,'l lrr ltttr.q lVitrt'lt't'trllt ('ttttru't' (l.otttlott. l()()7), p..t|i7. llrr,l . PP l )li (). (' l
The lllusions of Progress The lllusions of Progress 185
184
. There- mediated by the purchase and sale of goods and services in exchange fbr money,
organizations, their conditions of life and the furthering of their activity'
foie, 'relativity is not a qualilication of an otherwise independent notion of we are no longer personally dependent on others. 'Thus the city-dweller is no
truth but is the essential feature of truth''') longer dependent on any of them as particular individuals but only upon their
So far, so Nietzschean. But the particular twist that Simmel gives
to this objective services which have a money value and may therefore be carried out
pragmatist conception of truth is to establish a parallelism between theoretical by any interchangeable person.' But at the same time, the relativization of
ilro*t"age and economic exchange: 'Relativity is the mode in which fepfesenta- everything which the omnipresence of money induces means that objects and
persons are no longer valued for their intrinsic qualities. It promotes a uni-
tions become truth, just as it is the mode in which objects of dernand
become
values., what smith and Marx called the exchange-value of a commodity is versal social fragmentation, and 'the reduction of qualitative determinations to
necessarily relative, since it consists in the quantities of other objects
for which quantitative ones'. so that 'everything that is specifically, individually, and
it can be exchanged. Hence the significance of money: qualitatively determined' is interpreted as 'the more or less, the bigger or
smaller, the wider or narrower, the more or less frequent of those colourless
If the economic value of objects is constituted by their nrutual relationship of elements and awarenesses that are only accessible to numerical determination' .r'r
exchangeability, then money is the autonomous expression of this
relationship' Two characteristic stances struck by the inhabitants of the great metropoleis
of abstract value. From the economic relationship' are in fact responses to 'the height of the money culture'. Cynicism, 'the clispar-
Money is the representative
and
i.e. the exchangeability of objects. the fact of this relationship is extracted agement of all old values', and 'the blasd attitude', 'indifference to [the]...
existence bound to a visible
acquires, in contrast to those objects, a conceptual specific qualities' of things, arise from the 'mutual de-individualization and
symbol.ro leveliing' produced by the universal permeation of social relationships by money.
As part of the san"re process, 'the conceivable elements of action become object-
Money is thus the relativity that constitutes economic value - and indeed
the
ively and subjectively calculable rational relationships and in so doirrg progres-
objective. Moreover: 'This relativity, in
world itself - made autonomous and sively elirninate the emotional reactions and decisions which only attach
turn, increasingly dominates the other qualities of the objects that evolve as
themselves to the turning points of life, to the final purposes'.r4 This contrast is
money, until these objects are nothing more than embodied relativity''
This is
analogous to that drawn by Weber between instrumentally rational action, which
(never tully realized) for money's function as symbol
reflected in the tendency selects the most effective means fbr achieving a given end, and value-rational
qualities the
and facilitator of universal exchange to supplant whatever specific itction, where a lif'e is ordered according to certain consciously adopted ends
(say, gold) may have' It therefore helps to promote a grow-
money-commodity (.see §7.3 above).
abstract and the relative rather than the concrete ancl
ing preoccupation with the For Simmel the problem presents itself as 'the divergence of the subjective
the material: 'money is involved in the general development which in every
lnd the objective factor' in culture, and its cause lies in the division of labour,
domain of life and in every sense strives to dissolve substance into free-floating which 'separates the working person fiom the work produced and endows the
processes'.ll product with objective independence'. Subjectivity and objectivity, emotion
of thc
This tendency towards abstraction also contributed to the development rrnd reason, quality and quantity, substance and form, are sharply counterposed:
moclern sciences: 'Money economy ancl the dominance of the intellect are in
'the objective spirit of things exists in unblernished perfection, but yet lacks the
At the same time, money's universality, its detachmerlt
trinsically connected."' virlues of the personality that cannot be dissolved in objectivities'. This social
tltt'
fronr immediate social contexts, meant that in the past it was the strangers. world drained of meaning encourages the search for sensation and variety which
excluded. for example, persecuted religious minorities, who specialized
in its
rs «rne of the main responses to metropolitan life. It also underlies the taste for
(Simmel, who was denied academic advancement because he was a Jew'
trse tlrr: indirect and the incornplete characteristic of Modernism (and evoked above
was especially sensitive to the precarious position of outsiders)' lry .luntes),
Money is thus the universal means through which humans achieve their Prrr
.the purest fbrm of the tool'. It can thereby play a liberating rolc hr
poses. tlrc;'rrcscnt vividly f'elt chanr of the fi-agrnent. the mere allusion, the aphorism,
enhancing inaiviauat independence. When social relationships are universrrlll llrc unrlcvclopctl artistic style. All these firrms. familiar to all the arts. place us at
rr rlisllrncc lirrrn tltc strhstitncc ol'lhings: thcy spctrk (o us 'as frclnt ufhr'; reality

' I[rid., pP. l0l. 106. 108' I 16. is lorrt'lrt'tl rrot witlr,lit'cct eottlitlcrrcc lltrt witlt lirtr:erti1-rs llltt lu'c inuncrdilttely
r(' lbid.. pp. I 16. I20.
rr ' Srlrrrrt.l. l'l11l1t11t1tlty 1,f llr'rtt r.;r;r .)l(). l()() .). .'i /. .)/t
lbicl., PP. 127. l(rlt.
t' 'l'lrt, .\ttr.irtlrt(t ttl'(it,ttt'.\.\'ittiltrr'1. t'tl. K. ll. w,rlll (Nt'$' \'ol k. l()iot' P 'l I l' " llrt,l , ;rp '\'), ))(r, l') i l t l
186 The lllusions of Progress The lllusions of Progress 187

withdrawn. The most extreme refinement of our literary style avoids the direct One obvious difference between Simmel and Marx is that the latter con-
characterization of objects; it only touches a remote corner of them with the word, ceives the autonomization of money in the shape of money-capital, which seeks
and grasps not the things but the veil that envelops thet.tr.r5 interest from loans to productive capitalists ernploying wage-labour, as sys-
tematically misleading about the reality of capitalist relations of production:
The characteristic indirection of Modern art is a correlate of the same fea- money-capital appears to have the ability to expand itself when in fact interest
tures present in money itself: 'supplied with all the unique qualities of being is part of the surplus value extracted from workers in production. Thus:
able to transcend distances, of concentrating power and of penetrating every-
where - qualities that are the result of its distance from all that is specific and In interest-bearing capital, the capital-relationship reaches its most superficial
one-sided - money enters service of the specific wants or forms of life'. The and f-etishized form . . . The result of the overall reproduction process appears
peculiar abstraction of modern lif'e - its domination by social relationships based as a property devolving on a thing in itself . . . In interest-bearing capital, there-
on calculations of individual advantage - is a consequence of the abstraction fore, this automatic fetish is elaborated into its pure form, self-valorizing value,
of money itself, of its distance from concrete situations and needs, which in money breeding money, and in this fonn it no longer bears any marks of its
turn reflects the fact that reality itself is relativity, having no absolutely secure origin.re

foundations on which to rest:


For Simmel, however, there is no dislocation between appearance and real-
Money, as an institution of the historical world, symbolizes the behaviour of ob- ity: the relativization of all human qualities achieved by ntoney reveals the
jects and establishes a special relationship between itself and thern. The more relativity constitutive of the world itself. For all the historical knowledge he
the lif'e of society becomes dominated by monetary relationships, the more the deploys in his account of the development of money, this process, and the
relativistic character of existence linds its expression in conscittus life, since objectivized, alienated world to which it gives rise, seem to be a realization of a
nloney is nothing other than a special fbrm of the embodied relativity of economic tendency inherent in things. 'Modernity is then itself an eternal present', as
goods that signifies their vetlue.r6 David Frisby puts it.2o

Simmel thus offers an extraordinary philosophical interpretation of modern


capitalism which historically situates the kind of Modernist art, with which he 8.3 The self dissected: Freud
strongly identifies, as an expression of the prevalence of money as a kind o1.
quintessence of the relativity of things thernselves. As such, it naturally invites ln their different ways both Sirnmel and Weber offer extremely subtle and sug-
a comparison with Marx's Capital, one of the themes of whose third volunte is gcstive analyses of what they regard as the peculiarly ambivalent and problem-
the development of the financial system into an autonomous process operating ltic character of modernity. In doing so, they relativize scientifrc reason, situating
independently of production. One contemporary reviewer conlmented: 'solllc it historically and identifying what seern to them to be its lirnits. There is, how-
passages of The Philosophy- of Monei' read like a translation of Marx's econ- cver, one aspect of the Enlightenment heritage which they largely take for
omic discussions into the language of psychology'.r7 granted, namely the subject itself. The self as it is conceptualized by Descartes
Simmel himself clescribed his method as an attempt 'to construct a new story is, as Charles Taylorputs it,'self-defining': directly aware of its own mental
beneath historical materialism such that the explanatory value of the incorpor slates, it provides, through this self-certainty, the basis on which all knowled-ee
ation of economic life into the causes of intellectual life is preserved, while ol'the world is constructed.2r German classical idealism from Kant to Hegel
these economic forces are recognized ars the result of more profound vahtatitlns lrrrrught out the difficulties involved in this presupposition, but. rather than aban-
and currents of psychological or even metaphysical pre-conditions'.r8 He ctt' rkrn it, transformed the subject into the transcendental condition of all experi-
visaged a kind of infinite regress in which his metaphysical grounding of tht' ('ncc. or even into the Absolute, source of all the content of the world (see § I .5
economic base would then be subject to a fiesh materialist interpretation, unclcr ;rrrrl ch. 2 above).
which a new philosophical storey would be built, and so on ad infinitum. Nictzsche had already questioned the autonomy and coherence of the sub-
it't't. bLrt tltc tlccisivc step of cracking open the self and exposing the forces
r5 lbid., pp. 453, 457,,167. 414.
r'' Ibitl.. pp. 4()6. .512. " l( Mrrlx.('(tl,it(tl (\ r,ols. Ilrrrrrrorr,lsrvoltlr. l()7(r l"i l), lll, p1t..5 l5 16.
l7 Qrrotcrl in llrisb-y. inlrorlucliort lo Sinrrtrcl. Plrilo,sttltlr.t' ttl hlt»tt't'.1"t. I l. " littslrv, l"trr.t',tttt'ttlt- p ll)S
§ lhitl.. p. .5(r. ' ( l.rtIn.Il,t',1 ((;rrrrlrrr,lr,,. It)/'t1.I I
188 The lllusions of Progress The lllusions of Progress 189

responsible for its constitution was taken by Freud.22 He described his own the existence of a force - what Freud called repression - seeking to deny the
achievement in the following (less than modest) terms: 'In the course of centu- conscious mind access to them. This implied, first, the development of an inter-
ries the naive self-love of man has had to submit to two rnajor blows at the pretive practice calculated to draw out the meanings hidden by repression. Freud
hands of science,' namely Copernicus's demonstration that the earth is not the developed various techniques, of which the most important was presented in
centre of the universe, and Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, perhaps his greatest work The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). Freud indeed
which demoted man from his self-appointed place at the head of the orders of claimed: 'The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the
living beings. Nevertheless: 'Human megalomania will have suffered its third unconscious activities of the mind.'26
and most wounding blow from the psychological research of the present time Dreams must be treated as meaningful phenomena formed according to the
which seeks to prove to the ego that it is not even master in its own house but rules of a language, albeit one very different from that employed by the con-
must content itself with scanty information of what is going on in its mind.'23 scious mind. Grasping this language requires that we distinguish between the
The theory of the human mind which Freud formulated is significant chiefly manifest and latent content of the dream, that is, between how it immediately
because it represents the most powerful and influential formulation of the con- presents itself to the dreamer, and its actual, but concealed, meaning. The latent
cept of the unconscious. In other words, the existence of conscious mental states content of a dream is always, Freud claims, the fulfilment of a wish. But power-
presupposes that of unconscious ones. It is important to appreciate that Freud ful forces of resistance seek to prevent the expression of this wish, so that the
conceives the unconscious to be as much an intentional phenomenon - consist- rnanifest content distorts the latent content. Thus 'the dream as a whole is a
ing therefore of beliefs and desires - as are conscious mental states. Although clistorted substitute for something else, something unconscious' .27
the unconscious is marked by the effects of bodily drives, it is not a biological Freud calls the process through which the latent content is transformed into
entity. Thus what goes on in the unconscious 'has a sense': 'By "sense" we the manifest content the 'dream work'. It consists of two main mechanisms -
understand "meaning", "intention", "purpose" and "position in a continuous condensation and displacement - which break up the elements of the latent
psychical context".'24 content and reshuffle them, sometimes fusing them, sometimes relating them to
Freud came to the idea of the unconscious as a result of his treatment o1' «rne another through misleading allusions. Moreover, they transform thoughts
patients suffering from neuroses, and in particular hysteria. He and his col- into sensory images, reversing the developmental process through which indiv-
league Joseph Breuer came to believe the delusions identified as the main symp- idual humans learn to use concepts. This 'archaic or regressive' mode of ex-
toms of hysteria could not be treated, as medical orthodoxy held, as simply the pression provides the key to the latent content of dreams. The thoughts which
consequences of physical states. These delusions, they argued, had to be treatecl tlream-work seeks to censor usually involve repressed memories of childhood:
as having a meaning: their content typically referred to some past event. Freucl 'A dream might be described as an infantile scene modified by being trans-
and Breuer concluded 'our hysterical patients sufferfrom reminiscences'. Therc li'rred onto a recent experience.The infantile scene is unable to bring about its
thus evolved what Breuer's patient 'Anna O.' called 'the talking cure', the in- own revival and has to be content with returning as a dream.'28 Indeed, Freud
terchange between doctor and patient designed to elicit the painful memories claims that'all dreams are children's dreams . . . they work with the same in-
from which the neurotic symptoms arose which constitutes the essence of psy' lirntile material, with the same mental impulses and mechanisms of childhood'.2e
choanalysis as a therapeutic practice.2s But why do dreams take the form of a regression to childhood, and why does
The fact that such an effort was required to draw out these memories implietl tlris process have to be concealed fiom the conscious mind? Positing the exist-
r'rtce of the unconscious required not merely the development of the hermeneutic
tcchniques required to elicit its contents, but some account of what is concealed
22 Sigmund Freud ( I 856-1939): born in Freiburg, Bohemia (now Pribor, Czech Republic); whcrr
lry the forces of repression. Freud's answer, elaborated in Three Essays on the
he was 3, anti-Semitic riots forced his family to flee first to Leipzig and then to Vienna; studictl
science and medicine at the University of Vienna, 1873-80; qualified as a doctor of medicinc.
I'ltartry o.f Sexuali4,(1905), was provided by what is still his most controversial
I 881 ; worked at General Hospital of Vienna, 1883-5; studied under the neurologist Jean Charcol rt lltcory, that of infantile sexuality. In other words, the great secret that dreams
Salp6tridre Hospital, Paris, 1 885-8; started private practice, 1886; Studies itt Hysteria ( 1895 ), wlit rrrrtl ncurotic symptoms seek to deny is that children from the very early stages
ten jointly with Joseph Breuer, represented the first formulation of psychoanalysis; awarded a clrrrir
at the University of Vienna, 1902 International Psychoanalytical Association founded, I9l0; allt'r
the German annexation of Austria, fled to London in June 1938. '' S. l;r't'tttl ,'l'ltt' ltttt't'1tt't'trtlitttr rtf l)x'ttttt,s (Ncw York. 1972), ;t. 647.
2r S. Freud, The Complete Introductory Leclures on l'svchrxtttolysis (London, 197 l), pp.2tt.l : lirt'tttl, lttlnttlrtt lttt t' I t't trttt't.1r I 1.1.
)t lbid., p. 61. ' l'tt'tlrl. lttlt'tl,t('l(tltttlr. l) \l'i\
-ri .1.Brcrrcrlrntl S. lirt'rrtl,,\trrtlit'.s itt ltvstr'ritr (llrrltttorttlsworllr, l()7-1 l. p;t 5li. til ' l'lt'ttrl. lttlt,r,ltt,lrtt\ ltrlutt\.lt 'l I
190 The lllusions of Progress The lllusions of Progress 191

of infancy are sexually active. Indeed, they are 'polymorphously perverse', the Iirst place, the distinction between normality and abnormality
- so import-
ant, for example, to Durkheim's sociology is relativized. Repression is a
experiencing desires which do not conform to the norm of heterosexual genital -
sexuality, and which indeed initially have no object at all. Freud distinguishes a universal phenomenon, at work in the healthy and the ill alike. If repressed
succession of stages of infantile sexual organization in which the child commences desire does not return in the form of neurotic symptoms, it does so in
clreams,
as a bundle of fragmentary desires which gradually focus on an object - flrst and, as we have seen, the same processes of censorship are at work in
both.
itself, and then the mother. Finally, in what he calls the genital stage, the child Secondly, gender differences are not simply the result of tn. biological
con-
develops the 'normal' desire for a member of the other sex (though the attainment stitution of male and female human beings or rather, the effects of this con-
-
of this orientation is then subject to a period of 'latency' till adolescence). stitution are mediated by the process through which, within male-dominated
The critical phase in this process immediately precedes this happy outcome. family structures, girls and boys are prepared for their future roles in these
Here both male and female children desire their mother. In the phallic stage. same structures. Thirdly, the conscious self turns out to be the result
of a
male children form the Oedipus complex. They wish to emulate the Greek tragic history, a complex assemblage of desires and dispositions whose internal
ten-
hero and kill their father, whom they hate as a rival for the mother's affection. sions both conceal and allude to a vast, unknown hinterland in which
many of
The Oedipus complex is dissolved through the castration complex, when the boy the most important effects of the process through which it was constructed
lie
comes to fear the loss of his penis. and therefore to fear the father as a potential hidden.
castrator. This fear leads the child to abandon his Oedipal desire, in the expect- In his later writings Freud developed a more elaborate model of the mind
ation that he too will one day be the father and possess the mother. In the case o1' than he had posited in works such as The Interpretation of Dreams. This
model
female children, the process is the reverse: 'The castration complex prepares fbr is based on the contrast between ego, id, and superego. The id is the seat
of
the Oedipus complex insteading of destroying it.' The recognition that she lacks sexual desires. Initially, the mind is all id; individual mental developmenr
thus
a penis leads the girl to identify with the mother and to desire the father: in that consists in a process of differentiation through which the ego unä ,up.."go
way she can get a penis (or a child as a penis-substitute). This option involves separate out from the id. The ego is the site of the conscious self.
but Freud
'substituting activity fbr passivity'. For girls the Oedipus complex is 'a haven o1' believes it is also the source of repression, and so certain aspects of ego,
Iike the
refuge' which is much more gradually overcome than in boys.30 id once repression takes root, are unconscious. Finally, the ,up"Ägo is the
This emotional history of early childhood provides Freud with his explan- introjected father, the heir of the Oedipus complex, ancl the ,.pi.r"n1utive
of
ation of his patients' sutl-erings. Should the process leading to the Oedipus social morality: it is manifested in what everyday discourse calls the
conscience.
complex and its resolution go wrong, and he believes it never goes entirely and also plays a role in abnormal conditions such as paranoia.
right, the result is mental illness. More specifically, the 'transference neuroses'. This complex anatomy of mind reflected Freud's growing interest in repres-
hysteria and obsessional neurosis, arise when some instinct or instinctual sion - not so much with what is repressed (infantile sexual desires)
as with the
component is fixated at an earlier stage of infantile development. Repression is lbrces responsible fbr its repression. This shift involved a series of
attempts to
unable to prevent 'the return of the repressed', when the individual regresses to conceptualize the drives or instinct s (Triebe) the biologically determined
- dis-
the stage of libidinal development where the fixation occurred. Mental illness positions which underlie mental Iife, conscious and unconscious
alike. lnitially,
thus has a regressive character: the patient suffers from a repressed desire whiclr F-reud saw repression as the outcome of a conflict between what
he called the
is denied satisfaction. Neurotic and hysterical symptorns are 'cornpromise fbr- reality and the pleasure principles, which in turn reflect the struggle between
mations' arising from the struggle between this desire and the forces of repres- two kinds of drive - the libido, the urge for sexual satisfaction which finds
sion. They emerge from processes employing the same mechanisms ol cxpression in the desires, and the instinct for self-preservation. Roughly
speak-
condensation and displacement as are involved in the dream-work. Psychoanrr irrg. the libido's demand for immediate gratification runs up against
ihe require-
lytic therapy therefore consists in the gradual reconstruction, in the face of pow tttent that desires are repressed and pleasures deferred if the individual
is to
erful unconscious resistance, of the particular history to which the patienl's survive in an inhospitable world.
dreams and symptoms are distorted allusions. Frcud calne. however, to doubt the autonomy of what what he called
the
'cgo-iltstincts' tlriented on self-preservation.
Freud's account of the formation of the individual subject and of the naturt' According to the theory of .prim-
of mental illness is still fiercely contested. Viewed with respect to our thcrrrc. Itry rtitrcissistlt'wlrich hc lirrrnulatcd in 1914, the self was the Iirst sexual
ob-
the development of social theory. it nevertheless has enormous signific;rncc. lrr it't'l: llrt'('l]() wll,\ llttrs:rhlc to tlt'ltw «rrr llrc libickr irr ortlcr to clel'encl itself. This
:tl't!tttttcltl irrrPlit'tl llrlrl lltt'tlt-il't's tvt't'c solt'ly scxrlrl. [rrl [rr-cltl tlitl lr6t lc:rvcthc
"' lhirl.. PP 5() t. §t)l
rrrllll('l' lltt'lt'. ltt /ir't'r ttttl llrr' l'lt'rttrut' l'r'ittt'il,lt,( l()lO). scckiltr: l, t,x,llrilr
lr
The lllusions of Progress The lllusions of Progress 193
192
struggle for an incalculable time with the difficulties which the untameable char-
number of phenomena ranging from saclism and masochism in individuals
acter of human nature presents every kind of social community.3r
to the collective aggressions recently displayed in the First World War, he
postulated the existence of a death instinct'
pain. he argued, arose tiom the accumulation of tension and pleasure fiom At one level, psychoanalysis appears to represent a major blow to the En-
lightenment project. The Cartesian subject is cracked open, revealing hidden
its release. The satisfaction gained from discharge, from the release of tension,
desires and drives as the main source of human motivation. Yet Freud regarded
arises frotn 'an urge inherent in organic life to restore an earlier 'state of thhtgs
his own discoveries as a great victory for scientific reason and an enlargement
which the living entity has been obliged to abandon under the pressure of exter-
of its domain. Moreover, he believed that therapy guided by them could help
nal disturbing fbrces; that is, it is . . . the expression of the inertia inherent in
individuals to gain control over their suffering by allowing them to understand
organic things'. This 'earlier state of things' can only be the absence of lil'e
its origins in the secret course of their own personal history. This is a thor-
itself. Organisms aspiretodie,'tobecome. '. inorganic again'.Thus'the aint
oughly Stoic conception of reason, consisting as it does in the recognition of
of all lifb is deatlf.3r While the death instinct and the libido are iu the first
the necessary patterns traced by the human passions, and in the acceptance of
instance in conflict, they are at the same time closely related since both are an
the unhappiness that these make inevitable, but it marks a major extension, and
artempt to release tension. The death instinct is the libido taken to its limit - the
not the abandonment, of the Enlightenment project.
ultimate outcome of the drive to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Moreover, both
Even for those sympathetic to Freud's achievement, there remains the quest-
instincts operate together: hence the close association of loving and destructive
ion of whether he unduly restricted the scope of social transfonnation by, in
urges in sexual relationshiPs.
effect, eternizing the privatized, male-dorninated family structures of the mod-
This highly speculative biology recalls that of Nietzsche, as do various spe-
ern West. Two of his most perceptive critics, Gilles Deleuze and Fdlix Guattari,
cific ideas (for example, a stress on the functional role of fbr-eetting, and the
make the point very forcefully:
suggestion that sexual desires can be sublimated into cultural creatiort). But the
overall tenor of Freud's theory of drives is very different frorn Nietzsche's doc-
Freud's grcatness is to have determined the essence or the nature of desire . . . as
trine of the will to power. The latter posits a dynarnic tendency inherent in an abstract subjective essence, libido or sexuality. Only, he still relates this es-
things bringing about transformations in which values are creatively refashionecl. sence to the family as the last territoriality of the private man . . . Everything
But, according to Freud, the drives are 'exclusively conservative': 'forces tend- happens as if Freud forgives himself for his profound discovery of sexuality by
ing towards change and progress' are 'a deceptive appearance'.'tl saying to us: at least it stays in the family! . . . He mobilizes all the resources of
These reflections pose very sharply the question (raised, of course also, by myth, of tragedy, of dream, to re-enchain desire, this time in the interior: an
nineteenth-century evolutionism) of the relationship between the social and thc intirnate theatre.ra
biological. Freud's general view is that hunran beings' biological constitution
is quite directly responsible for a variety of social phenomena: thus, aggres- Others would, however, read Freud's work as representing more than the
sion, whether manifested in personal relationships or on the battlelield, is thc confinement of desire within a family drama: the Frankfurt School, for exam-
death instinct turned outwards. This does not mean that he is a biological deter ple, sought to forge out of historical materialism and psychoanalysis a broader
minist or an opponent of social reform, but he believes that repression is rr lheory of human liberation (see §10.3 below).
necessary condition of the existence of civilization, which will exert a high
price in unhappiness whatever the form of society. Thus he thinks the Russiln
Revolution of October l9l7 premature: 8.4 Memories of underdevelopment: Russian
intellectuals and capitalism
a sweeping alteration of the social orcler has little prospect of success until new
discoveries have increased our control over Nature and so made easier the satis- ln llrcir diff'crent ways Nietzsche and Freud, Weber and Simmel, are repre-
faction of our needs. Only then perhaps may it become possible for a new social scrrtativc «lf the increarsing doubts the most gifted members of the European
order not only to put an end to the material need of the rlasses but also to givc a irrlt'lligcnlsitr crrntc: to cntertain about historical progress as the nineteenth cen-
hearing to the cultural demand of the individual. Even then, we shall still havc ttr
Ittt'-y tlrcw lo rr closc. l.ivirrg irt socielics whiclr harl experiencecl the recent and

rr pll' l' 3ll' " l'tt'tttl. lttlttrltrr I t'r lttt r'r, lr (r l\


lrtt t'
S. F'rettcl.()rt Mcttrl»,s.tt/tolo,qr'(llarltr«rtttlswortlt. l()lJ4). 3'1
" I l)r'lr'lr/r';rrr,ll' (;u;rll,rt. l \tttt (l,lt1t, ll';trr.,. l()/.)).;l;r
" Ihi(|.. p. j lo
194 The lllusions of Progress The lllusions of Progress 195

apparenrly definitive triumph of industrial capitalism, they highlighted the hist- Revolutionary Europe. The Petrashevsky circle in the 1840s drew heavily on
orical contingency, the fragility, and the individual and collective costs of this the French Utopian socialists; later radicals read Marx's Capital (translated
process. Yet, in this period, the modernization that they sought to question was into Russian in l8l2), and learned that Western 'progress' had produced a
largely a west and central European and North American phenomenon. The capitalist society based on class exploitation and inherently liable to crises.
very rapidity with which Western societies were transformed by the onset of Should Russia seek to copy a course of development that was producing such
industrial capitalism underlined the growing gap between them and the rest of unattractive consequences? This question stimulated an extraordinarily rich
the world, at the very time, in the second half of the nineteenth century, that debate, not merely expressed in theoretical analyses and political polemics,
much of Asia. Africa, and Latin Arnerica was incorporated into the formal and but also acted out in the novels of Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky.
iii informal empires of the European powers, and - by 1900 - of the United States The positions first staked out here were to be taken up again in many later
li
as well. The meaning of industrialization and colonization for the peoples now
controversies in other developing countries.
subject to Western domination would become an increasingty pressing quest- Initially, argument polarized between global acceptance and rejection of
ion for both social theory and political practice. the Western course of development. The Westernizers' greatest representative
The society where this question was first systematically thematized was tsar- was the critic Vissarion Belinsky. He argued that the transformation of Russia
'iii
ist Russia. An important member of the European state system, it was at the depended on the emelgence of a Westernized elite: 'it has become obviou.s
same time the most backward of the Great Powers, a society which entered the that the process of internal civic development will begin in Russia only when
iii
twentieth century largely composed of smallholding peasants who lived mostly our gentry become transformed into a bourgeoisie'.3s The other side to this
in conditions of medieval poverty and squalor, under an imperial autocracy programme was a fear of the predominantly peasant masses. who were con-
which claimed to rule absolutely by divine right. The pressure of military coln- ceived as a brute, irrational obstacle to progress.
petition with its more advanced rivals forcecl the Romanov monarchy from the This espousal of Western individualism was fiercely opposed by the Slavo-
reign of Peter the Great (1682-1725) onwards to import social and technical philes. They denounced the atomizing eft-ects of the kind of 'progress' western
,,i ilnovations from abroad. This process of authoritarian modernization promoted Europe was experiencing, and argued that these arose from a corrosive ratio-
the development of an intelligentsia, often recruited tiom the landed gentry br-rt nalism whose roots could be traced back to pagan Rome and which corrupted
largely employed in the imperial civil and military bureaucracy, which drew on both Catholicism and Protestantism alike. The individual could flnd genuine
Western ideas in order to throw critical light on its own society, and to press fbr' cxpression only within the 'spiritual hierarchy' of the Orthodox Russiarr
('hurch, which integrated all believers into an organic unity. Andrzy Walicki
much more extensive changes than the tsarist regin-re was willing to conten-r-
i'ii

plate. The unsuccessful Decembrist rising of 1825 was the first in a series ol' comments: 'Slavophile criticism of Western Europe was therefore essentially,
ievolutionary challenges which radical intellectuals mounted against thc though not solely, a critique of capitalist civilization fiom a romantic conserva-
t ive point of view . . . it was less defence of the present than romantic nostalgia
autocracy.
The specific situation of the Russian intelligentsia posed a dilemma which lilr a lost ideal.'36 This fbrm ofRomantic anti-capitalism was not necessarily
became increasingly acute as the nineteenth century wore on. The model by t'onvenient for the autocracy, which sought selectively to import Western
which they judged Russian society was provided by the most advanced fbrtrrs irrstitutions and practices. Its arnbivalence is brought out in Dostoevsky's later
of Western rhought. The Hegelian circles of the 1830s and 1840s (see §4.1 \^,r'itings, which hold up the Russian Church as the cure to the suffering caused

above) are merely one example of the eagerness with which intelligenty c<ttt by Western rationalism and individualism, but which characterize this solution
sumed the latest ideas frorn abroad; in the 1860s and 1870s, Spencer and J«rltrr irr lcrms derived fronr the Fourierist Utopian socialism he had learned in the
Stuart Mill replaced the German idealists. Initially, like their cottnterparts elsr-' l'clrashevsky circle during the 1840s.
where in Europe in the era of the Holy Alliance (1815-48), their political tlc Many radical intellectuals sought a third way between simply endorsing or
mands were modelled on those of the Great French Revolution. Thus the nrot't' rt'iccting the Western pattern of capitalist development. Starting with the
radical wing of the Decembrists, led by Pavel Pestel, drew up a draft cottslil l\'lr':rshcvtsy and Aleksandr Herzen. they fbund this in the idea of a distinc-
ution which provided fbr the abolition of serfdom and of the f'eudal estates' littrrl lrvt'ly'ltussian'socialisrn. This took as its starting-point the peasant village
redistribution, universal male suffrage, centralized republican governnlent' Polislr
independence. and Jewish self-determination. ' (.)ttolt'tl irr A. Wlrlrtkr
Yet the Western literature which the RLrssian intelligerltsia rcad so ltvitlll t'rl;rrtlotrl, l() /()1. p l.l(r
ilt " llrrrl. p l(l/
paintecl an increasingly sornbrc picturc o1'thc st>ciety elltcrgittg lrosl
196 The lllusions of Progress The lllusions of Progress 197

community (mir or obshchina) which the Slavophiles had already idealized as has been begun and led for him and in his name.' But this revolution would be
part of the systematic contrast they drew between Russia and the West. The a long time coming. What the Populists had feared was coming about; as a
survival of communal institutions would allow Russia to bypass the Western result of the development of capitalism, the rural commune was disintegrating.
pattern, and thus to avoid the suffering attendant on capitalist industrialization Indeed: 'By the inherent character of its organization. the rural community tends
by moving directly to socialism. Most fully developed in the Populist move- first and fbremost to give place to bourgeois, not communist, forms of life.'at)
ment from the 1870s onwards, this analysis put a premium on the rapid over- This process would gradually form a working class capable of carrying through
throw of the tsarist autocracy. Thus Piotr Tkachev argued that social revolution a socialist revolution; in the meantime, Social Democrats (as, following the
must take place 'now, or in a very remote future, perhaps never'.37 German example, Russian Marxists initially called themselves) should concen-
If the revolutionaries did not seize the opportunity offered by the crisis of the trate on the political education of workers, and on supporting the efforts of the
old regime, capitalism would entrench itself, and Russia would have to un- liberal bourgeoisie to achieve a democratic constitution comparable to those
dergo all the miseries of bourgeois life. Since efforts to mobilize the masses increasingly prevalent in the West.
proved unsuccessful, most notably in the attempt by the intelligentt'to 'go to Plekhanov, unlike Kautsky, the other leading theoretician of Second Inter-
the people' in 1873-4, Tkachev and others, influenced by the French examples national Marxism (see §5.2), was a careful student of Hegel. He enthusiasti-
of the Jacobins and Auguste Blanqui's communist conspiracies, concluded that cally embraced the latter's teleology, declaring 'The irresistible striving to the
the revolution could only take the form of a minority insurrection. The most great historical goal, a striving which nothing can stop - such is the legacy oJ'
celebrated attempt to pursue this strategy, by Narodnaia Volya (People's Will), the great German idealist philosophy.'ar Walicki suggests that Plekhanov re-
led to the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. quired such a philosophical viewpoint in order to justify his acceptance of the
As Marx's Capital gained a widespread readership, his theory provided the inevitability of capitalist development, with all the suffering he believed this
main reference-point for the debate over whether capitalist development was would entail:
inevitable in Russia. Marx himself denied that it was, attacking interpretations
which 'turned my historical sketch of the genesis of capitalism in Western Eu- The necessity to which he appealed could not be a simple necessity of facts: to
rope into a historico-philosophical theory of general development, imposed by endorse such sacrifice merely for fäcts wor"rld be nothing more than simple oppor-
fate on all peoples, whatever the circumstances in which they are placed'. He tunism. Theretbre, it had to be conceived as an ontological necessity, a necessity
argued that 'in Russia, thanks to a unique combination of circumstances, the inherent in the rational structure of the universe . . . To become reconciled with
rural commune, still established on a nationwide scale, may gradually detach such a necessity was, indeed, something inspiring and lofty; it gave a powerful
feeling of historical mission and a certainty of victory.a2
itself from its primitive features and develop directly as an element of collect-
ive production on a nationwide scale'. The most important of these circum-
The next generation of Russian Marxists - who were to play a leading role in
stances could be a revolution which, if it acted as 'the signal for a proletarian
lhe revolutions of 1905 and l9l7 - rebelled against Plekhanov's determinism.
revolution in the West', might enable the commune to become 'the starting
His analysis implied that the revolutionary process would pass through two stages
point for communist development'.r8
in Russia - flrst, a bourgeois-democratic revolution comparable to that of France
These reflections show Marx at his most cautious and conditional, and casl
in 1789, and then, once capitalist development had worked itself out, the social-
doubt on interpretations of historical materialism as a teleological theory ol
ist revolution in which social democracy would flnally come into its own. This
inevitable change. Plekhanov, the fbunder of Russian Marxism, falls much morc
was a normative conception of history in which every society must undergo the
easily into this stereotype.3e Rejecting the voluntarism and elitism of Narodnairr
sill'ne series of modes of production, each succeeding its predecessor by iron
Volya, he espoused Marx's conception of the self-emancipation of the workirr!
ttccessity. [t also seemed to make the socialist movement itself redundant. Petr
class: 'The Social Democrat wants the worker himself to make his revolutiorr.
Slt'uvc and the 'Legal Marxists' drew what seemed to him the obvious inference
the Blanquist dernands that the worker should support the revolution, whiclr
llut( radicals should unequivocally welcome the triumph of capitalism: 'Let us
37 Quoted in G. V. Plekhanov, Selected PhilosophicalWorks (5 vols, Moscow. l91l),1. p. .lJJ t'orrc:lucle that we lack culture and take lessons from capitalism.'a3
3n K. Marx and F. Engels, Collected Works (50 vols, London, 1975- ), XXIV, pp. 200. 349. -1.)t,
're G. V. Plekhanov (1856-1918): trained as a mining engineer; initially uctivc in the I\rprrli.,t r" l'lr'kllutrtv.,\t'lt't tt'rl I)ltilrt.sttltltit'rtl Work,t.l, p1l. 34 I 2, 173.
movement; spent most of his lif'e in exile in Switzerland wherc he lilrnred the lirst lltrssiirrr Mrrr r r'.t rr llrrtl., l. p. -lli t.
group, Emancipation of Labor.rr, in ltttt3; hrokc with Lenin uticr 1903; opposcrl thc Octolrcr '' A. Wrrltt'l:r. lllrrtti.strt rrtt,l llrt l t'rr1, tt, tlrt' h'itrlitlt,ttr of I.t.t't'tlrll (Sllurlirnl. l()().5). 2.13 4.
111t.
Rcvolrrtiorr. r' (.)rrrrlt'tl rn \\';rlr, l. t. llt\tt't r. I I t i

F
198 The lllusions of Progress The lllusions of Progress 199

Yet the actual course of events in Russia tended to undermine this historical proper. This conception of a kind of 'bourgeois revolution from below' implied
schema. From the 1890s onwards the tsarist regime sought to modernize the a recognition of the possibility of historical alternatives.
economy in order to provide the necessary industrial base to sustain the arms Thus after the defeat of the 1905 Revolution, Lenin feared that the prom-
race into which all the Great Powers were increasingly drawn. An alliance of otion of individual peasant landholdings by the last tsarist minister of any abil-
the imperial state and foreign capital promoted the rapid industriali zation of the ity, Piotr Stolypin, could open the way to a 'Prussian' road to capitalism, in
country based on the wholesale importation of advanced plant and technology. which the gentry and the bourgeoisie would agree gradually to modernize the
A small but highly concentrated industrial proletariat took shape; its economic economy, leaving most of the political institutions of Russian absolutism in-
and political grievances brought it into conflict with both the Russian business tact. If history was therefore a relatively open process, with more than one
class and the autocracy itself. The implications of this development became possible outcome to any major crisis, then consciously undertaken political ac-
clear during the 1905 Revolution: mass strikes by factory workers drove capi- tion by a revolutionary party could play a decisive part in tipping the balance
talists, initially supportive of liberal reforms, into the arms of the regime. The one way or the other. Lenin belaboured the Mensheviks for 'ignoring the ac-
bourgeoisie, rather than play its appointed role of leading a democratic revolu- tive, leading, and guiding part which can and must be played in history by
tion against tsarism, allied itself to the autocracy. parties which have reali zed the rnaterial prerequisites of a revolution and have
The difficulty this development caused Russian Marxists contributed to grow- placed themselves at the head of the progressive classes'.46
ing divisions among them. Some, usually known after the 1903 split in Russian Trotsky developed an even more radical critique of Russian Marxist ortho-
social democracy as the Mensheviks, held on to the orthodox schema. After the doxy.aT He argued that the conception of a revolutionary process passing of
fall of the autocracy in February l9ll, they supported the efforts of the Pro- necessity through distinct stages ignored the tendency of capitalisrn to establish
visional Government to turn Russia into a Western-style liberal polity. The itself on a global scale. This gave rise to a process of uneven and combined
Bolsheviks under Lenin took a more nuanced position.aa Lenin accepted that Russia development. The 'law of combined development' represented the 'drawing
would have to undergo a period of capitalist development before socialism could together of the diff'erent stages of the journey, a combining of separate steps, an
come onto the political agenda. His first major work, The Development of Cap- amalgam of archaic and more contemporary forms'.48 Backward societies such
italism in Russia (1899), was a theoretically and empirically sophisticated at- as Russia need not repeat the same patterns as capitalist pioneers such as Brit-
tempt to refute Populist arguments by demonstrating the extent to which the spread ain and France had undergone. By virtue of 'the privilege of historical back-
of commodity relations and of wage-labour had already eroded the peasant com- wardness', they could import the latest technologies and social institutions. In
mune. Even here, however, as Walicki points out, 'he placed the emphasis on the Russia some of the most advanced factories in the world were surrounded by
question of the prevailing relations of production and the nature of the funda- the most primitive peasant agriculture.
mental class contradictions', rather than on the development of the productive This meant that the revolution in Russia would necessarily have a combined
forces. 'Lenin treated history not as a reifled process whose driving force is an character. The peasants would seize and divide up the estates, prornoting a vast
impersonal necessity, but as a battleground. a scene with human actors whose cxtension of petty commodity production. Meanwhile, the workers would con-
participation implies conscious or unconscious identification with a specific class l'ront their capitalist exploiters. Proletariat and peasantry should certainly ally
and therefore the conscious or unconscious choice of certain values.'as lhemselves against the old regime: indeed, history showed that the peasants
Lenin accordingly modified the orthodox analysis of Russian society. Hc could only take effective revolutionary action under the leadership of an urban
argued that the ovefthrow of tsarism would indeed be the work of a bourgeois- class. But the workers should not (as Bolshevik strategy implied) restrain their
democratic revolution. The integration of the capitalists into the tsarist statc. tlcmands in order to avoid antagonizing their petty bourgeois partners: such a
however, meant that it would be led, not by them, but by the working class. Thc 'sclf--denying ordinance' would, in all likelihood, lead only to demoralization
result would be 'the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletarilt
and peasantry', which would, particr"rlarly by destroying the great landed cs- r'' V. L l.cnin. Collected Work,s (45 vols. Moscrow, 1972),LX,p.44.
tates of the gentry, achieve the thoroughgoing democratization of Russian soci , 1.. l).'lr«rlsky. rrr'Bronstein (1879-1940): plesident of the St Petersburg Soviet of Workers'
ety, and create conditions favourable to a rapid move towards socialist revolution l)t'ptrlit's 190-5: cscrrpccl lh»n Siberia to the West afier the def'eat of the revolution; president of the
l\'lrosrttl Sovit't irr l()17: ('ottttttisslrrol'Iroreign Allirirs. 1911 18; Cornr.r.rissarof War, l9l8-25;
'1'1 V. I. Lenin, ry' Ulyanov (1870-1924): active in the revolutionary movement fionr r'. lll90 orr lot111.;.',; tlrt'Lt'll ()pposiliort lo Slrrlirr's lt'irrlt'r'slrip ol'tlrc ('«rrrrrrrrrrrist I)arty ol'thc Soviet Union,
wards; in exile in the West lbr rnost of the years afier 1900; tirunder and leader of the lirlsht'r rk lr).) l: t'rP«'llr'tl ltirttt tlrr' tlSSlt. l().)(). lirrrrttlt'tl llrt' Iiorrr.llt Irtlt'r'rlrliorrirl. l()3lJ: tttrrrdcrccl hy lr
Party, 1 903-24:' chairman of the Council of Peoplc's Colnlnissars, 19 lT -24. .rior'11'1;1,'1'111
15 Wrrlicki. I Ii.strtrt'. pp.'1.1.1. .l-I.j. ' I l) f'rol.,kl llt,'llttt,tt\ t'l llt.
200 The lllusions of Progress The lllusions of Progress 201

and defeat. Instead, the working class should unleash a process of 'permanent By then, however, the debates among Russian intellectuals had attained an
revolution', helping the peasants in their struggle against the gentry, but also exemplary quality in more than one sense. First, the same positions they had
expropriating the capitalists as well. This combined socialist and democratic staked out - acceptance of Western modernity and the capitalist social struct-
revolution could, however, only succeed if, as Marx had suggested, it acted as ures in which it was imbricated; rejection in the name of an idealized, organic
a stimulus for proletarian revolution in the more advanced industrial countries past; and the avoidance of these choices through social revolution were to be
-
of the West. As Trotsky later put it, generalizing his original analysis of Rus- taken up by their counterparts in many countries more directly subject to West-
sian society: 'The socialist revolution begins on the national arena, it unfolds ern domination than Russia had ever been. Secondly, the October Revolution
on the international arena, and is completed on the world arena. Thus. the so- offered a model of socialist transformation which became one of the main
cialist revolution becomes a permanent revolution in a newer and broader sense; reference-points - whether negative or positive - in subsequent reflection on
it attains completion only in the final victory of the new society in the entire the future of the modern world. The dilemmas and polemics of the Russian
planet.'ae intelligentsia were thus universalized.
The Russian Revolution of October 1917, bringing to a culmination nearly a
century of controversy and agitation, was undertaken by the Bolsheviks on the
basis of a strategy essentially identical to that outlined by Trotsky. In its after-
math, the new revolutionary regime found itself facing the apparently uncom-
promising hostility of the Great Powers. The Bolsheviks' situation required,
among other things, a theoretical understanding of the global context in which
their revolution had occurred and now struggled to survive. The basis of such
an understanding was provided by the theory of imperialism popularized by
Lenin but most rigorously formulated by the Bolshevik economist Nikolai
Bukharin. This asserted that the development of 'organized capitalism' had led
to two crucial innovations: first, the concentration of economic power within
1

individual countries was leading to a tendency for the nation-state and private
capital to fuse; secondly, the growing international integration of capital meant
that these emerging 'state-capitalist trusts' were now competing on a global
stage. Hence the formal or informal subordination of economically backward
countries to one or other of the Great Powers; hence also the tendency for econ-
omic competition increasingly to take the form of diplomatic and military
rivalries.
The Lenin-Bukharin theory of imperialism provided an explanation of tlrc
global conflicts which, together with the contradictions of Russian society, hacl
made possible the breakdown of the tsarist regime and the October Revolutiorr
itself. But no theory could remove the dilemma presented by the hostile inter'
national state system confronting the Bolsheviks. Should they continue thcir'
initial strategy of encouraging revolutions in the more advanced economies ol'
the West, as the theory of permanent revolution suggested, or should they. irr
effect, adapt to that system by transforming Russia into an industrialized Grcirl
Power capable of holding its own in the global arena? It was, of course. thc
latter strategy, expressed in the slogan of 'Socialism in One Country', which
prevailed in the Soviet Union from the mid-I920s onwards, as Josef Slllirr
consolidated his hold on power against, most notably, Trotsky's opposition.

'r() 1,. I).'l'r«llsky. I'cntrttttt'trl llt'yolrrtirttr trtttl llr.srtll.s ttntl l'ntsltt'r'l,r (Ncw Yolk, lt)(r()). ll. -l /()

I
Revolution and Counter-Revolution 203

ruling domestically by terror and pursuing a relatively cautious foreign policy,


remained for the Nazis the embodiment of the revolutionary threat to which
Germany had nearly succumbed after the war. For the Nazis the invasion of the
USSR in June l94l launched a Venüchtungskrieg - a war of extermination
against Bolshevism, in which the German master-race would seize the

Revolution and Counter- Lebensraurz (living room) it needed from the 'inferior' Slavs. It was, of course,
in this context that the Nazis committed the crowning atrocity of this, and in-
deed of any, era in human history, when they attempted systematically to
Revolution murder the European Jews.
It would have been incredible if this extreme political polarization had not
found its theoretical accompaniment. The 1920s and 1930s saw the reinterpre-
tation of Marxism as a theory of revolutionary subjectivity; they also saw some
sophisticated attempts, considered in the next section, to justify the politics of
the authoritarian, anti-parliamentary right. These developments did not arise
tiom nowhere. The radical questioning of modernity which we have traced in
the past few chapters helped to prepare many intellectuals for the idea that
9.1 Hegelian Marxism: Lukäcs and Gramsci some kind of political revolution was necessary to resolve the crisis they were
experiencing. But, certainly in the case of Marxism, this necessity seemed to
With the outbreak of war in August 1914 the tensions which social theorists imply a rethinking of accepted theoretical structures.
had been exploring for the previous century finally burst out into the open. The Marxism of the Second International (1889-1914) was f-ar fiom stag-
Arno Mayer called the era which this event ushered in 'the Thirty Years War of nant intellectually. The publication of the third volume of Marx's Capitol in
the general crisis of the twentieth century'.r The First World War (1914-18), 1894 helped to stimulate a series of majortreatises in economic theory. Kautsky's
the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the Second World War (1939-45) formed The Agrarian Question (1899), Lenin's The Development of Capitalism in
an interconnected whole: together they marked the closest to a systemic crisis Russia (1899), Rudolf Hilferding's Finance Capital (1910), RosaLuxemburg's
that bourgeois society has yet experienced. Global wars and economic slump The Accurtutlation of Capital ( 1 9l 3), and Nikolai Bukharin' s Intperialism and
placed in question the viability of the existing social order. The end of the First World Economy (1911) together represent a remarkable achievement which
World War was accompanied by revolutions in Russia and Germany, and by sought to extend Marx's analysis by, in the case of the hrst two works, applying
serious upheavals in other European states. The brutalizing eff'ect of four years it systenratically to agriculture, or, as the others did, seeking to theorize the
of trench warfare helped to introduce a new violence into political conflict: ex- specific characteristics of the organized capitalism taking shape at the begin-
frontline fighters contributed many of the cadres of the fascist movements which ning of the twentieth centr"rry. Attempts were also made to interpret cultural
sought to combat the revolutionary challenge with what seemed oflen to bc phenomena apparently resistant to historical materialism - for example, in Otto
revolutionary means. lJauer's Sociul Democrac)'and the Nutional Question (1907), and in Kautsky's
'l'lte Fourulations of
The postwar crisis decisively shaped the politics of the following decades. Christianiry ( 1908).
The extreme polarization between left and right during the German Revolutiorr Together these works and others like them form an important part of the
of 1918-23 meant that from its inception the Weimar Republic had a relatively irrlcllectual heritage of classical Marxism. Yet the dominant note in the
narrow social and political base. It was therefore highly vulnerable to the onscl Marxisrn of the Second International was provided by the determinism
of economic depression and renewed class conflict at the end of the 1920s. Thc tlcvcloped in somewhat diffbrent forms by both Kautsky and Plekhanov (see
outlook of the National Socialist regime which emerged amid Weimar's ruins §s\5.2 itnd ll.4 above). This seerned in practice to imply political fatalism:
was permeated by an ideology of crisis and struggle which provided the aullr rrlrcirtly utrrler challenge within the SPD by Luxemburg and the radical left
oritarian right with an interpretation of the disasters Germany had undersonc. Itr'lirt'c l9l11. lltis s(t':rlcgy wils rlisc:rcclitccl lirr r.nilny socialist activists by the
The Soviet Union, which under Stalin developed into an authoritarian rcgirrrr' ttnpolcttcc ol'tltc Secorrtl lrtlt'r'n:rliorurl in tlrr: ljrcc «rl'thc war itserlf', and its
rlisittlr'gnrliott irtlo turliorr:rl lr:rrlit's rrrosll_y srrllllorliltl llrr.ir'()wn g()vcnlncltts
| 4..1. Mirycr.'l'ltt'l)t't'.ti.tlt'trtt'ol'llrr ()ltl Ilt'.qintt' (Ncw York. l()ltl). p 1 ;tr';tittsl olltt't lrt'llr,'t'r.'nl'. 'Nollrittl lr:rs ('()il uplt'tl llrt' ( lt'r tn;ur \\'orkirrg t'lltss
Revolution and Counter-Revolution Revolution and Counter-Revolution 205
204

so much as the notion that it was moving with the current', Walter Benjamin they launched the Third (or Communist) International (Comintem) in 1919 as
later wrote.2 an alternative to the discredited Second International, encouraged the formul-
The Russian Revolution of October l9l7 represented a drarnatic contrast ation of a version of Marxism in which class subjectivities assumed a greater
with Kautsky's and Plekhanov's fatalism. By seeking to carry through a social- importance than objective economic structures.
ist revolution in a relatively backward country, the Bolsheviks challenged the The master-work of this Hegelian Marxism (as it is often described) was
doctrine that every society must pass through a preordained sequence of modes Lukäcs's History and Class Consciousness (1923).s Both Gramsci and Lukäcs
of production. Gramsci, writing in December 1917 and filled with youthful were heavily influenced by the great current of anti-naturalism which swept
enthusiasm. called the October Revolution 'the revolution against Karl Marx's through European thought at the end of the nineteenth century (see §7.2
Capital'.r Gramsci went on to explain that the Bolsheviks had broken with above). The main philosophical influence on Gramsci was the Italian neo-
Second International determinism, 'contaminated with positivist and naturalist Hegelian Benedetto Croce. Lukäcs drew heavily on the German variants of anti-
incrustations', rather than with Marx's own thought: naturalism. Late in his life he declared: 'I do not at all regret that I took my first
lessons in social science frorn Simmel and Max Weber.'6Indeed, his most strik-
This thought sees as the dominant factor in history, hot raw economic facts, but ing intellectual achievement was to take over their interpretations of modernity
man, men in societies, men in relation to one another, reaching agreements with as a process of, respectively, objectification and rationalization, and integrate
one another, developing through these contacts (civilization) a collective, social them into the Marxist critique of the capitalist mode of production.
willl men coming to understand economic facts. judging them and ndapting them Weber's analysis often seems to run parallel to such a critique. Thus he writes
to their will until this becorres the driving fbrce of the economy and moulds of 'the impersonal and economically rationalized (but for this very reason eth-
objective reality, which lives and moves and comes to resemble a current of ically irrational) character of purely commercial relationships', and declares:
volcanic lava that can be channelled wherever and in whatever way men's will 'The growing impersonality of the economy on the basis of association in the
determines.a
market place follows its own rules, disobedience to which entails economic
fäilure and, in the long run, economic ruin.'7 Lukäcs radicalized this analysis.
The most important contemporary Marxist interpretation of the October Revol-
Every social relationship under capitalism, whether economic, political, cult-
ution, by Trotsky, did not in fact treat it as a rebellion against economic objec-
ural, or intellectual, has been transformed according to the requirements of
tivity. Rather, the workings of the law of uneven and combined development
instrumental rationality. But this is only aformal rationalization, which does
had led in Russia to a fusion of social processes so that the overthrow of the
not penetrate the substance of the relationships which have been subsumed
tsarist regin-re could only be accomplished by expropriating capital (see §8.4
under it:
above). Moreover, Trotsky argued that the Revolution remained subject to defin-
ite material limits: indeed, he came to believe that the economic pressures
arising fiom the Bolshevik regime's isolation after 1917 in a relatively back- ' Georg Lukäcs (1885-1971): son of a leading Hungarian Jewish banker;studied jurisprudence
ward country were responsible for its transformation into what he denouncecl rrt theUniversity of Budapest, 1902-6, spent much of the subsequent f-ew years in Berlin, where he
as Stalin's counter-revolutionary dictatorship. Nevertheless, the challenge which sludied under Simmel; studied at the University of Heidelberg, becoming a member of Weber's
the Bolsheviks represented to previous Marxist 'orthodoxy', particularly aftcr' circle; alreacly emerging as an important philosopher and literary critic betbre outbreak of the First
World War;joined the Hungarian Communist Party in December l9l8; People's Commissar fbr
('trllureintheHungarianSovietRepublic, l9l9; afteritsfall fledtoVienna.wherehebecamean
2 W. Benjamin, Illrtmin.cttiorts (l-ond«rn, 1970), p. 260. itttportant figure in the Comr.nunist movement; at tlre Marx-Engels-l-enin Institute in Moscow,
r Antonio Gramsci (l39 l*1937): son of a minor Sardinian functionary, studied at the Univcrsiti l()29-3 l:livedinBerlin, 193 l-3.returningtoMoscowafiertheNazi seizureof power.wherehe
of Turin, lgll-15; fiom l9l5 onwards a writer in the socialist press; a leading rlember ol'tlrt' Iook an active part in aesthetic debates; arrested briefly as'Trotskyist agent', l94l; returned to
Orrline Nuovo group associated with the Turin f-actory councils' movement, 1919-20 with tlrt' I ltrrtgury in 1945 and became parliarnentary deputy and Professor of Aesthetics and Philosophy of

other leaders of the socialist left launched the Communist Party of Italy (PCdI) in January I 92 I .
('rrllrrrc at Budapest University; at the height of the Cold War in 1949-52 he was the object of
worked with the Communist International in Moscow, 1922-3 elected as a parliamentary tlcptrlr ltl('nsc ltttrrck lirrnr cultural apparatchiks' Minister of CultLrre in Imre Nagy's governr.nent during
in 1924, in this role led the Comrnunist opposition to Mussolini's dictatorship; appoirtted gcrtt'r:rl llrt' llrrrrglrriltn l{cvolutiorr ol' l9-5(r: tlcportcrl to Rornania. lc)56 7. allowed in his last years to write
secretary of the PCdl in January 1926; arrested in Novenrber 1926; sentenced to twenty vc:rr\ :tnrl spr'lrk lirilly opcrrl.y.

imprisonnrent in 1918: 'We must stop that brain working fbr twenty years'. the prosecttlol tlt' '' ( )ttolr'tl rrr l). lirislrv. ittllrrlut'liott lo ( i. ,Sitrutre l. 'l'lrt, l'ltilrt:;o1tlr.t' of'Motra.r' (l.ontlon. l97fl), p.
clared; nevertlreless. Gramsci's Pri,sotr Notcbook.s repre scnt his ntain intellectual achicr"e ltte ttl. ll rr 7li
I A. Craltsci. Sclct'tittrt,s Intrtr thc l'olitittrl Writitt.q,,t l9l0 1920. ctl. Q. llolrrc (l.otltlotl. l()77t. l\'1 . Wt'lrr'r {l()().))

pp. 3-t 5. l. pp \l'i l. \lirr

b
206 Revolution and Counter-Revolution Revolution and Counter-Revolution
207
This ration altzation of the world appears to be complete, it seerns to penetrate the standing as eminently possible. It consists in particular in grasping the mediations
very depths of man's physical and psychical nature. It is limited, however, by its through which different institutions. beliefs, and practices are interconnected
own formalisrn, that is to say, the rationalization of isolated aspects of lif-e results with each other in such a manner as to form a whole. This understanding, more-
in the creation of - fbrmal -. laws. All these things do join together into what over, is given a definite social location, in the proletariat. These steps are made
seems to the superflcial observer to constitute a unified system of 'general laws'.
possible by Hegel: 'reality can only be understood and penetrated as a totality,
But the disregard of the concrete aspects of the subject-matter of these laws . . .
and only a subject which is itself a totality is capable of this penetration. Ir was
makes itself 1'elt in the incoherence of the system in fact. This incoherence be-
comes particularly egregious in times of crisis.E not for nothing that the young Hegel erected his philosophy upon the principle
that "truth must be understood and expressed not merely as substance but also
This contrast between partial rationality and global irrationality is a conse- as subject".' We are therefore indebted to German classical idealism for 'the
quence of the nature of the cornmodity itself. According to Lukäcs, 'the prob- grandiose conception that thought can only grasp what it has itself created': the
'identical subject-object of history' simultaneously creates society through its
lern of commodities' is 'the central, structural problem of capitalist society in
all its aspects'.1' The general 'reification' of social relations is a consequence of actions and is solely capable of understanding it.r I

what Marx had called commodity fetishisrn (see §§4.2 and 4.3 above): the ex- Even Hegel, however, grasped this truth in a mystified form: failing to un-
change of the products of labour on the market leads to the transformation of derstand the real nature of history as a social and material process, he can only
social relations among human beings into apparently natural relations among conceptualize the identical subject-object as Absolute Spirit coming to con-
things. The division of labour and the worker's subordination to the capitalist sciousness through the retrospective contemplation of this process. The work-
reproduces itself in every aspect of life: society is experienced as an incoherent ing class, by contrast, provides the standpoint from which a genuine
collection of fiagments. In the great essay 'Reification and the Consciousness understanding of capitalist society is possible because the transformation of
of the Proletariat' Lukäcs explores what he calls 'The Antinomies of Bourgeois labour-power into a commodity is the real basis on which that society is built:
Thought', seeking to show how modern Western philosophy has been crippled
by a series of oppositions - between form and content, 'is' and 'ought', part The worker can only become conscious of his existence in society when he be-
comes aware of himself as a commodity . . . his immediate existence integrates
and whole - which it has been unable to overcome, and which arise fiom the
him as a pure naked object into the production process. Once this immediacy
process of reification.
turns out to be the consequence of a multiplicity of mediations, once it becomes
In his pre-Marxist writings, notably The Theory of the Novel (1916), Lukäcs evident how much it presupposes, then the fetishistic forms of the commoclity
had already analysed what he regarded as the inherently antinomical nature of system begin to dissolve: in the comrnodity the worker recognizes himself ancl
modern culture. But to qualify this condition as globally irrational implied some his own relations with capital. Inasmuch as he is incapable of raising himself
perspective from which this judgement could be made, and which could itsell' above the role of object his consciollsness is the seff:c'onsciousness of the com-
be shown to be rational. Thus when Weber says that 'purely commercial rel- mrtdity; or in other words it is tlre self-knowledge, the self'-revelation of the
ationships' are instrumentally rational, but 'ethically irrational', he means that capitalist society founded upon the production ancl exchange of commodities.r2
they are irrational relative to some value-rational religious ethic; but he does
not believe that the rationality of the ultirnate values at the basis of such a rel- 'fhe position of the proletariat within capitalist relations of production
thus
igious ethic can itself be demonstrated (see §§7.2 and 7.3 above). Lukäcs's tt'presents a vantage-point from which the nature of the social whole can be
solution to this problem is to argue that the rational vantage-point fiom which rrrti«rnally understood. Historical materialism is the theoretical articulation of
to view society conceives it as an integrated whole: 'The pri.macy of the cut- Pt'olctarian class consciousness, and therefore 'the self-knowledge . . . of the
egory of totality is the bearer ofthe principLe of revolution in scienr:e.'t(l t'rrPititlist society'. This does not mean that every worker necessarily attains
Lukäcs had also drawn a contrast between fragmentation and totality beforc sttclt itt't understanding. Indeed, the immediate appearance of capitalist society
he became a Marxist. But there the whole was an absence, the ideal of an in- lo lhL' individual worker is as fiagmentary and reified as it is to everyone
tegrated culture to which one nostalgically alludes but is unable to attain. ln t'lse . l{cilicitti«ln 'ciln be overcome only by cot'tstant and constantly renev,ed.
History and Clcrss Consciot.tsrzess, however, he treats such a totalizing unrtcr' t'lf tt1'1.1 trt tli,rnrltt thc rai./icd .\trtt(fttra of'exi,;tent-e bt'conc'retelt,reloting to the
( ()ttt t'('l('1.\' tttttttift',ttctl t'rtttlt'rtrlit'tirtn,s tl'thc ktlel 1!p1'sloprttcnt, b1,bet'orning
t G. Lukäcs ( 1923), Histor\; ancl Cluss Con,st'iousrte,i.s (London, 197 l), p. l0l .

" Ibid., p. 83. " llrrrl. ppr l(). 1 )l )

r" lhitl.. p. 27. ' ll'r,l I ItrS


208 Revolution and Counter-Revolution Revolution and Counter-Revolution 209

conscious of the imrnanent meanings of these controdictions Jbr the total devel- very rootedness of the proletariat at the heart of the commodity structure
opnrcnt'. What is distinctive about the role of the proletariat in this process is which gives it the capacity to understand capitalism as a totality.
that any effort on its part to understand its own situation drives it towards an Even if we were to grant this, some criteria are required in order to deter-
understanding of the whole. This understanding is, moreover, not purely intel- mine which theorization (say, within Marxism, Lenin's or Kautsky's) best
lectual, but develops through a series of class struggles in which workers both captures the nature of social reality. Hegel is able to avoid this problem
literally 'disrupt the reified structure of existence'. and attain a deeper insight because he conceives the dialectic as self-validating, since the movement of
into the nature of this structure. The socialist revolution which is the culmin- its categories both generates their own content, and provides an immanent
ation of this process is not the 'irresistible necessity' Kautsky and Plekhanov .justification both of each individual step and of the process as a whole. But,
claimed it to be: as we saw in chapter 2 above, this conception of the dialectic rests on assump-
tions that are simply too speculative and teleological to be consistent with the
History is at its least automatic when it is the consciousness of the proletariat that procedures of the modern sciences. Marxists, just like everyone else who
is at issue . . . The objective economic evolution could do no more than create the claims to use these procedures, must be able to show that the results of their
position of the proletariat in the production process. But the objective evolution researches can be defended according to some plausible theory of scientific
could only give the proletariat the opportunity and the necessity to change soci- rationality. Lukäcs claims that Marxist 'orthodoxy refers exclusively to
ety. Any transformation can only come about as the product of the - fiee - action method'. and that it wor-rld not be invalidated if 'recent research had disproved
of the proletariat itself.r3 once and for all every one of Marx's individual theses'.rs This formulation is
intended to open Marxism up to the possibility of being recast in the light of
History and Class Consciousrzess is a philosophical tour de force.It provides rcsearch, but the idea of a method that is immune to empirical refutation looks
a theoretical rationale for an activist, non-determinist Marxism based on a care- suspiciously like the most dubious aspect of the Hegelian dialectic.
ful and innovative reading of German idealist philosophy, the classical Marxist Secondly, making history the creation of a subject which is ultimately able
tradition. and the sociology of Weber and Simmel. Most (though not all) later' lo see through and transform the reifled structures arising fiom its own trans-
Marxist theorists have been heavily in its debt. Yet the very ambition of thc lirrrnation into an object seems to have dramatically idealist implications. This
work is a source of serious difliculties. In the first place, Lukäcs claims that thc is most obviously true with respect to the physical world. Lukäcs declares:
standpoint of the proletariat permits an objective understanding of the nature ol' 'Nature is a societal category. That is to say, whatever is held to be natural at
capitalism. But how is this claim justified? The answer seems to be that tlrc irny given stage of social development, however this nature is related to man
working class has an interest in getting rid of class society altogether: 'The ;rrrd whatever form his involvement with it takes, i.e. nature's form, its content,
proletariat cannot liberate itself as a class without simultaneously abolishing its range and its objectivity are all socially conditioned.'16 This view of nature,
class society as such. For that reason its consciousness, the last class consciotts which seems to treat it as entirely socially constructed, sits ill with Marx's
ness in the history o1'mankind, must both lay bare the nature of society antl r'orrception of labour as the basis of the interaction between humankind and
achieve an increasingly inward fusion of theory and practice."o The bourgeoi rurlure. where neither term of the relationship is reducible to the other. But, as
sie, by virtue of its interest in perpetuating capitalist exploitation, can only clt' Lrrkircs later acknowledged, this concept of labour is absent from Hi,story uncl
velop a partial and limited understanding of society. ('/rr,r',r Consciousrless. Particularly after he became, in Moscow in the late
Lukäcs thus refbrmulates the Marxist theory of ideology as an äccouflt ol l()f 0s, one of the first to read Marx's Econom.ic and Philctsophic Manuscripts,
how an individual's perspective on the world is a consequence of his or ht'r Irc considerably revised his basic theoretical scheme. Later works such as The
social position, and in particular place in the class-structure. This perspeclivrrl l'tt1111,q Hegel (1948) and the posthumously published Ontology of Soc:ial Being
conceptictn of ideology was further developed by Lukäcs's f-ellow Httttgitrirtrr ;rrlvirnce a version of the dialectic based on Marx's account of the metabolic
Karl Mannheim \n ldeology and UtoTtia (1929). Mannheim sought to avoid tlrt' rrrtcrchange hetween humans and nature through the intermediary of labour.
potentially relativistic implications of seeking to account for actors' beliel's irr liirr:rlly. how can the working class actually attain the rational understanding
terms of their social position by arguing that the 'free-floating intelligentsirt' t:' ,,1 socicly ol'which it is ob.icctively capable? Lukäcs draws a famous distinction
able, by virtue of its relative detachment from the class structure, t<l illtcgt'rrlr lrr'l\\,t't.n'lrt'lrurl'ltrrtl 'intlttrtctl'cllrss ctlnsciorrsrrcss: '(llass consciousness
particular perspectives into a provisionally valid whole. But for Lr-rkrics it is tlr,'
rr Ibid., pp.229, 197. 109. llrrl; . ,, ,

I
rt ltrirl.. p. 70.
' llrrrl.lr'll
I

{tr I
Revolution and Counter-Revolution Revolution and Counter-Revolution 211
210

consists in fact of the appropriate and rational reactions "imputed" to a partic- tained a speciflc conception of the world.' Each conception of the world is 'a
ular typical position in the process of production. This consciousness is, there- response to certain specific problems posed by reality', one that represents a
fore, neither the sum nor the average of what is thought or felt by the single more or less theoretically rationalized articulation of the practice of a particular
individuals who make up the class.' Imputed class consciousness bears some class. But more than one conception of the world may be present in the same
resemblance to a Weberian ideal type. This concept is nevertheless intended consciousness:
not merely as an intellectually stimulating stylization of reality but rather as a
representation of the actual consciousness to which the proletariat will eventu- When one's conception of the world is not critical and coherent but disjointed
and episodic, one belongs simultaneously to a multiplicity of mass human groups.
ally attain. But how? Lukäcs only offers some very general and abstract formu-
The personality is strangely composite: it contains Stone Age elements and prin-
lations suggesting that the development of revolutionary class consciousness is
ciples of a more advanced science, prejudices fiom all past phases of history and
a process rather than an instantaneous act. For example: 'proletarian thought is
intuitions of a future philosophy which will be that of a human race united the
in the first place rnerely a theory of practice which only gradually (and indeed world over.20
spasmodically) transforms itself into a practic:al theory that overturns the real
world'. Consequently 'there can be no single act that will elirninate reification Gramsci believes the ideological dornination of the capitalist class operates
in all of its forms at one time'.r7 through the coexistence in the consciousness of the working class of elements
Some critics, for example, Leszek Kolakowski, argue that Lukäcs overcomes of both socialist and bourgeois conceptions of the world, inducing a condition
this difliculty by tacit appeal to the idea of the vanguard party which sets itself of paralysis which allows the existing order to carry on:
up as the representative of imputed class consciousness: Hislory and Class
Consciousness is therefore a theoretical legitimation of Stalinism.rs This inter- The active man-in-the-mass has a practical activity, but has no clear theoretical
pretation is hard to sustain. Lukäcs only addresses the questiou of the revol- consciousness of his practical activity, which nonetheless involves understand-
utionary party in the very last of the essays (composed at ditfbrent times) ing the world insofhr as it transforms it. His theoretical consciousness can indeed
which make up the book. Here he argues: 'Organization is the form of media- be historically in opposition to his activity. One nright almost say that he has two
tion between theory and practice.'re Whatever one thinks of this view, it does theoretical consciousnesses (or one contradictory consciousness): one that is im-
not accord the party the epistemologically privileged status suggested by plicit in his activity and which in reality unites him with all his fellow workers in
Kolakowski. History ond Class Consciou,sr?e.§s was written befbre the process the practical transfbrmation of the real world; and one, superficially explicit or
verbal, which he has inherited fiom the past and uncritically absorbed. But this
of 'Bolshevization' of the Third International which made possible the general
verbal conception is not without consequences. It holds together a specilic social
imposition of the Stalinist model of party organization on the Communist movc-
group, it influences moral conduct and the direction of will, with varying efficacity
ment; indeed. it was one of the casualties of this process, being picked out firr
but ofien powerfully enough to produce a situntion in which the contradictory
attack on the grounds on 'revisionism' by the Comintern president. Grigori state of consciousness does not pennit of any actior-r. any decision or any choice,
Zinoviev, at the movement's Fifth Congress in 1924. Lukäcs's own (alwavs and pr<lcluces a condition of moral and political passivity.rl
qualifiecl) accommodation with Stalinism was accompanied by the adoption ol
his later, much more objectivistic version of historical materialism. Bourgeois ideological domination is therefore a consequence not of the in-
Grarnsci developed a much more elaborated theory of class consciousness tkrctrination of a largely passive mass, but of the relative balance of rival con-
from within a philosophical framework not dissimilar to Lukäcs's. Indeed. lrt' t'r:ptions of the world within the composite consciousness of the working class.
owes to Croce a radically pragmatist conception of truth, according to whit'lr Sirnilarly, the attainment of revolutionary class consciousness involves strength-
'[o]ur knowledge of things is nothing other than ourselves, our needs and intcr r.'rring and articulating the socialist conception of the world implicit in workers'
ests.' This episternology allows him to think of theory and practice as intirrr cvcryday practice within the process of production:
ately related. Thus Gramsci takes up a fbrmula of Croce's: 'Everyone i: ;r
philosopher, though in his own way and unconsciously, since even in the slightt'st 'l'lrus thc Lrnity of theory and practice is not just a matter of rnechanical fact, but a
manifestation of any intellectual activity whatever, in "language", there is cott plrt ol'1hc historical process, whose eler-nentary and primitive phase is to be found

r7 Ibid., pp. 5l . 205,206 (translation moclificd). A ( itlttttst i. ,\r'lt'r'ltrtttt ltrtttt lltr


I' L. Kgllkorvski. Mttitr Crrrratrts ol'Mur.risrrr (3 vols, Oxlirrcl. 1t;73,). III. pp.2ll0-3. (lontlon.l()7 1).pp l()l'i l)l l)l
r" Lttklit's. I li,ttrtt t'.1t. 2()(). ' llrrtl p lll
,l

212 Revolution and Counter-Revolution Revolution and Counter-Revolution 213

in the sense of being'different' and'apart'. in an instinctive feeling of independ- favoured by objective conditions. Only as a result of its activity among the masses,
ence, and which progresses to the level of real possession of a single and coherent will the party get the latter to recognize it as 'their' party (winning a majority):
conception of the world.rl arrd only when this condition has been realized can it presllme that it is able to
draw the working class behind it.26
The development of class consciousness is thus a process, in which workers
progress from an instinctive sense of solidarity and of antagonism to the em- Socialist revolution thus requires extensive ideological and organizational
ployer to an elaborated understanding of their interests and capacities. This preparation: in semi-industrialized countries like Italy, it may, indeed, involve
process depends crucially on the relatively spontaneous development of mass the development of class alliances such as that Gramsci envisaged between the
struggles in which the underlying conflict between capital and labour comes to northern proletariat and the sor.rthern peasantry. It is against this background
the surface. But, to become effective, class consciousness must be institutional- that he formulates, in his Prison Notebooks, his well-known theory of hegemony.
ized; its elaboration depends on the construction of forms of organization through The thought here essentially is that classes rule by securing consent as well as
which it is articulated and strengthened: 'A human ffrass does not "distinguish" by coercively imposing their will. Thus
itself, does not become independent in its own right without, in its widest sense,
organizing itself; and there is no organization without intellectuals, that is, with- the supremacy of a social group rnanit-ests itself in two ways, as 'domination' and
out organizers and leaders.'23 as 'intellectual and moral leadership'. A social groLlp dominates antagonistic
grolrps, which it tends to 'liquidate'. or even to subjugate perhaps even by armed
Gramsci sets Lenin's conception of the revolutionary party as the vanguard
fbrce; it leads kindred and allied groups. A social group can, and indeed must,
of the proletariat in the context of this theory of class consciousness. The par-
already exercise 'leadership' befbre winning governmental power (this indeed is
l
ty's chief function is that of developing the 'organic intellectuals' of the work- one of the principal conditions fbr the winnin-e of such power); it subsequently
I ing class: 'Every social group, coming into existence on the original terrain of becomes dominant when it exercises power, but even if it holds it lirmly in its
economic production, creates together with itself, organically, one or more strata grasp, it must continue to 'lead' as well.27
of intellectuals which give it hornegeneity and an awareness of its own function
not only in the economic but also in the social and political flelds.'} Gramsci Gramsci seeks in the Prisort Notebooks to identify the conditions under which
conceives this party as 'the result of a dialectical process, in which the sponta- such 'intellectual, moral and political hegemony' is established. It is with this
neous movernent of the revolutionary masses and the organizing and directing in mind that he distinguishes between the state and civil society, conceived
will of the centre converge'. He is hostile to the rival view, put forward within respectively as the coercive institutions of state power and as a range of cultural
the Communist Parly of Italy (PCdl) by Amadeo Bordiga, as 'something sus- institutions - for example, churches and schools - throu-qh which the dourinant
I
pended in the air; something with its own autonomous and self-generated de- ideology is dissenrinated. In the advanced capitalist countries, ' "civil society"
velopment; something which the masses will join when the situation is right . . . Itas become a very complex structure and one which is resistant to the cata-
or when the party centre decides to initiate an offensive and stoops to the levcl strophic "incursions" of the immediate economic element (crises, depressions,
of the masses'.r5 ctc.)'.rs The conquest of this structure would require what Grermsci called a
Gramsci most fully developed his conception of the interaction between tht' 'war of position'. which he conceived on urnalogy with the trench warfare of
revolutionary party and the working class in his theses for the Lyons Congrcss 19l4-18 - the gradual capture of individual positions - as opposed to 'war of
of the PCdI in January 1926 nlanoeuvre', the direct frontal assault through which the Bolsheviks were able
Io overwhelm the much weaker civil society of tsarist Russia and seize state
We assert that the capacity to lead the class is related, not to the fact that the party
l)()wer.
'proclaims' itself its revolutionary organ. but to the fact that it 'really' succeeds. 'fhe precise strategic implications of this analysis have attracted consider-
as a part of the working class, in linking itself with all the sections of that class
rrblc controversy. The conditions of prison censorship in which Gramsci wrote
and in impressing upon the masses a movement in the direction desired ancl
lirrcccl hirn to express himself in metaphorical and allusive language which
t'onlribulcs lo lhc arnbiguity o1'some of the key concepts and theses of his
21
Ibid.
ll Ibid., p. 334.
1.1
lbid., p. 5.
2.s
A. Gramsci, Selectiotr,s.fhtrrr tha Politit'ul Writin,q,s 192 l-1926. ed. Q. Hoare (I-ontkrrr. l()7l.i I pp r/ §

l1 l9tr.
214 Revolution and Counter-Revolution Revolution and Counter-Revolution 215

Notebooks. In particular, certain formulations can be taken to imply that the tury, German intellectuals were already accustomed to drawing a distinction
gradual conquest of civil society in Western liberal democracies obviates the between civilization (Zivilisation) and culture (Kultur). The first, characteristic
need for a revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist state. Contrary though such of France and Britain, is superficial, rationalistic, commercial; the second, au-
an implication almost certainly would be to Gramsci's own views, there is enough thentically German, is organically integrated, intuitive, and oriented towards
conceptual looseness in his writings to license such a reformist interpretation, living. In other words, the contrast which, fbr example, Tönnies drew between
I
which was especially fashionable during the 1970s when the Italian and other pre-modern G eme ins c haft (community) and modern G e s e ll s c haft (association)
European Communist parties embraced'Eurocommunism'. Nevertheless, his - between, that is, two phases of social development - is redrawn as a represent-
own fate - death in one of Mussolini's prisons - certainly conflrmed the capa- ation of national diffbrences, with the implication that German Kultur contains
city of bourgeois institutions to resist the ' "catastrophic" incursions' of world within it the means of overcoming the atomization and disharmony of moder-
war and economic crisis. nity.
Spengler developed the idea further in The Decline of the West, which ap-
peared at the end of the First World War. He argued that world history consists
9.2 Heidegger and the conservative revolution ol'a plurality of Cultures, each representing a valid solution to the problems of
Ituman existence, and each displaying the pattern of development characteristic
The writings of the Hegelian Marxists - above all, History- and Class Con- of individual organisms - namely, birth, youth, growth, maturity, decay, and
sciousness - were, among other things, a sophisticated attempt to integrate the tlcath. As part of this pattern, each Culture inevitably develops its own Civiliz-
critique of modernity developed especially by central European intellectuals rtlion, 'the progressive exhaustion of forms that have become inorganic or dead'.
'l'he identity of the the great
into the framework of historical materialism. But other ideologies provided a Cultures - Spengler believed there were only eight
means of interpreting the widespread sense of malaise in early twentieth- rrr the whole of world history - is racially determined. Indeed: 'Race, like Time
century Europe. Ernst Nolte has called fascism '[r]evolutionary reaction'.2e Thc :rrrd Destiny, is a decisive element in every question of lif'e, something which
fascist movements indeed represented a response to the revolutionary upheav- ('voryone knows clearly and definitely so long as he does not try to set himself
als in which the First World War ended. Hitler described himself as the 'smasher' lo comprehend it by way of rational - i.e. soulless - direction and ordering."'
of Marxism'; it was on this basis that he was able to win the support of German This philosophy of history bears some resemblance to Gobineau's race theory
industrialists, bankers, and landowners fearful of Communism and organizetl t scc §3.3 above), though Spengler is not obsessed by racial 'mixing'. Both lend

labour. But National Socialism projected itself as not a conservative but ir llrcrnselves to various sorts of cosmic pessimism. Spengler indeed believes that
revolutionary movement which would transform German society, creating lr tlrc West made the transition from Culture to Civilization in the nineteenth cen-
Volksgemeinschaft - national community * in which native capital and laboLrr Ittl'y, and he finds much evidence of exhaustion in contemporary intellectual
would be reconciled the better to wage war against rival races for living roonr. lili'. Nevertheless, the dominant note struck by the conservative revolutionaries
Nazi ideology was in fbrmal terms crude, eclectic, and derivative. Joachirrr rs rtcither melancholy reflection on inevitable decline nor the kind of nostalgia
Fest writes of Hitler: 'Nationalism, anti-Bolshevism, and anti-Semitism, linkctl Ior itn idealized past characteristic of the more conservative versions of
by a Darwinist theory of struggle, formed the pillars of his world-view antl l(otttantic anti-capitalism. They respond to the crisis of modernity in a way that
shaped his utterances from the very first to the very last.'30 Extreme vulgarizatiorrs r'. rts itctivist as that of the Hegelian Marxists. Jefliey Herf calls them 'national-
of Nietzsche and Social Darwinism fused with biological racism and anti r'.ls who turned the romantic anti-capitalism of the German Right away fiom
Semitism to constitute the core of National Socialist ideology. But under tlrr' lrrrt'kward-l«loking pastoralism, pointing instead to the outlines of a beautiful
Weimar Republic (1918-33), a group of intellectuals, the so-called 'conscrr n('w order rcplacing the fbrmless chaos due to capitalism in a united, techno-
ative revolutionaries' - notably Ernst Jünger, Arthur Moeller van den Bnrt'l' l, rrgit'itl ly aclvancccl niltion'.rl
'l'lrrrs .l[irtgcr cclcbrutcs the experience
Carl Schmitt, and Oswald Spengler - sought to offer considerably more sulrtlt' of total war between 1914 and l9l8
theorizations of far-right politics. rvtllt lltc pcctrliiu'cxlrlt:rtion ol'll'ontlinc fighting, the effort of each belligerent
In doing so, they were able to draw on the critique of modernity alre:rrlr ',1;tlt' lo rttobilizc lrll lltc t'csorrrccs ol'its socicty filr victory, and the breakdown
present in existing German conservative thought. By the late nineteenth t't'rr
' () Slrt.nllt'r.llr, l)t,tlrrtr.ttl tlrt'll't.tt.lrlrlrr .t.rll.t.tl. ll.Wt.rrrt.r llrrl A.llt'lps(Ncwy6l.k, lt)t)l).
E. Nolte, Tltree Fuce.s of Fascism (New York, 1969), p. 81. l,l' r, )/
.1. C. F'est, flitlcr (H'trmondsworth. 1977 l. p. 206. l'll'iIt.p I
li
I

216 Revolution and Counter-Revolution Revolution and Counter-Revolution 217

of the traditional distinction between combatants and civilians. These develop- emerged. Heidegger's relationship to Nazism is a matter of enormous contro-
ments exposed the brutal core of contemporary reality: versy.35 Nevertheless, the basic frtcts are now well established thanks espe-
cially to the research of Hugo Ott. Heidegger voted for Hitler in the 1932
It suffices simply to consider ourr daily life, with its inexorability and merciless presidential election, joined the Nazis after the seizure of power in January
discipline, its srnoking, glowing districts, the physics and rnetaphysics of its com-
1933, and assumed the post of Rector of the University of Freiburg the same
merce, its motors, airplanes, and burgeoning cities. With a pleasure-tinged hor-
April. While in that post he made a number of speeches unequivocally identi-
ror, we sense that here, not a single atom is not in motion - that we are prolbundly
inscribed in this raging process. Total Mobilization is far less consummated than
fying himself with the National Socialist regime, and indeed declaring on
it consummates itself; in war and peace. it expresses the secret and inexorable several occasions: 'The Ftihrer alone is the present and future German reality
claim to which our life in the age of the masses and machines subjects r,rs. It thus and its law.'16
turns out that each individual lif-e becomes, ever more unambiguously, the lit'e of During his term as Rector Heidegger enthusiastically sought to transform the
a worker; and that, fbllowing the wars of knights, kings. and citizens, we now university along Nazi lines. arguin-e. for example, that it should 'be integrated
have wars of v'orkers. The first great twentieth-century conflict has ofTered us a ugairt into the Volksgenteinsc'haft Inational community) and be joined together
presentiment of both their rational structure and their mercilessness.rr withthe state'.r7 He also participated in the academic persecution of Jews and
liberals. Forced out of the rectorate in April 1934 by one of the intrigues en-
For this 'reactionary modernism', as Herf calls it, advanced technology is tlemic to the Hitler regime, he did r-tot disavow Nazism. After 1945 Heidegger
not one symptorn of decadent Ziyilisation'. it is an embodiment of the will ttr consistently reflsed to apologize for his record under the Third Reich. For ex-
power, the potential instrurnent of a revivified German natiotr of 'workers' (utl :tmple, in a letter to his former pupil Herbert Marcuse he explained his decision
derstood broadly so as to embrace managers, entrept'enellrs, arrd small pro- lo support the Nazis thus: 'I expected from National Socialism a spiritual re-
ducers as well as wage-labourers) in the struggle fbr existence. Though thc newal of life in its entirety. a reconciliation of social antagonisms and a deliver-
conservative revolutionaries had a complex and ambivalent relationship ttr rrnce of Western Dasein [hurnan existence] from the dangers of communism.'
Nazism as an actual movement, they did articulate one of its main tendencics. ('laiming that he had soon recognized his 'political error', he nevertheless re-
The historian Detlev Peukert has argued that, far from representing a simple rc lirsed to condemn the extermination of the Jews, comparing it to the expulsion
jection of modernity, or arising from the 'special path' (Sonderv,eg) of Germittr
ol'Germans from areas annexed by Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet
history, as some influential interpretations suggest. 'National Socialism dettt I lnion at the end of the Second World War.38
onstrated, with heightened clarity and murderous consistency, the pathologie "
Despite the efforts of Heidegger's apologists, notably in France, to extenuate
and seismic fractures of the modern civilizing process': lris behaviour, this is undeniably the most shameful political record of any
rrtirior twentieth-century thinker. It is open to various interpretations. Victor
Consistentin its rejection of the legacy of 1789, National Socialism envisa-9ed a
Iirrrias argues that Heidegger identified himself with the radical Nazi faction led
society with modern technologies and institutions but owing nothing to the ideals
of equal rights, enrancipation, self-determination and contm<ln humanity. It pushecl lry Ernst Röhm advocating an anti-conservative 'Second Revolution' which
the utopian belief in all-embracing 'scientific' solutions of social problenrs to thc tvould, fbr exanrple, supplant the regular army with the party's stormtroopers
ultimate logical extreme. encompassing the entire population in a bureaucratit' Ithc SA) under Röhm's command; his removal from the rectorship must be
racial-biological design and eradicating all sources of nonconfbrrnity and lric- \r'cn as one in the series of concessions which Hitler rnade to traditional Ger-
tion. It demonstrated the destructive power of modern technology by waging worltl rrrlrr military and economic elites. and which culminated in the massacre of the
war: in everday life it off-ered a fbretaste of a depressing. atotnized form of soci
ety abjuring social, political and moral responsibilities and deriving its cohererlcc ' Mrrrtirr Hciclcrge r ( I ttttg- 1976): born in Messkirch, Baden, the son of a master cooper; after an
I

solely fiom bureaucratic procedures and institutions of incorporation and frottt rtnrrrt'ecssf'ttl illtcnrl)( to.l<lin tlte.lcsuits, stuclied first thecllogy and then Christian philosophy at

the vapid specious fbrrns of mass consumption.ra


lrr'rlrtrlgtlrrivcrsily. 1909 l-5; lcuchingassistanttothephilosopherEdmundHLrsserlatFreiburg.
l').)O .1. I'r'oli'ssor ol'l)hilosoplry. t.lniversity of Marburg, 1923-8; Professor of Philosophy, Uni-
rt'rsrty ol l;r'ilrtrr.g. l()ltl '1(r; Urrivcrsity Ilcctor. I933 4; tirrced to retire as part of the denazific-
The conservative revolutionaries provide the ideological tniliett l't'r,rrr
,llr(ru l)t(x ('\\. ()J(r.
|
which the writings of one of the rnajor philosophers of the twentieth ccttltr t
" l'r,tt'r:ttttlrlt'. .llt'itlt'i'1't'r'(l()ll).'(it'ttttrtttS(tltlelrls'.irrWolilt.cd.. llcilc,q,qcrC'otüroversv-.
1\1

rr
I l/
i E. Jiin-ser (1930). 'Total Mobilization'. in R. Wolin, ed.,Tlrc Hcidcg.qct'('otttt'ttt't'ttt t( ;rt, I\l llt'irlt'r'r,t'r ( l') I l). ''llr,' llrrirt'rsilv rrt lltt' Nt'u lit'it lr'. trr Wolirr. ttl., llt'itlt',q,qt't ('otttto
briclge. Mlss.. 1993). p. 12t3. ,, rrt' ;r .l I
'r D. Pcrrkcrt. lrt,sitlc Ntr:.i (icrrntlr.t'(l,onckln. 1989). p.24tt. I t'llt't lo l\l:rtr rr'.r' .)l) l;rtr l', li-i llrrrl . I l{r)

l, i
,,]

1
,l

I
218 Revolution and Counter-Revolution Revolution and Counter-Revolution 219
I

SA leadership on the Night of the Long Knives, 30 June 1944.3e Ott, somewhat of the nature of Being (Sein) as such, as opposed to that of particular entities or
more charitably, portrays the philosopher as less a consistent National Socialist beings. The question of Being (Seinsfrage) is the preoccupation which runs
revolutionary than, thror"rghout his career. an opportunist strongly motivated by through Heidegger's thought in all its variations and modifications. Being und
his hatred of the Catholic Church. Even an admirer like Richard Rorty calls Tinrc. however, offers an analysis of Dosein,by which he means the Being of
Heidegger 'a pretty nasty character', 'a Schwarzwaldredneck' who never brokc human beings, which is distinguished by the fact that 'Being is an issue for it'.42
with the prejudices of the south German petty bourgeoisie from which hc: One reason why Heidegger uses the term Dasein to refer to human existence
sprang.ao is that he believes that it has to be understood in terms that transcend the sub-
Perhaps more interesting is the question of the relationship between .ject-object dichotomy. His analysis of Dasein begins with 'Being-in the-world',
Heidegger's Nazism and his philosophical writings. These texts constitute orrc which is'a unitarl' phenomenon', so that 'Subject and Object do not coincide
of the most complex, obscure, and influential intellectual achievements of thc with Dasein and the world'. Being-in-the-world, in other words, cannot be
twentieth century. Plainly, any detailed discussion of Heidegger's philosophy broken down into subject and object connected primarily by the former's effort
would be out of place here. It may nevertheless be useful to identify certain to know the latter. It consists rather in the various ways in which human beings
themes connecting the critique of modernity he offers with his involvement in are practically engaged in the world, particularly in work. 'The kind of dealing
National Socialism. Indeed. Pierre Bourdieu argues: which is closest to us is . . . not a bare conceptual cognition, but rather that kind
of concern which manipulates things and puts them to use; and this has its own
Heidegger is close to the spokesmen of the 'conservative revolution', many of kind of "knowledge".''r'r
whose words and theses he consecrates philosophically, but he distances himself In these practical involvements, the world - both natural and social - is dis-
frorn it by imposing a form which sublimates the 'crudest' borrowings by insert- closed to us. Human interpretations of this world are not somehow imposed on
ing them in the network of phonetic and semantic resonances which characterizes
it by the subject. Our engagement with things in everyday life involves a tacit
the Hölderlin-style BegrifJ.sdichtung [conceptual poetry] of the academic prophet.rl
understanding of their role as 'ready-to-hand'. available for our practical pur-
poses. This understanding depends on a 'for-having' (Vorhabe) of things which
Heidegger's peculiar oracular style, which became rlore pronounced in tlrt'
course of his life, is indeed an obstacle to the understanding and the criticrrl ;rrecedes and makes possible their explicit interpretation: 'In every case inter-
;rretatior-r is groundedin something we see in advance -rn afore-sight (Vorsicht).
assessment of his writings. This does not, however, alter the importance of his 'fhis foresight "takes the first cut" out of what has been taken into our fbre-
most famous work, Being and Time (1927). Lukäcs, in Histot'v and Class Cttu
having, and it does so with a view to a definite way in which this can be inter-
sciousness, had thrown down a challenge to traditional philosophy. The Kantirrrr
attempt to treat the world as the construction of a transcendental subject (;rrr lrreted', giving rise to a'.fbre-conception' of the thing that is articulated in
interpretation. Therefbre: 'An interpretation is never a presuppositionless ap-
enterprise continued by Heidegger's teacher Husserl) seemed unable to ul,oi,l
counterposing the formal structures of scientific rationality to the &ctual srrlr ;lrehending of somethin-e presented to us.'aa Our knowledge of things develops
within the framework of our practical involvements in the world.
stance of physical and social life. How to reintegrate form and content willrorrt
Heidegger no sooner offers this stunning analysis of Being-in-the-world,
collapsing into some kind of naturalism which reduces mind either to scrrst'
one of the great philosophical achievements of the twentieth century, than he
experience or to matter itself? Lukäcs's solution was to identify the workrrrl
rirtlically undercuts it. Our relationship to the world is not that of a subject
class as the identical subject-objectof history. But, quite aside from the polrt
scparate from it; nor is it that of an isolated individual: 'the world is always the
icerl unpalatability of Marxism, this strategy seemed to represent a lirrllr,'r
onc that I share with Others . . . Being-in is always Being-vt,itlz Others.' Inter-
radicalization of German idealism, in which social reality is the creatiorr ol ,r
srrlr.iectivity is thus constitutive of human existence: 'So far as Dasein is at all,
macro-subject, the proletariat.
it lras Being-with-one-another as its kind of Being. This cannot be conceived as
ln Being and Time Heidegger takes up the challenge. He seeks to rct'orrr
:r stulrrnirtive result of the occurrence of several "subjects".' But 'Being-with'
rnence Western philosophy outside the dichotomy of subject and ob.jcct u,,lrr, lr
(Mitscirr) is irr lirct l relati«rnship of 'suhjectiorz to others': 'This Being-with-
had forrned its starting-point since Descartes. He does so. in the first plrrt't'. I'r
I
orrc-lurolhcr tlissolvcs onc's owrt 1)a,st,in cornpletely into the kind of Being of
arguing that the philosophical tradition has obscured the fundamcntal rlrrcst r,rr

're V. Farias, Heidegger et le nezisme (Paris, 1987), pp. 221)-45. ' N' Ilt'itlt'llt't. li.'ut,t: ttn(l lirtt,'(( )rlirr.tl. l()(r/). p lJ.
10 R. Rorty, Contingencv, lronv-, ud Solidnrir.l'(Carnbridge. l9tl9). pr. I I I (irrt'. rr. I l) llrrrl . pp /l'i, S(r.()i
"
rr P. Botrrdieu.T'ltc l'olitictrl ()tttolo,q.t'of'Mrrrtin llaitl(.q,,q,ct' (('lrnrbritlgc. l()()11. p 'r,l " llrrtl .p1 r l()l .)
I
,,1

220 Revolution and Counter-Revolution Revolution and Counter-Revolution 221

"the Others", in such a way, indeed, that the Others, as distinguishable and all, 'at home' in the everyday and in 'publicness', and makes us aware of our
explicit, vanish more and more. ln this inconspicuousness and unascertainability, incompleteness, of the potentialities through which we are free.as This aware-
the real dictatorship of the "they" fdas Man) is unfolded.' Individuality van- ness realizes itself in the fundamental recognition of human finitude that is the
ishes in this inauthentic mode of Being, where '[e]veryone is the other, and no knowledge that'uve will all die. Spengler had already written: 'In the know-
one is himself': ledge of death is originated that world outlook which we possess as being
men and not beasts.'ae The 'they' flee from this knowledge. In Being-towards-
The Self of everyday Dasein is the thet,-self, which we distinguish from the death, Heidegger believes, we have the possibility of an authentic mode of
authentic Self * that is, from the Self that has been taken hold of in its own way. Being. This takes the form of 'resoluteness' (Entschlossenheit'). Here anticip-
As the they-self, the particular Dasein has been dispersed into the'they', and ation of death leads to an orientation towards the future which accepts the
must first find itself . . .lf Da.sein is familiar with itself as the they-self-, this means
Iinitude and contingency - the 'thrownness' - of human existence, and makes
at the same time that the 'they' itself prescribes that way of interpreting the world
this the basis of action.
and Being-in-the-world which lies closest.as
Richard Wolin observes that this analysis of 'resoluteness' offers the 'gate-
way to Heideggerianism as a political philosophy': 'once the inauthenticity of
The public sphere is thus the realm of idle talk', of the empty, the mediocre.
the second-hand. As remarks such as the following suggest, Heidegger is off-er-
all traditional social norms has been existentially unmasked. the only remain-
ing a political critique here: 'Distantiality, averageness, and levelling down, as
ing basis for moral orientation is a decision ex nihilo, a radical assertion of'
ways of Being for the "they", constitute what we know as "publicness".'46 This
w,ill'; a will, moreover, that is pure and unconstrained by the impediments of
diagnosis echoes in far more abstract form the kind of critique of liberal democ-
social convention'.s(' There is, as Wolin suggests. a close correspondence
racy developed by Carl Schmitt during the 1920s which focuses precisely on between this conception of authenticity as resoluteness, and Schrnitt's
'decisionism', according to which in a political world constituted by the ever-
the absence of the genuine public debate required for the viability of parliament-
present possibility of conflict, sovereignty attaches to he who, in a situation of
ary institutions:
crisis, to which legal principles designed to govern normal situations cannot by
The situation of parliamentarism is critical today because the development of definition apply, decides what must be done.
modem mass democracy has made argumentative public discussion a formal- 'Every general norm demands a normal, everyday frame of life to which it
ity. Many norms of contemporary parliamentary law . . . function as a result like can be factually applied and which is subjected to its regulation', Schmitt writes.
a superfluous decoration, useless and even embarrassing, as Iifl someone had 'fhe exception, where the very existence of the state may be under threat, de-
painted the radiator of a modern central heating system with red flames in order rnands a decision which cannot be derived from such norms. 'Looked at
to give the appearance of a blazing fire. The parties . . . do not fnce each other normatively, the decision emanates from nothing'; there is no general principle
discussing opinions, but as social or economic power-groups calculating their in terms of which it can be justified.'5r The Enlightenment developed a rational-
mutual interests and opportunities for power, and they actually agree compro- ism of universal laws from which the exception and the decision are banished,
mises and coalitions on this basis. The masses are won over through a propa- hut Schmitt seeks to reinstate them, in order, radicalizing Weber's theory of
ganda apparatus whose maximum effect relies on an appeal to immediate interests
plcbiscitary democracy, to justify the dictatorship of the Reich President in
and passions. Argument in the real sense that is characteristic for genuine dis-
Weimar Germany (see §7.4 above).
cussion vanishes.aT
There is another point of contact between Being and Time and conservative-
rr:v«rlutionary thinking. Reflecting on the experience of total war, Jünger writes:
Heidegger portrays a social world as alienated as that evoked by Lukäcs irr
his theory of reification. But, unlike Lukäcs, he finds no agency internal to
Wherever we confront efforts of such proportions, possessing the special quality
I

this world that offers an escape. Rather it is anxiety (Angst), understood us rr


ol' 'usclessness' - say the erection of mighty constructions like pyramids and
generaTized sense of oppression caused by the world itself. that tears l)u,vt'itt
c:rthcclrals. or wilrs that call into play the ultimate mainsprings of existence -
I

l
out of its absorption in the 'they' and in 'ready-to-hand' objects. 'Arrxiclr ccorrornic cxplanations. no matter how illuminating, are not sufficient. This is
I
individualizes Dasein'', it forces us to confront the fact that we are not. ul'tt'r
'" Ilcitle gr:e r. llt'itt,q rttrtl I ittrt'. p. I 11
15 lbid.. pp. 15.5, 163. 16.1. l6-5. 167. S1x'rrlrlt't. l\', lirr,'.1, "')
'"
i6 lbicl., p. l(r-5. It Wolirr. Ilt,'l','lrtr, 11tl lir'tn.r' (Nt tt Yot l'. l()(X)). p. l().
t/ ('. Sclrrrritt (l()2.\ 6\. l'ltr ('Stlrrrrrll (l().") l',,lrtr,,tl llt,,'1,,,'\ {(';r1rlrtir11,r', l\,1;rss.l()|i51.pp l}. tl

üi
Revolution and Counter-Revolution Revolution and Counter-Revolution 223
222

why the school of historical materialism can only touch the surface of the pro- technological frenzy, the same unrestricted organization of the average man.'
cess. To explain efforts of this sort, we ought rather to fbcus our first suspicions Faced with 'the darkening of the world, the flight of the gods, the destruction of
on phenomena of a cultic variety.52 the earth, the transformation of men into a mass, the hatred and suspicion of
everything free and creative', he sees in Nazism the hope of a heroic assertion
Jünger thus suggests that the real matter of world history is too profound to of witl that, in the face of 'global technology', has, as Luc Ferry and Alain
be understood in terms of anything as mundane as material interests. On a much Renaut put it, 'the capaciq- to respond to it effectively by forestalling its dan-
broader scale, Heidegger argues that history as we normally understand it is not gers' .51 Repeating a longstanding theme of nationalist ideologues that Germany
a fundarnental dimension of Dasein.It is what is past 'in our Being-with-one- is the centre of Europe, and the potential politico-economic capital of a
another, and which at the same time has been "handed down to us" and contin- Mitteleuropa stretching from the Rhine to the Urals, Heidegger declares: 'If the
uingly effective'. History is thus an incomprehensible burden we inherit from great decision concerning Europe is not to bring annihilation, that decision must
the past. Historicality (Geschichtlichkeit),by contrast, is constitutive of Dasein. be made in terms of new spiritual energies unfolding historically from out of
It arises from the fundamental structure of temporality, which consists in the the centre.'s8
orientation towards the future inherent in authentic Being-towards-death. Thus This embrace of a nationalist decisionism does not lead Heidegger to accept
'when historicality is authentic. it understands history as the "recllrrence" of biological racism. Nevertheless the writings of his Nazi period display what
the possible, and knows that a possibility will recur only if existence is open to Jacques Derrida calls a 'massive voluntarism', marked by the ernphatic use of
it fatefully, in a moment of vision, in resolute repetition'.s3 So the real meaning the term'spirit' and'spiritual'.se Thus in his Rectorship Address, Heidegger
of history lies in the structures inherent in human existence through which free declares:
action is possible. Bourdieu calls this a 'verbal somersault which allows escape
from history by asserting the essential historicity of the existing, and inscribing spirit is the determined resolve to the essence of Being, a resolve that is attuned to
history and temporality within Being, that is, within the ahistorical and the eter'- origins and knowing. And the spiritual world of a Volk . . . is the power that
nal': Heidegger thus uses 'the eternalization of temporality and of history in comes fiom preserving at the most profound level the forces that are rooted in the
order to avoid the historicization of the eternal'.54 soil and blood of a Volk, the power to arouse most inwardly and to shake most
Heidegger's extraordinarily abstract and convoluted analysis of Dasein thus extensively the Volk's existence. A spiritual world alone will guarantee our Volk
greatness. For it will make the constant decision between the will to greatness
repeats in a philosophical register many of the political themes of the conserv-
and the toleration of decline the law that establishes the pace for the march upon
ative-revolutionaries. From this perspective, his adhesion to National Socialisrl
which our Volk has embarked on its way to future history.60
becomes intelligible. In the early 1930s he took part in a discussion group on
Jünger's writings. He later wrote: 'What Ernst Jünger thinks with the thought Here the formal analysis of resoluteness and historicality in Being and Time
of the rule and shape of the worker and sees in the light of this thought. is tlrr is invoked to conceplualize the collective decision through which the German
universal rule of the will to power within history, now understood to embruct'
Volksgemeinschaft will reverse Europe's decline. It is not surprising that
the planet. Today everything stands in this historical reality, no matter whetlrcr
I leidegger's endorsement of conservative-revolutionary voluntarisrn leads to a
it is called communism, fascism, or world democracy.'t' It is against this sustained engagement with Nietzsche. But his main texts on Nietzsche, written
background that we must understand Heidegger's notorious remark, made irr hctween 1936 and 1946, record a progressive disillusionment. Heidegger reads
a lecture first given in 1935, that 'the inner truth and greatness' of Nationrrl N ictzsche in the light of what he calls the ' grouncling question', nantely that of
Socialism lie in 'the encounter between global technology and modern man'. ''' 'thc Being of beings'. Western philosophy since Plato has obscured this ques-
In the same text Heidegger portrays Europe as caught 'in a great pinccrr. tirrri hy making 'one region of being ... definitive for our survey of being as
squeezed between Russia on the one side and America on the other. Fnrrr ;r
rr wlrole'.('r Nietzsche brings this process to a culmination: his critique of
metaphysical point of view, Russia and America are the same; the same drcrn

sr ''' llritl..
Jünger, 'Total Mobilization', p.129. 1rp. 37. 3ll; L. lrclly and A. Rcnaut, Heitlcgger unrlMotlernll,v (Chicago, 1988), p. 61.
s'r ''' Ilr'itlt'rgt'r, lttltrxltrclirrrr. pp. .1li ().
Heidegger, Being, and Tirue, pp. 431, 444.
54 l. f )t'r.r.itlrr. ()1 ,\1tit'it (('ltit'rrgo. l()li()). p. .17.
Bourdieu, Politit'ttl Ontologt, pp. 62. 63.
55 M. Heiclegger, 'Thc Rectorate 1933134 Fucts ancl ThoLrghts'. Revievr tl L'lctultln'.sit,r. .ll'i ( l()li'' r
l\1 .llt'rtlt'r1't'l (l()t{).''l'lrr'St'll ,\rst'tlionol llrr'(it't.ttutttllrrivcrsitv'.irrWolin.ctl.,lltitltg,uar
( ;,,/r',)l'., \\'. l)l) ] I I
p. 4t3-5.
i6 M. llciilcggcr'(l().5 1,), Att lttlnxlrrt liorr ltt Mt'trtltll':ir',t (Ncw Yolk. l()7()), l). l()(). " l\l f l,'t,1,'1'y't't . Nr, t t, lr,
Revolution and Counter-Revolution Revolution and Counter-Revolution 225
224

European nihilism. of the systematic devaluation of all values characteristic of believes to be the essence of European history, is thus 'the self'-veiled truth of
modernity. reveals the dead-end that is the ultimate consequence of the Being'. What is left to us at the end of this history is to reflect upon 'the history
fbrgetfulness of Being deflnitive of Western metaphysics. of Being' - conceived as this process of self-disclosure through withdrawal -
Initially Heidegger seems to think that Nietzsche also offers us the re- and of 'the provenance of metaphysics' within it.6a
sources with which to overcome rnetaphysics, and thereby to resolve Eu- Being for Heideg-eer is thus somewhat like Hegel's Absolute Spirit; it seems
rope's crisis. But he comes to believe that Nietzsche is part of the problem, to be a divinity that is not separate from its creation, but is irnmanent in the
rather than part of the solution. Nietzsche understands that 'nihilism is the being to which it reveals (or conceals) itself - man, Dasein,the being tor which
covert, basic law of Western history'. But in seeking to overcotne nihilism in Being is an issue. Thus: 'The essence of Being itself does not take place behind
actuality he fulfils it by developing 'a metaphysics of the will to power'. This or beyond beings. but - provided the notion of such a relationship is perrnis-
metaphysics draws out what was implicit from the start in the effort of West- sible here - beJore the being.'6s But whereas for Hegel history is the process
ern philosophy since Descartes to make subjectivity the foundation of know- through which the Absolute comes to self-consciousness through human thought
ledge. Modern thought progressively absolutizes the subject, and turns and action, history becomes for Heidegger after his abandonment of the con-
everything else - including human beings - into its raw rnaterial. Thus servative revolution that of a humankind from whom God has hidden himself.
'Nietzsche's doctrine, which makes everything that is, and as it is, into the His later writings relentlessly deny the subject the sovereign position which
"property and product of man", merely carries out the final developrnent of Descartes had accorded it. 'Man is not the lord of beings,' he declares; 'Man is

Descartes' doctrine, according to which truth is grounded in the self- the shepherd of Being.'('{'Similarly: 'Man acts ns though he were the shaper and
certainty of the human subject'. thereby articulating conceptually the drive rnaster of language, whereas in fact language remains the master of man . . .
for 'supreme and absolute self-development of all capacities of mankind for Strictly, it is language that speaks', not rnan.67
absolute dominion over the earth'.62 Heidegger's anti-humanism made his later thought attractive to French
This reassessment of Nietzsche's philosophy as'ametaltlr.v.rics of the obsrtl- post-structur:rlists also eager to reject the philosophy of the subject (see § 1 1.3
ute sLtbjectivitt' of the will to tr)ow,er' leads Heidegger to reassess his earlier' below). But, after the 'resoluteness' of National Socialisrn had failed to pro-
views. He now dismisses the total mobilization for modern warfare celebratecl vide an etl-ective response to modern technology, and in the f-ace of 'the age
by Jünger as 'the organization of unconditional meaninglessness by and firr' ol'consummate meaninglessness', Heidegger counselled a kind of passive
the will to power'. Indeed, '[t]he essence of modernity is tulfilled in the age ol waiting orr Being. 'Only a god can save us', he told the weekly Der Spiege.l
consummate meaninglessness', which is also the tulfilment of metaphysics. in a 1966 interview published after his death ten years later. 'The sole pos-
But the oblivion of Being as such that is constitutive of metaphysics does not sibility that is left for us is to prepare a sort of readiness, through thinking and
arise from any human error or choice. 'The highest decision that can be tnaclt'
poetizing, fbr the appearance of the god or tor the absence of the god in the
and that becomes the ground of all history' which consists in the concealmetrl tirrre of foundering fUnrergang]; tbr in the fäce of the god who is absent we
of Being 'is never first made and executed by a human being. Rather, its cli lirrrnder.'6s
rection and perdurance decide about man and, in a different way, about tht' Heidegger is the most important thinker since Nietzsche who has uncond-
god.'u' itionally rejected modernity. Imbued with the ideology of the radical right, this
The decision which can set history on a new path thus no longer depends «rn rr'icction led him to believe that fascism could reverse the process of European
any merely human resoluteness.'Being it,self stay.t awoy: it withdraws fiottr rlccline. The fäilure of this gamble left him ruminating on a hidden god some-
us by allowing the question of Being to be concealed behind that of the natLtn'
Irow present in his very absence. His career does not simply demonstrate the
of beings at the start of Western metaphysics. The entire developmeflt ol ;rlrility of even the most gifted intellectuals to compromise with, even to em-
this thought, culminating in Nietzsche, is thus not an accident or a mistitkt' lrrrcc. cvil. It also dramatizes the oscillation between voluntarism and fätalism
Rather, it is the form in which Being discloses itself to us through its verr rvitlr which thinkers of the Iefi as well as the right responded to the Thirty Years
concealment. Indeed, 'ft]hrough its withdrawal, which nonetheless remititts rr r'r lhrtl.. lV. pp. 2 l-1. 2l l, 21.1. 2.tr4.
l
relationship to beings, in which form "Being" appears, Being releases i(st'll llritl .IV. p. llfi
into the will to power.' The history of rnetaphysics, which Heidegger, like Hcr:t'l ' l\'1 Ilr'irlr'r'r't'tIl()l7l.'l t'llt't ort Iltrtt:rttisttt'.itt/Jrr.rir'\tr'r'illrr.(.r.etl. l). lj.Krr:ll(l,ontltlrt. lt)78),
ti
rr .t-'I
6r Nl I lr'ttlt'1'r't'l l'r,t lr t. llt,'rr.t,ltt(Nt'rr \',,rk. l()/\). pp Jl5 l(r
Ibid.. IV, pp. 21 ..52. 86, 99.
(rr l\l I lr't,h;';', t. ( )trl\ ,t r,t\r'Il. , ttt \\',,lttt.,',1 . llt ttlt'.r!.rir't ( ttttlt(ttt t.\r'.1r lO7
ll
lhitl.. lV, p. lr17 lll. pp. 174. l7tt. -5.

hi,
i

226 Revolution and Counter-Revolution

War of the twentieth century. Lukäcs, whose record of resisting Stalinism was
incomparably more principled and courageous than anything to be found in
Heidegger's political history, first sought to rethink Marxism as a theory of
class subjectivity before, as the revolutionary tide receded, embracing a more
10
objectivist version of historical materialism. Perhaps this itinerary anticipated
the demolition of the subject characteristic of social theory in the second half of
the century.
The Golden Age

10.1 Theorists of capitalism: Keynes and Hayek

Irollowing the convulsions of the lirst half of the twentieth century, the ad-
vanced industrial countries enjoyed a strange remission after 1945. As Eric
llobsbawm puts it, the 'Age of Catastrophe' - the era of the two world wars and
lhe Great Depression - was succeeded by the 'Golden Age': 'the world, and
lxrrticularly the world of developed capitalism . . . passed through an altogether
t'xceptional phase of its history; perhaps a unique one'.r After the Second World
War, capitalism experienced the longest and most sustained economic boom in
its history. Between 1948 and 1973 world gross national product rose by three
rurtl a half times. For most of these years the advanced economies enjoyed full
t'rrrployment; furthermore, high growth-rates made it possible to finance sub-
strrrrtial social reforms which reduced most citizens' vulnerability to the vicis-
silrrdes of the market, at least when it came to meeting their most basic needs.
l'r'osperity greatly strengthened the political structures of liberal democracy.
I'lrrcatened even in their heartlands of the United States, Britain, and France
r lru'ing the inter-war years, these structures rooted themselves much more firmly

rrr continental Europe and Japan as the boom increasingly transformed these
t orrrrtries into societies of city-dwelling wage-earners. Politically and militarily
rrrlcgnrted under American leadership through a nexus of Cold War alliances
;r;irrinst the Soviet bloc, the Western liberal democracies increasingly emerged
,rs llrc ccntrc of gravity of world politics.
'l'lris process of economic expansion and political stabilization did not sil-
r'rrt'r'socirrl criticisrn, though this tended (as we shall see in §10.3 below) to
l;rkt' orr lr rrrrrclr nl()r'c dcspairing note. But the boom itself required explanation:
,lrtl it. rrs llobsbuwnl slrggcsts, rcprcsent an exception, a deviation from the
rror rrurl ('()urs('ol'clpitalist cle:vcklptttcnt. or clid it nrark rather a breakthrough to

I I llolrslr;rrltrr..lqt't,l l'.rltr'ttrt'.t (1.,rttrlott. lt)(), lt. pp .)5'/ t.


tl
ll1

228 The Golden Age The Golden Age 229


a fundamentally different form of capitalism (if one could still call it that) in above the bourgeois and the intelligentsia who, with whatever faults, are the quality
which political regulation could effectively abolish the trade cycle and guaran- of life and surely caffy the seeds of all human advancement?s
tee unintemupted economic growth? There were plenty willing to make the
latter case. Tony Crosland, the main theoretician of postwar social democracy. In fact Keynes's general outlook bears some resemblance to Weber's. Both de-
argued that, while 'socialist thought has been dominated by the economic prob- fended the liberal bourgeois civilization in which they had grown up, but both
lerns posed by capitalism', this need no longer be the case: 'Capitalism has did so acutely aware that the traditional.justifications of that civilization were no
been reformed almost out of recognition. Despite occasional minor recessions longer available. Keynes could not sustain his Nonconformist forebears' faith in
and balance of payments crises, full employment and at least a tolerable degree the Christian God. But utilitarianism, the most influential secular moral theory in
of stability are likely to be maintained . . . The prewar reasons for a largely nineteenth-century Britain, seemed to him too blunt an instrument. In particular,
economic orientation are therefbre steadily losing their relevance.'2 the maximization of the general welfare enjoined by Bentham clid not seem to
Crosland and others sharing his analysis tended to give much of the credit for have a place for the cultivation of exceptional experiences by a cultural elite for
-
this transformation to one man - Keynes - and to his book The General Theorl' example, the pursuit of aesthetic and sexual experimentation by the Bloomsbury
of Emplovment Interest and Money ( 1936).3 Consider, for example, this asser- Group of writers and artists in which Keynes enthusiastically participated, nota-
tion by an economist, made as the long postwar boom was drawing to a close: bly in the years immediately before and during the First world war.
'the basic fäct is that with the acceptance of the General Theory, the days ol' His biographer Robert Skidelsky comments: 'Keynes's life was balanced be-
uncontrollable mass unemployment in advanced industrial countries are over. tween two sets of moral claims. His duty as an individual was to achieve good
Other economic problems may threaten; this one, at least, has passed into states of mind for himself and for those he was directly concerned with; his duty
I history.'a Such statements have, of course. been overtaken by events - in par- as a citizen was to help achieve a happy state of affairs for society . . . He was
I

ticular, by the return of serious economic crises accompanied by mass unemploy- thus both an aesthete and a manager.'6 How close a connection there was be-
ment at the end of the 1960s, and by the subsequent intellectual revival ol' tween Keynes's personal outlook and his economics is open to argument (during
l

laisseT-faire economics. These developments do not, however, alter the signific- the Thatcher era a famous leader in The Times etfectively blarned the inflation of
iL ance of Keynes's theory (even if they cast doubt on its more simplistic interpret- the 1970s on Keynes's homosexuality and aestheticism: 'there may be a parallel
I
I
ations): it remains the most important challenge to certain basic assumptions between his emotional resentrnent of the monetary rules which prevented inflation,
of the economic orthodoxy created by the marginalist revolution to have beerr and in particular the gold standard, and his need to reject the conventional sexual
made from within its framework. rnorality of his period'7). What is undeniable is that both are infbrmed by a taith
Keynes did not develop this critique from a standpoint hostile to capitalisnr in an intellectual elite, the 'educated bourgeoisie', in whom the capacity to inno-
as a social and economic system. He declared that 'the class war will find rrt' vate both culturally and economically resided. Writing in 1931, as the Great De-
on the side of the educated bourgeoisie'. Contemptuously dismissing Marxisrrr pression overwhelmed the world economy, Keynes declared: 'The economic
in 1925, he wrote: problem . . . the problem of want and poverty. and the economic struggle be-
lween classes and nations, is nothing but a frightful muddle, a transitory and an
How can I accept a doctrine which sets up as its bible, above and beyond criti- ttnnecessary muddle.'8 He regarded himself as having been called to resolve it.
cism, an obsolete economic textbook which I know to be not only scientifically At the heart of this 'muddle' was the belief, constitutive of mainstream
erroneous but without interest or application to the modern world? How can I t'c<rnomics since The Wealth of Nations, that the market is a self-equilibrating
adopt a creed which, preferring the mud to the flsh. exalts the boorish proletariat
system. If shified from its equilibrium point, at which both human and mat-
r ct'ial resources are fully employed, the economy would tend to return to this
C. A. R. Crosland, The Future of Sot:i«lism (London, 1956), p.517.
I John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946): the son of a Cambrid-qe don, of middle-class Nont'orr
point through adjustments in output and in relative prices. Keynes systemat-
formist background; educated at Eton and at King's College, Cambridge, 1902-5;' civil scrvirrrl :rt icirlly attacks this belief, directing his fire particularly at Say's Law. Already a
thelndiaOfTice, 1906-tt;electedFellowof King's. 1909; workedattheTreasury, I9l5 I(). llr, ttt:tllcro(-cttlttroversy between Ricardo and Malthus afierthe Napoleonic Wars,
Ecttnotnic'Con.sequettt:e.s cf'tlrc Peace (1919), which denounced the harsh treatnrent o1'Gcrrrurrr.r' rrr

the Versailles Treaty. made his international reputation: served on the Macrnillan C«rrnrrrillcr','r,
Finance and Industry , 1929-30 aclviser to the Treasury, 1939-46; chief British negotirrt«rl witlr ( r'. ' .l . M. l(t'yrrt's, /:'.r'trtt,r irt l't'r':trtt.siru r (l .orrtIrrr. l()72), ;t1t. 2()7. 2.51t.
over Lend Lease, the 1944 Bretton Woods settlement establishing the postrvlr l'irurrrt'iirl s\/\l('r) '' l( Skitk'lskr'../rrllr /'lrrvrt,rt,l^(,1.//(,\ (-l vols. l.orrtkrrr. l{),\1. l()()l). l. 11. 157.
and the 194-5 American loan to the [JK: crcatccl l pccr in 1942. 'l\'lt l(olrtnson trrtrl l\lt lllrrrrt /'1rr,'r..).'Npr l()7()
I M. Stcwirrt, Kr'.r'rrr',r'rrtrrl Alict (llltlrttott«lswolth. l\)72).p.29(). " lr,r'\'rtt'.,. /.rr,r\ r. I tr rrr

h,ti
',11
I

The Golden Age Age


I

230 The Golden 231


lil

this proposition asserts that 'supply creates its own demand; - meaning by of the future. If they are optimistic, they can borrow and bring forward their pur-
this in some significant, but not clearly defined sense that the whole of the chases, investment, and production; if they are pessirnistic they can defer
costs of production must necessarily be spent in the aggregate, directly or purchases and investment till tomorrow.r3
indirectly, on purchasing the product'.e Goods cannot therefore go unsold,
since the income required to purchase them is generated, in the form of wages The effects of actors' inescapable uncertainty about the future are most clearly
and profits, in the course of producing them. Crises of overproduction, where expressed in the case of investment decisions, which involve calculations of
commodities fail to find buyers, are, on this view, a consequence of some expected return over relatively lengthy periods of time. 'The outstanding fact is
distortion of the market rather than (as Marx argued) being an inherent f'eature the extreme precariousness of the basis of knowledge on which our estimates of
of capitalism. prospective yield have to be made.' Financial markets develop to organize in-
Aggregate wages and profits constitute what Keynes calls the effective de- vestrnent on a social scale, starting frorn the convention that existing patterns
mand for goods and services. He points out that Say's Law depends on the can be projected into the future. But these are subject to 'mass psychology' - to
assumption that any income that is saved rather than spent immediately on con- the irrational surges in opinion at work in stock-rnarket bubbles and panics.
sumption will automatically be invested, and thereby spent to purchase plant The prof'essionals - stockbrokers and the like, meanwhile, are motivated chiefly
and machinery. But saving and investment are distinct activities governed by to anticipate shitls in sentiment which will lead to changes in the 'conventional
different variables. Investment is determined by the marginal efficiency of capital valuation' of assets: 'The social object of skilled investment should be to del'eat
(i.e. the expected return on an asset) and the rate of interest. Saving depends on the dark forces of time and ignorance which envelop our future. The actual,
the propensity to consume; economic actors may decide to hang on to their private object of the most skilled investment today is "to beat the gun" . . . to
money rather than to spend or invest it. What Keynes calls liquidity pret-erence, outwit the crowd and pass on the bad, or depreciating, hal1'-crown to the next
or the propensity to hoard, is a consequence of various motives - the need for fellow.' This analysis of financial markets (which has lost none of its apposite-
cash in everyday transactions, the search for security, or the desire to hold money ness since 1936) leads Keynes to conclude: 'Speculators may do no harm as
in case some opportunity for speculation turns up: its ef-fect is to prevent the bubbles on a steady stream of enterprise. But the position is serious when enter-
operation of Say's Law, since the greater the level of hoarding the less income prise becomes the bubble of a whirlwind of speculation. When the capital de-
is spent on consumption or investment goods. Effective demand is then insuf- velopment of a country becomes the by-product of a casino, the job is likely to
Iicient to purchase all the goods and services produced. be ill-done.'ra
Money plays a crucial part in Keynes's analysis. Skidelsky writes: 'll' The tendency of financial markets to be driven by speculation and herd be-
Marx is the poet of commodities, Keynes is the poet of money.'I0 The quantity haviour is particularly serious because of the dependence of the overall level of
theory of money lirst formulated by Hume treated it as, in principle, a neutral economic activity on the rate of investment: 'The traditional analysis has been
medium behind which lies the 'real economy' where goods and services arc aware that saving depends on income but it has overlooked the fact that income
produced ancl exchanged. For Keynes, however, '[t]he interposition of this depends on investment in such fashion that, when investment changes, income
veil of money [through the banking system] between the real asset and tht' must necessarily change in just that degree which is necessary to make the
wealth owner is a specially marked characteristic of the modern world.'rr l-le change in saving equal the change in investment.' [t follows that, if savings rise
believes 'the importance of ntoney flow,s .from its being a link between llrt' to a level higher than investment, the efTective demand for goods and services
present and the future'.rz Economics, rather than being (as neo-classical or' will fäll, bringing down output and employment till savings and investment are
thodoxy held) concerned with the rational allocation of scarce resources l() back in balance. So 'there is only one level of employment consistent with
individuals, is about decisions taken in a condition of radical uncertainty abotrl cqrrilibrium . . . But there is no reason in general for expecting it to be equalto
the future. As Will Hutton Puts it, l'ull ernployrlent.' Indeed. 'the mere existence of an insufficiency of effective
tlcrnand rnay, and often will, bring the increase of employment to a standstill
for Keynes, money transformed the dynamics of the economy . . . For it nlcittls ltcfitrc a level ol'lirll employment has been reached'.r5 Moreover, governments
that consumers and producers have the means of acting upon their expcctatiotls which rcspontlcrl to crises hy cutting public spending and restricting credit, as

" J. M. Keynes, The General Theorl'o-f Employment Intcrest utul Mt»rt'.t'([.<lrrtklrt. l()70). 1t. lfi
ro Skidelsky. Kevrtes,II, p.543. " W llttllott. I ltr',\lrttt' \l't"t.t' lrr{l.ottrlort. l()()!1. 11
r.111.

rr Keynes, Es.rrt.v.s, p. l-5 l. il l(t'\'ttr's. (ir'ttt'ttrl Ilrr',tt.t. pp. l.l(). 1.51. l5().
rr Keytres. (icncntl 'l'ltartr.t'. p. 2()3. '' llrrrl pp ISI )li tO I

ü, li
232 The Golden Age The Golden Age 233
laissez.-.faire doctrine enjoined, would precipitate their economies into a vicious state-directed organization of economic life. These changes - together with
downward spiral in which declining demand and confidence forced up unem- technical innovations such as the development of national-income accounting
ployment. - made Keynes's policies of demand management both organizationally feas-
Keynes's economics was a peculiar mixture of conservatism and radicalism, ible and politically acceptable.
both theoretically and politically. Luigi Pasinetti argues that the General Theon' It is therefore not surprising that Keynes posthumously received the credit
marks 'Keynes's clear break with the sixty-year-old tradition of marginal econ- for the long boom of the 1950s and 1960s. From a historical point of view, this
omic theory and his return to the methods of analysis of the earlier Classical is as just (or unjust) as the tendency to blame him for the shift at the end of the
economists of the beginning of the nineteenth century'.r6 Thus Keynes focuses 1960s towards 'stagflation'- in other words, the return of serious recessions
on macro-economic aggregates rather than individual actors, and seeks to estab- combined with accelerating inflation. The most visible attack on Keynesian
lish the causal relations between them, largely eschewing the reliance on sys- economics took the forrn of a revival of Hurne's quantity theory of money,
tems of simultaneous equations that had becorne entrenched in neo-classical according to which price rises are caused exclusively by an increase in the
economics. Yet Keynes's eclectic and intuitive intellectual style involved the amount of money in the economy.
continued use of many marginalist concepts. This made possible his recuper- Monetarism, chiefly associated with the Chicago economist Milton Fried-
ation by, and reintegration into, orthodox economics, especially after the man, enjoined on the basis of this diagnosis a return to laissezfaire, in which
Second World War. governments should confine their activities to keeping the money supply con-
Keynes's practical remedies were directed towards the stabilization rather stant, thereby creating a stable policy environment within which market actors
than the replacement of capitalism. Rather than cut spending in tirnes of slump, could freely pursue their private goals. This doctrine was notable for reinstating
governments should be willing to run quite substantial budget deficits in order both the distinction between the 'real economy' and money which Keynes had
to maintain effective demand. Furthermore. the dysfunctional nature of finan- sought to dismantle, and the idea that public policy could not prevent the lbrmer
cial markets could be compensated for by 'the State, which is in a position to from gravitating towards a 'natural' rate of unemployment. Keynesian econom-
l

calculate the marginal efflciency of capital-goods on long views and on the ists such as Nicholas Kaldor were able to expose the theoretical and practical
basis of the general social advantage, taking an ever greater responsibility for defects of monetarism, but this did not prevent it legitimizing the pursuit by
directly organizing investment'. Keynes believed that 'a somewhat compre- British govemments from 1976 onwards of policies that devastated the economy.
hensive socialization of investment will prove the only means of securing an A far more powerful laissez-faire riposte had already been fbrmulated dur_
approximation to tull employment'. But these measures could be introduced ing the 1930s and 1940s by Keynes's younger contemporary Hayek, who out-
piecemeal, and would stop well short of 'a system of State Socialism which lived him by nearly fifty years to see the apparent triumph of market capitalism
would embrace most of the economic life of the community'.17 at the end of the 1980s.r8 Hayek was a product of the Austrian tradition of
The political and economic context in which the General Theory appeared in rnarginalist economics which had always been far more sceptical than its coun-
1936 was highly favourable to the acceptance of such measures. The era of the terparts elsewhere about the theory of perfect competition the attempt to de-
-
Thirty Years War (191445) saw a further development of the tendencies to- fine the conditions under which a market economy will attain an equilibrium
wards 'organized capitalism' already visible before 1914. Total war and workl at which resources are optimally allocated. The definition of perfect compet-
depression encouraged states increasingly to intervene in, direct, and even re- ition typically involves highly restrictive, and indeed unrealistic, conditions
notably that no individual consumer or producer can influence the price of
-
place markets, a trend reflected in the spectacular rise of public expenditure as
a proportion of national income. The slump of the 1930s was greatly exacer- any commodity, and that actors are perfectly informed about the future.
bated by governments' resort to protectionist policies, which caused a collapsc Hayek directs especial criticism at the latter condition: 'it is assumed that
of world trade. The disintegration of the international finance system - symbol- the data for the different individuals are fully adjusted to each other, while the
izedby Britain's departure from the gold standard in 1931 - allowed goverrr Problem which requires explanation is the nature of the process by which
ments far greater fieedom in formulating their domestic economic policies. Tlre
l* lrricdriclt August von Hayek (1899-1992): born in Vienna, son of
Stalinist Five-Year Plans, the Nazi Four-Year Plan, and Roosevelt's New Dcrrl a municipal official; studied
lrrw rrrril econornics a( thc Univcrsity ol'Vienna, tgtB*23 director, Austrian Institute of Business
in the US were all symptoms of a universal movement towards thc nationrrl. ('-vt'lt'lLcst';rrt'lt. l()27 .ll:'lirokc I)roli:ssorol'Econorrric Science antl
Statistics, Lonclon Sclrool of
lrtottotttit's. l()l-l 5(1. l)tolt'ssot ol Sot'ilrl rrnrl Mrlral Scicrrccs, t)rrivcrsity of Cihicag., I950-62;
In [-. [-. Plsirtctti. Ontn'tlt tttrtl lnt ttttr<' l)i.striltrrtiotr t('lrrrrlllirlgc. 197.1 t. 1r. -12. l'lolt'ssol ol lttoltottttt l'r,11r 1. llttttt'r',ilt'trl tircihtrrg. l(Xrl tl: l)nrli.ss«rr'ol'lrcon«rrttics, Llttivcr-
l1 Kt'yttt's, (it'trt'ntl 'lltt'tttt'.1111 l(r.1. l7li. rrl S;tlzlrllll'. l()(rli / /. .trr;tt,lr',1 tlr,' Nolrt'l l'r'izt. lirl lrt orrorrrit.s itr l()7 l.
"llv
n 234 The Golden Age The Golden Age 235

the data are thus adjusted'. Equilibrium theory, which models markets through belief that an enlightened state bureaucracy was more likely to make well-
I a set of simultaneous equations, ignores the fact that economic processes un- informed decisions - for example, about the marginal efhciency of capital -
fold over time, with actors constantly adjusting to each other through a series of than individual economic actors.
I

initiatives which prevents the attainment of perfect equilibrium: 'competition Following Adam Smith, Hayek believes that capitalism, or, as he prefers to
t

i is by its nature a dynamic process whose essential characteristics are assumed call it, 'the extended order of human co-operation', 'resulted not from human
I
away by the assumptions underlying static analysis'.re design or intention but spontaneously' . But he does not think that the logic of
These arguments recall the stress laid by Keynes on time and uncertainty. the market economy arises from tendencies inherent in human nature such as
I
But Hayek's overall analysis is radically different. Far from depending for their Smith's'propensity to truck, barter and exchange'(see §1.3 above). On the
proper functioning on actors having perfect information, markets are the most contrary, human instincts were formed during an evolutionary process span-
I

effective way of acquiring information: 'I propose to consider competition as a ning several million years during which successive species of hominids lived in
procedure for the discovery of such facts as, without resort to it, would not be small bands whose members relied heavily on one another for survival. 'These
I known to anyone, or at least would not be utilitized.'20Information, to be useful modes of co-ordination depended decisively on instincts of solidarity and altru-
I
in addressing the central economic problem of how to respond to change, must ism - instincts applying to the members of one's own group but not to others
:

be specific, reflecting the peculiar circumstances of time and place. Such infor- . . . The primitive individualism described by Thomas Hobbes is hence a myth.
mation is, by the nature of the things, dispersed among individual economic The savage is not solitary, and his instinct is collectivist. There was never a
ll
actors. "war of all against all".'23
The market, through the fluctuations of the relative prices of commodities, The 'extended order' thus developed against this 'instinctual order', in par-
acts as a mechanism for transmitting these scattered bits of knowledge. These ticular through the gradual evolution of systems of learnt rules such as legal
prices reflect the preferences attached to goods and services by individual ac- and moral codes, among whose unintended consequences was, over time, the
tors; in the marginal utility of every commodity is 'condensed its significance fbrmation of private property and markets, and the diff-erentiation of the indiv-
for the whole means-end structure'. 'The whole acts as one market,' therefore, idual from his or her social context. Thus: 'The [extended] order is even "un-
'not because any of its members survey the whole field, but because their lim- natural" in the common meaning of not conforming to man's biological
ited individual fields of vision sufficiently overlap so that through many inter- endowment.'24 Socialism and less extreme forms of collectivism such as the
mediaries the relevant information is communicated to all.' Thus 'the real postwar Keynesian welfare state are therefore atavistic, politically and econ-
function' of 'the price system' is 'as such a mechanism for communicating omically disastrous attempts to return to the narrow solidarity of the band
information'.21 societies in which human nature acquired, through natural selection, its bio-
This theory allowed Hayek to argue that any system of central planning would logical constitution.
necessarily lead to a less than optimal allocation of resources. The statistical In their efTort to combat collectivism, Hayek and his f'ellow Austrian, the
summaries on which planning decisions were based 'would have to be amivecl philosopher of science Karl Popper, further elaborated the doctrine of meth-
at precisely by abstracting from minor differences by lumping together, as re- odological individualism which Carl Menger and Max Weber had already cham-
sources of one kind, items which differ as regards location, quality and other ;rioned, according to which social structures are the unintended consequences
particulars in a way which may be very significant for the specific decision'.rr ol individual actions. Ernest Gellner, like Hayek and Popper a central Euro-
Only the market, as a decentralized system of communication, could mobilizc pean intellectual who found refuge in Britain from the horrors of the mid-
the inherently dispersed pieces of information required for economically ra ccntury, speculates that the embattled, anxious tone of what he calls 'the Vien-
tional decisions. This argument was Hayek's contribution to a debate initiatctl rtcse Theory' may have been 'inspired by the fact that, in the nineteenth century,

by the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, who claimed that socialist plan- llrc individualistic, atomized, cultured bourgeoisie of the Habsburg capital had
ning was a logical impossibility. But it also struck home at Keynes's mandaritr Io contend with the influx of swarms of kin-bound, collectivistic, rule-ignoring
rrrigrants fiom the eastern marches of the Empire, from the Balkans and Galicia'.2s
Wlrcthcr or not this operq:u is correct, Hayek's economics represents
re F. A. von Hayek, Individualisnt and the Economic Order (London, 1949),p.94.
r0 F. A. von Hayek, New Studies in Phitosoph),, Politics, Economics ttntl thc Hi.t'tttrt'ttl ltlt'ttt
(London, 1978).p.119. ' li. A. r,orr Illrvt'l'. Iltt ltttrrl ('r'rrr't'it(l.orrtlon. l()t3tt). pp. (r. 12.
rl 'r llritl, l()
Hayck, lrttlivitltrtrli.snr, pp. 13.5. t36. P
I
rr lbitl., p. t{ }.
f'. (it'llrrt'r. l'l,,rrt'lr \rr,,r,/,ttrrl lir,,,/, (l orrrlorr. l()lili). p. .)li

h,,
ili

236 The Golden Age The Golden Age 237

l, the most serious defence of the market yet mounted. But this defence involves his theory of capital accumulation. Indeed, despite the disdain Keynes expresses
l' a crucial inconsistency. Hayek's use of the term 'order' to characterize the so- for Marx, and Hayek's loathing for him, many of their arguments are anticipated
rli
cial cohesion achieved by the market reflects his desire to distance himself from in CapitaL The schemes fbr the reproduction of capital in Volume II provide the
equilibrium analysis: 'While an economic equilibrium never really exists, there formal means for developing the kind of analysis fbr which Keynes used the
lr is some justification for asserting that the kind of order of which our theory concept of effective demand.In Part V of Volume II[ Marx analyses the develop-
describes an ideal type, is approached in a high degree.' But this raises the ment of the credit systenl, stressing its contribution to crises of overproduction,
,i

question, central to Keynes's critique of neo-classical orthodoxy, of the nature and noting the destructive consequences of attempts by central banks to cure
and extent of the economic stability attained by this'order': in particular, do such crises by restricting the money supply. In sum, the most sophisticated theo-
rrr

recessions and the mass unemployment they produce arise from the normal rizations of the capitalist economy, whether by the neo-liberai Hayek, the re-
functioning of markets or from their distortion? In selecting the latter alterna- former Keynes, or the revolutionary Marx all highlight its inherent instability.
tive, Hayek tends to fall back on the idea that the market economy is self-
equilibrating. Thus, rejecting Keynes's explanation of recessions as a
I

ilr

consequence of insufficient aggregate demand, he restates the traditional laissez- 10-2 Functionarist sociorogy: Tarcott parsons
fgire view: 'The cause of unemployment . . . is a deviation of prices and wages
from their equilibrium position that would establish itself with a free market The most influential social theory produced in the Western world in the mid-
and stable money.'26 century, by contrast, fbcused on social stability. For Parsons, the tendency of a
Hayek's own theory of crises, developed in Prices and Production (1931). given social system to maintain itself is 'the first law of social process'.30 His
treated them as a conseqllence of over-investment made possible by the cre- Iirst major work, The Structure of Social Action (1937), was a systematic crit-
ation of money through the credit system. As Skidelsky observes, 'his con- ical sr-rrvey of European social theory concentrating on Pareto, Durkheim, and
clusion, like Keynes's, was that a credit-money capitalist system is violently Weber. Pierre Bourdieu has rather contemptuously dismissed this work and
indeed Parsons' overall achievement as that of a rnediocre vulgarizer: .In
-
unstable - only with this difference, that nothing could be done about it'.27 It is -
little wonder that John Strachey, a leading Marxist economist in the 1930s. some ways, Parsons was to the European sociological tradition what Cicero
made extensive (though critical) use of Prices and Protluctiort, calling it 'a had been to Greek philosophy; he takes the original authors and retranslates
theory of capitalist crisis and of the trade cycle that rnade sense'.28 Yet it seems them into a rather limp language, producing a syncretic message, an academic
as though Hayek's commitment to the 'extended order' led him to combine this combination of Weber, Durkheim and pareto but, of course, not Marx.'31
-
esoteric doctrine, which came close to admitting that crises are an endemic Parsons is, however, a more interesting thinker than this harsh judgement sug-
feature of capitalism, with the exoteric, and indeed apologetic, view that they gests. He was indeed very hostile to Marx, participating in the anti-Marxist 'pareto
arise from some maladjustment of the market. (lircle' at Harvard during the 1930s, at a time when Marxism
was exerting a pow-
Another Austrian economist, Joseph Schumpeter, was more willing to ac crlul attraction on young intellectuals in Depression America. During his studies
knowledge the implications of rejectin-e the theory of perfect competition. Hc itt Germany in the 1920s, he had been heavily influenced by the critique of Marx-
argued that capitalism is 'incessantly revolutiomzed.from within by new enter- isrrt of'fered by Weber and by Werner Sombart. Alvin Gouldner suggests: 'Much
prise, i.e., by the intrusion of new commodities or new methods of production ol'Parsons' theoretical work is shaped by these two powerful impulses clearly
or new commercial opportunities into the industrial structure as it exists at any rrrarrif'ested in his earliest work: (1) by his efTort to generalize the anti-Marxist
moment. Every situation is being upset befbre it has had time to work itscll t'r'itique, and (2) at the same time, by his effort to overcom e the cleter.mirtism- the
out.' The regular oscillations of output and employment characteristic of tlrr' Pcssimism, attd indeed the anti-capitalisrn of these critics of Marxism.'32
business cycle are a consequence of '[tlhis process of Creative Destruction'.
which is 'the essential fact about capitalism'.2e
Schumpeter gives Marx the credit for having first formulated this analysis irr

26 Hayek, New,Studies, pp. 184, 200.


)7 Skidelsky, Ketnes,ll, p. 457 .
rn .1. Strachey. Tlrt Tltertrt' of'Cultituli.st ()'i,r'i.r (1.«rrrrl«rn. lc)3-5;, p. -5ti.
rr) .l.A..St'lrrrrrrpclt'r(l()-+)\.('rr1ti1111i111,,,\tttirtli.ttttturtl I)rttrot'tzrct'(1.«lttrlorr. l()7(r).pp ll .'. l'i I
238 The Golden Age The Golden Age 239

The central theme of The Structure oJ'Sociul Action is indeed the develop- efficacious means fbr achieving their ends relative to conditions representing
ment of a 'voluntaristic theory of action' flrst clearly formulated by Weber. the objective context of their action. The introcluction of norms, however,
Parsons contrasts this theory with what he calls the 'positivistic theory of ac- constitutes a radically new element. It is their role in specifying and reconcil-
tion' which informs the utilitarian tradition (understood very broadly). Util- ing the ends of individual actors, and integrating them with the ends of other
itarianism is essentially de{rned by its modellin-s all action on what Weber calls irctors which provides the solution to the problem of order.
instrumentally rational action (see §7.2 above). Instrumentally rational actors Parsons can therefbre legitimately be regarded as offering a version of what
select the most eff-ective means to achieve their chosen ends. But, David Lockwood calls 'normative functionalism', according to which 'society
is a moral and ultimately a religious entity whose intrinsic nature is a set of
though the conception of action as consisting in the pursuit of ends is tirndamen- commonly held values and beliefs'.36 He declares, fbr exanrple: .The problem
tal, there is nothing in the theory dealing with the relations of the ends to each of order, and thus of the nature of stable systems of social interaction, that is,
other, but only with the character of the means-end relationship . . . the failure to
of'social structure. thus fbcuses on the integration of the motivation of actors
state anything positive about the relation of means and ends to each other can
with the normative cultural standards which integrate the action system. in
then have only one meaning - that there are no signi{icant relations. that ends are
rrur context interpersonally.'r7 Though in The Structure of Sociol Action
random in the statistical sense.33
l)arsons lays great stress on Weber's contribution to the development of the
vtlluntaristic theory of action, his approach to social theory seems in fact much
Parsons then proceeds to demonstrate that utilitarianism thus understood is
t'ltrser to Durkheim's. Indeed, he declared in 196l:'My own inclination is to
unable to account for the existence of social order. In particular, Hobbes's state
rcf'er above all to Durkheim ('fhe Divi.sion of Labour in Society. especially)
of nature (see § 1.3 above) depicts the inevitable consequence of a state of af'-
rrs the fountainhead of the primary fruitful tren«J.,38
fäirs where instrumentally rational actors pursue their 'random' ends in cir-
It would nevertheless be a mistake to see Parsons' theory as a kincl of socio-
cumstarlces of scarcity: 'A purely utilitarian society is chaotic and unstable,
Iogical idealism in which social structures are somehow an expression of norms
ilri because in the absence of lirnitations on the use of means. particularly force and
;tttd values. Action must be thought of as involving a state of tension between
fraud, it must, in the nature of the case, resolve itself into an unlimited struggle
two different orders of elements, the normative and the conditional', he writes in
i

lbr power.' Hobbes's achievement was to identify 'the problem with a clarity
It)37. As process, action is, in fact, the process of alteration of the conditional
lll
that has never been surpassed', but he offers no satisfactory solution to it. Much
t'lclnents in the direction of confbrmity to norms.' Ignoring the normative
subsequent social theory, disabled by its reliance on the deeply embedded as-
I

tlitttension leads to utilitarianism; getting rid of the objective conditions of


iti
sumptions of the positivistic theory of action, has been unable even to pose the
Itc'lion leads to what he calls 'idealistic emanationism'.3e After the Second World
problem. Parsons casts the net wide in his critique of utilitarianism. Thus Marx
W:tr, Parsons sought to construct a rigorous sociological theory by, in particular,
li has the merit of reintroducing 'the factor of difTerences of power into social
:rrrrrlysing the st'stematic properties of societies that allow them to maintain and
thinking, which had been so important in Hobbes's philosophy and so neglectecl
It'Pnrduce thenrselves. Commentators are dividecl over the extent to which this
since', but historical nraterialism is. 'fundamentally, a version of utilitarian in-
sllil't in focus represents a conceptual break with Parsons'earlier writings,
dividualism'.ra
rvlrich fbllow Weber and the German neo-Kantian tradition in stressing the
Parsons traces the gradual ernergence of the solution to 'the Hobbesian Prob-
tttlctttiilnal character of human action and its irreducibility to causal processes.
lem of Order', the voluntaristic theory of action. through two parallel pnr-
cesses: the disintegration of the positivistic tradition, in which Pareto antl
lrl fitct, Parsons' postwar writing.s involve a serie.s of conceptual reca.stings,
,rl I «tl'which bear an intelligible relationship to the problem-situation
Durkheim, along with the rnarginalist economist Alfred Marshall, play a ma.jor delined in
I'ltt' 'Structure of Sociol Ar-tion: namely, what theory of action can account fbr
role; and the development from Gerrnan idealism of Weberian sociology. This
lltt'cxistettce of social order? His growing preoccr-rpation with social systems
intellectual evolution rnakes possible the fonnulation of 'the action fiante ol
rrllt'cls it stlccessi«ln ol'attempts to address this problem in a manner consis-
ref-erence'. This involves distinguishing four 'structural elements' of actiorr
lr'rtl willt thc lirct that societies are (among other things) complex articulations
'end. means. conditions, and norms'.3s The llrst three of these elements are;.rlso
present in the positivistic theory of action. Instrumentally rational actors sclct'l
l). l.rrr, krrrrrrtl, ,\ttli,!itt itt tttttl .\r.lti.snr (( )rlirr.tl l()t)2). pp.7 li
1i T. Parsons. The Structut'e ofsocial Action (2 v'ols, New York, 1968). I, p..59. l';tlstrlls. ,\'t,t irtl,\l'.\/('///. l)l) \(, I
! Ibid., I, pp. 93-4, 109, I 10. (.)ttrrlt'tf ttt ( ioUlrlttt'r ( t'nnnt: ( rrrrr.
1,. l(, I rr
" lhitl., II, p. 732; scc ulso I. pp. zl.jll.. l';tl'.r,1;',. \'lttr, lttt,'. ll ;, / I'

li ii,
I

240 The Golden Age The Golden Age 241

of social structures (Parsons has no time for methodological individualism). of known societies' are instances of 'the Particularistic-Ascription Pattern';
Running through all the dift-erent versions is an emphatic conception of theotl'. modern industrial societies, notably the United States, exemplify the
From the 1930s onwards Parsons conducts a relentless critique of ernpiricism, 'Universalistic-Achievement Pattern'.al
which he argues fails to distinguish how we experietrce the world from the The institutionalization of such value-orientations represents the point of in-
analytical concepts required to explain that world. This privileging of theory terface between the cultural and the social systems. Each is irreducible to the
represents one strategy for the professionalization of sociology: rather than be- other. but securing the 'functional prerequisites' of the social system requires a
ing driven by ditferent forms of empirical research, the development of the minimum degree of compatibility between the two. 'It is a cardinal principle of
discipline depends on the formulation of rigorous concepts that can provide the theory of action that culture . . . becomes directly constitutive of personal-
research with the appropriate guidance. tt is presumably because of this con- ities', Parsons holds. This occurs through the 'internalization' of norms and be-
ception of social enquiry, which is plainly modelled on theoretical physics, that Iiefs by individual actors. Consequently: 'It is only by virtue of the internalization
Parsons tends to rely on an arcane technical vocabulary that achieves rigour' of institutionalized values that a genuine motivational integration of behaviour
often at the price of rendering his writings opaque to the uninitiated reader. in the social structure takes place.' This occurs primarily through 'the mech-
The Social System (1951) represents the first full statement of what Parsons anisms oJ'socialization', a series of learning processes, crucially in the stages
himself calls his 'structural functionalism'. He delines a social system as 'a of infancy and childhood (society is constantly subject to a 'barbarian in-
mode of organization of action-elements relative to the persistence or ordered vasion' by babies unschooled in its ways) located in the household, school. etc.,
processes of change of the interactive patterns of a ph"rrality of individual ac- which 'tend to bring about . . . the internalization of certain patterns of value-
tors'. It is not the only systematic feature of human action: 'The other two are orientation' which shape individuals' expectations about the social roles they
the personality systems of individual actors and the cultural system which is can legitimately expect to occupy.a2
built into their actions."l0 (Parsons later adds a fourth, the 'behavioural organ- Any partial failure of socialization is likely to give rise to deviance, 'a disturb-
ism'.) The social system is thus crucially concerned with the problerr-r of how ance of the equilibrium of the interaction system' arising from 'a motivated
human interactions are stably integrated. A determinate pattern of social inter- tendency for an actor [or actors] to behave in contravention of one or more
action involves a differentiated structure of roles involving specific powers and instittrtionalized normative patterns'. This gives rise to various mechanisms of
ll rewards to which actors are allocated. social control, whose role is to restore equilibrium, either through some form
How then can the reproduction of a particular social system with its differen- of direct repression or, more subtly, through the developrnent of 'secondary
tial rewards be secured? 'The basic condition on which an interaction system institutions' which permit limited fbrms of deviant behaviour in contexts where
can be stabilized is for the interests of the actors to be bound to conformity with they are insulated from the rest of society: -qambling and the rituals of 'Amer-
a shared system of value-orientation standards.' These standards ofTer a par- ican youth culture' are examples of such safety-valves for the expression of
i ticular way of defining the ends of action, and more specifically of otfering the alienation.a:r
actor a set of expectations about the roles he or she can legitimately hope to This analysis of deviance indicates that Parsons does not. as critics sor-ne-
occupy. They originate in the cultural system, but social stability depends on times claim, simply ignore or deny the existence of social conflict. He makes it
their institutionalization. Parsons develops an elaborate classification of the
iirl
clear that '[e]xact coincidence' between 'the interests of the collectivity and the
'pattern-variables of role-definition', but concedes that there are in fact twtr interests of its individual members' is 'a limiting case' rather than a condition
historically significant combinations of value-orientations which are permut- lhat is likely actually to obtain. Nevertheless his functionalism does presume
ations of just two pattern variables - 'Universalism vs. Particularistn', ancl that societies are self-equilibrating systems: thus he calls the proposition that
r
'Achievement vs. Ascription'. The Iirst concerns the justihcation of social roles 'the stabilization of the processes of mutual orientation within complementary
scien- roles is a fundamental "tendency" of interaction . . . a theoretical assuntlttion,
- are they legitimized by some universally applicable standard such associety'/
tific rationality or human rights, or by the traditions specific to a given not an empirical generalization' . Societies by definition will tend to a cond-
Secondly, are social roles filled on the basis of the status ascribed to actors. ition of stability. Deviance therefore evokes mechanisms of social control whose
typically through the position inherited tiom their parents. or may the intliv' cl'l'cct is to counter and contain it. Its existence and that of 'social strains' are
idual legitimately aspire to the place in society that corresponds to the achicve
ments reflecting his or her own abilities'l Parsons says that 'the greitt ttt:rioritv " llrirl..PJr ll'i.(ilt l.Isl lli.)ll
'' llritl.1,;, Il l' 'o') '(lll
()

1,, 2-1. (r.


r' llrlrl . pp ),lO tt'( ll
I)ly.s9t.ts. ,\'ttt.irtl.tys/r,lr. pp. I

hrN
l,l
I

i
242 The Golden Age The Golden Age 243

secondary phenomena rather than being constitutive of social life. Contrary to political power. 'Force, therefore, is in the first instance important as the "ulti-
Marx's belief that structural contradictions and class struggle are responsible mate deterrent". It is the means that . . . can be assumed to be "intrinsically" the
for social change, '[s]train is not itself a "prime mover"'.aa For example, Par- most effective in the context of detemence, where means of effectiveness which
sons argues that the McCarthyite witch-hurnts of the 1950s are 'best understood are dependent on an institutionalized order are insecure or fäil.' Like gold, it is
as a symptom of the strains attendant on a deep-seated process of change in our always present, but, outside crises, rarely used to secure stability.ls
society', namely the transformation of the US into both an industrial society The concept of differentiation also plays a critical role in Parsons's theory of
and a global superpower.a5 social change. InThe Social System he declares: 'We do not in the present state
The extent of Parsons's commitment to a functionalist conception of the so- of knowledge possess a general theory of the processes of change in society as
cial is demonstrated in his writings subsequent to The Social Svstem. Thus he a whole.'ae But by the 1960s he is olTering a theory not simply of social change
rejects C. Wright Mills' thesis that American society is dominated by a 'power- but of evolution: 'Socio-cultural evolution, like organic evolution, has proceeded
elite' of the corporate rich and the military and civilian bureaucracies as not by variation and differentiation from simple to progressively more complex.'
simply empirically mistaken, but conceptually flawed. Mills relies on 'the "zero- By contrast with his earlier endorsement of Weber's anti-naturalism, Parsons
Sum" concept of power; powet, that is to say, is power over others' The power now treats 'man as integral to the organic world and human society as properly
A has in a systern is, necessarily and by de{inition. at the expense of B.' So if analysed in the general framework appropriate to the life-process'. He lays prime
public and private bureaucrats have more power, then others must have [ess. emphasis on 'the process of dffirentiation. A unit, sub-system, or category of
This concept of power thus builds conflict into its very delinition: it thereby units or sub-systems having a single, relatively well-defined place in the soci-
'elevate[s.l a seconclary and derived aspect of a total phenomenon into the cen- ety divides into units or systems (usually two) which ditfer in both structure
tral place'. This 'total phenomenon' is in fact concerned with the achievement and functional signilicance for the wider system.'50 For example, the key to the
of common goals, not the pursuit of social and political conflict: lndustrial Revolution lay in 'the differentiation of labour from the diffuse
matrix in which it had been embedded. This differentiation involved distin-
Power is a generalizecl facility or resoLlrce in the society. It has to be divided or guishing the work-role cornplex from the family household and also increasing
allocated, but it also has to be produced and it has collective as well as distrib- the mobility of "labour".''5r
utive f'unctions. It is the capacity to mobilize the resources of society for the Parsons sees the polity as the locus of differentiation, but this process has
attainment of goals for which a general 'public' commitment has been made, or implications for all the other sub-systems. Differentiation usually involves 'aclerpt-
m1y be made. It is mobilization, above all, of the action of persons and groups, ive upgrading' , whereby the new structures perfbrm their firnction more efl-ect-
which is binding on them by virtue of their position in society.r(' ively than the old one did, typically through the economy's increased ability to
rneet agents'needs and wants. The society's normative order is also likely
Parsons develops this conception of power as part of his attempt further trr lo change: integrating the more dift-erentiated systenr of roles 'requires that
refine his theory of the social systet'tr. From Ec'ortrtrnv and Socierl'(1956) ort specialized tunctional capacities be fieed fronr ascription within more diffuse
wards. he argues that the social system is differentiated into four 'sub-systems': structural units'. Finally. the greater complexity of the new structure implies
the economy, the polity, 'pattern maintenance', through which culture proviclcs that 'its value-pattern must be couched at a higher level of ge rrcrttlity in order to
the values governing action, and the 'societal community', the normative orcle r

lcgitimize the wider variety of goals and functions of its sub-units'.sl


necessary fbr integration.rT Thus the polity is 'an analytically defined, a "fullc Now this is all rather fhmiliar. Spencer after all developed a theory of social
tional" sub-systern of a society'. Its 'value-reference' is efTectiveness, jttst as cvr>lutiort as zr process of progressive diff-erentiation culminating in the indus-
'rr
the economy's is utility. Both involve a 'generalized medium' which ofl-ers trial societies of modern Europe and North Arnerica (see §5.2); this theory
"measure" of the relevant values' - in the economy, money, in the polity, po\&'cl .
pnrvided Durkheirr with a crurcial dimension of his problem-situation, espe-
Parsons takes the comparison so far as to argue that just as (in the days ol'tlrt' cirtlly in'fltc l)ivi:;itn o.f' Lubour. We seem to have come full circle. This is
gold standard) gold acted as the ultirnate linchpin of monetary systems whie lr
normally dealt in paper and credit, force underpins consent in the realrtt ol '' f 'rr;s1ltls. l'olilit'.t.1tp..lJ:{. 1.5.5, -165 6.
''' f 'rttsotts, ,\itt1 i11l,\'\'.\/{'/r/, 1t. .5 t7.
14 Ibid., pp. 42,,12 n. 11,481.493.
'r5 T. Palsons. Politics ond Social ,structure (New York' 1969)' p' i Bl' l,l). .',.'.'.
16 Ibid.. pp. 199. 200. '' f ';ils,,tf r. ,\'\'\lt til- lt II
t1 T. Prrrspns. Tlta St.strrrr pf'Mrtdcrrr .\ot'iclies (E,ngclwood Cliffs. N.l. 197 ll p. I l.l:tlrl,' )
lr;tl.,r)n.,. \,,, 7,11,'t.,,,, t.).' I
244 The Golden Age The Golden Age 245
especially ironic since The Structure of Social Action farnously begins with a Trinity. Similarly, Parsons elaborated a complex set of concepts ancl propos-
quotation from Crane Brinton: 'Who reads Spencer now?'s3 As Gouldner ob- itions at whose centre is a hard nugget of irrationality. This does not derive
serves, 'the answer in the 1960s must be, Parsons himself'.54 simply from the way in which the values on which the social system depends
Of course. Parsons' late, evolutionary social theory is not a simple reprise of for its functioning are givens produced by the cultural system. Parsons' evolu-
Spencerian sociology. It is a development of a theory of action which is in- tionary theory involves an implicit teleology. Stephen P. Savage writes: 'Socio-
tended precisely to avoid the impasses of the utilitarian tradition of which Par- cultural evolution is more than a process of increasing efficiency in social
sons sees Spencer as a late representative. He owes to biology rather than to any relations - it is a developmental process . . . It is the passage fiom an "animal
sociolo-uical predecessor the concept of a self-maintaining system. Moreover. existence" . . . to the highest level of human existence - the form of socio-
the distinction he draws between the cultural system and the social system intro- cultural organization represented in Western societies.'5s Little woncler, then,
duces a distinctive tension into his social theory. The values which provide the that Parsonian sociology provided the conceptual framework within which
basis for the norms forming the basis of social integration and socialization American theorists of 'modernization' sought to persuade newly independent
derive from outside the social system itself. As Habermas puts it. this 'makes it countries to adopt a Western model of development. Where Weber had sur-
possible for him to import the Kantian dualism of values and facts into systems veyed the fbrmation of modernity with deep forebodings, Parsons now sug-
functionalism'.5s Had Parsons, like Weber before him, thematized the impos- gested we sit back and enjoy the ride.
sibility of rationally justitying ultimate values, he might have off-ered a very
different perspective on societies, one which highlighted their dependence on
rationally indefensible clusters of values. 10.3 Despairing critique: the Frankfurt School
As it is, Parsons' account of social evolution concentrates on portraying
modern Western societies as the culmination of a historical process which he Parsonian sociology enjoyed an enormous international influence during the
regards as essentially beneficent. His conception o1'differentiation implies that 1950s zrnd 1960s. Alvin Gouldner wrote at the end of the latter decade: 'More
the drift of development is in the direction of the 'Universalistic-Achieventent than any other academic sociologist of any nationality, Parsons is a world fig-
Pattern' which already in The Social System he claims to be characteristic of ure.'5e No doubt his status was to some extent a consequence of the new-found
industrial societies, especially the US. As for the rest, '[i]nsofar as an action position of the US as the leading power in the international state system. More-
system is highly primitive . . . it will be highly undffirentiated at the social. over, fiom mid-century onwards, the vast and wealthy American university
cultural, and personality levels'.56 We need not fear the movement away frorn .system began to exert a growing gravitational pull on Western intellectual life
primitive diffuseness. Weber exaggerated the dangers of rationalization: 'thc (though, paradoxically, this has often taken the form of the promotion of im-
main trend is not actually towards increased bureaucracy . . . but rather towards ported theories). In any case, Parsons' basically optimistic view of the traject-
associationism'. Modern liberal democracies have highly pluralistic structures ory taken by modernity could claim support from the actual experience of
which impede the illegitimate concentration of power. Meanwhile: 'The mairr societies which were experiencing unprecedented prosperity ancl stability.
direction of modern societal development is towards an essentially new patterrr This does not mean that structural functionalism ever went unchallenged.
of stratification.' No longer can inequalities be justified on the basis of ascribetl 'l'here were dissenters even within American sociology. Thus from
a meth-
status. For 'the new egalitarianism' inequalities are legimitate only when'funt' oclological point of view, Robert K. Merton sought to specify and thereby to
tional to the society conceived as a system'. Furthermore, this 'trend towartls rcin in the ambitions of functional analysis; he also argued that what he called
modernization has now become worldwide'.s7 'tlteories of the middle range' theories, that is, constructed to guide empirical
-
Parsons' functionalist sociolo-ey is reminiscent of the great theological sys t'cseatrclr - were more likely than Parsonian grand theory to produce results.60
tem constructed by St Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. Aquinas tle ('. Wright Mills. a Texan prairie rebel who identilied strongly with American
veloped subtle distinctions and sometimes illuminating arguments in ordcr lo rirtlical nrovelr)ents such as the Populists and the Wobblies, poured scorn on
defend a core of Christian doctrine which included dogrnas such as that ot' tlrt' l'rtrstrtts' opaque verbiage in Tlrc Soc'iologit:ul lrnuginutiotl (19-59), ancl waged
5i Parsons. StrtLc'ture.l, p. 3.
s'+ Gouldr.rer, Coming Crr.ris, p. 3-57. S. l'. Slrrltgt'. 77i,' Ilrr'rttir': rtf llrlt rtil l)(u'\.())t\. (l.otrrlorr. l()li l). 1t1t. lll l.
55 J. Habermas . The Thaort' of'Communit'utit,t, At'tiott.II (Canrbriilge . l9tl7 ). p. 22(r.
' (irrrrlrlrtr't,('t)utint: ( ririr.
l) l(rS
ir'; Parsons. Sor'iclir,r, p. 33. li K.l\lt'r1ott. 11,,,,,,,'.l ,rrrrll,rl(rrl luur'lr(lr\.ill(l sotiolor'rr'ltl llrt'olit'sol llrt'l\,litltllt'lilrrrle'.
'1 Pllrsons,,\\'.r'/r'rrr. pp. ll6. ll(). ll7. ln trl ..\rtr trtl llt, t't\ tilt,l \,', t,tl ',ttIt tntt tNr.tt \ oll. lr)(rSt

hI l
246 The Golden Age The Golden Age 247

relentless war in books such as The Power Elite ( 1956) on what he regarded as lay in its cultural superstructure.'64 This preoccupation with cultural questions
the inequality and alienation endemic in US society. is related to the Institute's receptiveness to psychoanalysis and its various
But the most systematic critique of the apparently pacified and contented attempts to integrate the thought of Marx and Freud. Others during the inter-
Western societies during the Long Boom came from elsewhere. The Frank- war years were similarly minded - for example (in very different ways),
furt School is the collective name given to a group of German intellectuals Trotsky, Wilhelm Reich, and Andr6 Breton - but the Frankfurt School repre-
who sought to continue Marxist theory in an idiosyncratic form and in unfav- sented the first attempt systematically to hitch together the apparently very
ourable conditions. It originated in the Institute for Social Research set up at different conceptual structures of historical materialism and psychoanalysis.
Frankfurt University in 1923. The finance came (as it was to do for many Horkheimer's assumption of leadership also marked a change in the Insti-
years) from Felix Weil, the son of a wealthy grain merchant. Weil later de- tute's relationship with the workers' movement. Hitherto, the Institute had
scribed himself as having been a 'salon Bolshevik' in the early 1920s; the been in a very loose sense a fellow-traveller of the international Communist
establishment of the Institute reflected the influence of different variants of movement. Many of its staff were members of the KPD or of dissident Com-
Marxism - the rival orthodoxies of the Social Democratic and Communist munist groups. Some were activists: in l93l Wittfbgel abandoned his studies
Parties and the heresies of Hegelian Marxism - on a substantial section of the to throw himself into political work aimed at preventing the Nazis coming to
Weimar intelligentsia. The flrst director of the Institute was the Austrian econ- power. Horkheimer shared these pro-Moscow political sympathies, at least till
omist and historian Carl Grünburg. At the opening ceremony in June 1924he the late 1930s. In 1930 he called 'events in Russia . . . a continuation of the
expressed a commitment to an optimistic Kautskyan determinism, declaring agonizing attempt to overcome horrifying injustices'.6s But he nevertheless
himself to be among those who were 'firmly, scientifically convinced that the sought systematically to distance the Institute from any association with the
emerging order will be a socialist one, that we are in the midst of a transition organized left and to present it as a purely academic enterprise. The very name
from capitalism to socialism and are advancing toward the latter with gather- 'Marxism' was bowdlerized as 'Critical Theory'.
ing speed'.6r This relocation of Marxism into the academy represented a major shift.
Under Grünberg's directorship, the Institute pursued research of a broadly Hitherto leading Marxist intellectuals had typically worked for the political
orthodox Marxist character. Its staff included the economist Henryk Grossman, movement: this was true, for example, of Kautsky, Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky,
the author of an important work on crisis theory, and the Orientalist Karl Lukäcs, and Gramsci. This was partly a function of the universities' discrimi-
Wittfogel, in the 1920s and early 1930s an active member of the German Com- nation against the left (thus Robert Michels, while a Marxist, was unable to
munist Party (KPD). The Institute's character changed radically after Grünberg obtain an academic position in Germany), but, more fundamentally, it reflected
was incapacitated by a stroke, and replaced as director in 1930 by Max Marx's rejection of a contemplative conception of theory divorced from politi-
Horkheimer.62 The change occurred along two dimensions. cal practice. Perry Anderson sees Horkheimer's attempt to give the Institute
ln the first place, Horkheimer, as a philosopher, intellectually reoriented the an essentially academic identity as symptomatic of a more universal process,
Institute. In his inaugural lecture in January 1931, he proposed a programme of the emergence of a 'Western Marxism' divorced fiom the workingclass move-
collective research directed at specilic social groups, particularly the working ment and dominated by academic philosophers: After the Second World
class, that could elucidate the problem of the relationship between reason and War . . . Marxist theory had migrated virtually completely into the universities
history. This would be 'a dictatorship of planned work in place of the mere - precincts at once of refuge and of exile fiom the political struggles in the
juxtaposition of philosophical construction and empirical research in social world outside.'66
enquiry'.63 Martin Jay observes: 'If it can be said that in the early years of its Anderson stresses the importance of the political context in this develop-
history the Institut concerned itself primarily with the analysis of bourgeois rnent: 'The hidden hallmark of Western Marxism is thus that it is a product of
society's socio-economic substructure, in the years after 1930 its prime interest tlc.feot.'6t The isolation of the Russian Revolution made possible the transforma-
tion of Bolshevism into Stalinism. By the late 1920s, Marxism could no longer
6r Quoted in R. Wiggershaus, The Fronkfurt School (Cambridge, Mass., 1994)' pp. l3' 25.
bc pursued in the Soviet Union as critical intellectual enquiry but had been
6r Max Horkheimer (1895-1973): born in Stuttgart, son of a rich Jewish tcxtile tltrtl.tttlitcttttt't . transfilrmed into the state ideology of 'Marxism-Leninism'. Meanwhile,
studied philosophy at Frankfurt University; Professor of Social Philosophy. Franklirrl []rrive rsitr,. r'I M..lrry. 'l ltt, l)itrl,'r'ti,'ttl lttrrt.qitttrlir»t (l-ondon. 1973). p. 21.
1930-31 restored to his chair in 1949 Rector of Frankfurt University, lt)5 | 3; llicr rctirirrg irr l()5t)
(-)rrolt'tl i rr W ilr,,'r slt;rtts. lt t, u r l, I rr t t,\r' I tt tt tl, ;t. 63.
rnrlvetl to Switzerland. ttt l'. Alttlt'tsotr.
6-r M. Horkheirner,lJctwaen Philosoph.t,und ,\ot'ittl ,\t'it'trr't'. ctl. (i. ('r tu\trlr trtttr'n\ t'n llt'\lt'ttt lltttt.ti.t'ttt 1Lottrlott. l()7(r), 1lP. 5() (r0.
Ir. Iltrrrtcr'(('ttrtrlrritltlt'. M:tss
p. I I llrrtl . ;r ,1.'
It)9.5 ). .

I]
248 The Golden Age The Gotden Age 249

the 1930s were marked by a series of stunning defeats for the European left: the now firmly established in conservative West Germany as a notable of Frankfurt
Nazi seizure of power in 1933: the destruction of the Austrian workers' move- University, Horkheimer stopped Adorno (who, although much cleverer, always
ment in 1934; and Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War (1936-9)' These def-erred to him) from supervising Jürgen Habermas's research into what be-
events represented for the members of the Institute more than a demoralizing came The Structural Transformation o.f the Public Sphere because he thought
experience. All of them were Jews: the triumph of fascism therefore constituted the latter was too left-wing.
for them the most deadly of threats. They were fbrced to flee into exile. Fear and exile are not necessarily obstacles to creativity. The timorous Hobbes,
Horkheimer moved in May 1934 to New York, where he re-established the faced with the English Revolution of the 1640s, fled to France, and produced a
Institute in loose association with Columbia University. masterpiece, Leviathan. The intellectual achievement of the Frankfurt School
In Horkheimer's case the natural fear engendered by the victories of the during the 1930s and 1940s was formidable. I concentrate here on a few lead-
Nazis and their allies took an almost pathological form. Soon after his arrival in ing themes. The theoretical starting-point for the Institute under Horkheimer's
New York, he wrote: 'things are much worse here than I had thought. We must leadership was provided by Lukdcs's Historv and Cltts,s Consciousness (see
expect rapid developments in the aggravation of the economic situation. Pre- §9.1 above). The central essay, 'Reification and the Consciousness of the Pro-
cisely on that account I'cl like to get to know Canada.'68 After the outbreak of letariat', demonstrated that it was possible for Marxist philosophy to be con-
the Second World War, he moved to Los Angeles, even further tiorn the scene ducted at as great a level of sophistication as that of mainstream philosophy. It
of the European drama. Rolf Wiggershaus, in his monurlental history of the also offered a new analytical strategy, in which bourgeois society was con-
Frankfurt School, has documented Horkeirner's obsession with conserving ceived as a totality unified by the structure of reification: every aspect of social
Weil's dwindling capital in order to allow hirn to continue his researches in lif'e reflected the comrnodity f'etishism arising from, at tl-re core of the capitalist
comfort and safety. mode of production, the tran.sformation of the worker into a marketable object.
After an exploratory trip to the West Coast, Horkheimer wrote: 'On the whole Lukäcs was forced to abjure this strategy in order to remain a member of the
journey I kept seeing it come up in fiont of my eyes: "Money is the best protec- Communist movement. He told Adorno when they met in Vienna in 1925'that
[icln, tnoney is the best protection, money is. . ."'6e This obsession led him con- in his conflict with the Third International his opponents are right, but that
tinually to rnanipulate the other members of the Institute, all exiles dependent concretely and dialectically his own absolute approach to dialectics was neces-
on his Iinancial patronage and eager to enjoy the unique intellectual environ- sary'.7r But how to pursue this project of 'absolute dialectics' which so fascin-
ment he off'ered. Some were kept on low salaries or dropped; others were thc ated left-wing Weimar intellectuals like Adorno and Benjamin?7r Doing so
victims of a strategy of divide-and-rule. Horkheimer, fbr example, continually posed two particular problems for the Frankfurt School.
played Adorno and Marcuse off against each other. helping to create lasting In the first place, for Lukäcs the unity of the social totality depended on the
enmities.T0 This pathological timidity long outlasted its cause: in the late 1950s. role of the proletariat as the identical subject-object of history. But the idea,
central to classical Marxism, that the working class is the agent of social eman-
(,r( Letter to Pollock. 27 May 1934, tluoteclin Wigeershaus. FrarrÄfilrr Scfurctl. p. 143'
cipation is quite absent from the thought of the Frankfurt School. Summarizing
6e Horkheimer's position in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Wiggershaus writes:
Letter to Lowenthal, 25 July 1940, quoted ibid.. p. 2-50.
70 Theodor Wiesengruncl-Aclorno 1 I90-3-69 ): born in Frankf urt. sttn of it Jewish 'nvine-nterchanl all(l ir
Catholic opera sinuer (he later adopted his nlother's surname' Adorno): studied at Frirnkfurt Universitr What was Iacking in Horkheimer was the audacious theoretical construction pro-
pursr,red musical stutlies with Atban Berg and Eduarcl Steuermann in Vienna (where he was also pa|t t'l duced by Marx and Lukäcs. and their view that the proletarian class was driven
Schocnberg's circle), 1925-8; appointed Extraordinary Prot-essor of Philosophy, Franktirrt Urtive rsitt by the development of history to hecome a class for itself', and to continue, with
193 I : atier the Nazi seizure ol pou,er obtainecl a research sttrdentship at Merton College Ortbrd. thlrnk'' self-conlidence and under its own leaclership, what it was already dt>ing in an
tothegoocl otficesof Keynes.afriendof histitther's:t'ttovecl toNewYork, 1938: onlynttwfilt'tttllll'rr alienated form - that is, carrying out the reproduction of society. Horkheimer's
ntemberof thelnstitute;returnedtoFrankturt. l9rl9: onl)rappointedtoafull prot-essorshipot'llltiL''
ophy,andsociologvin lg5TafterbitterresistancefromcottservativeacatlemicsrvasovercolnLl.
(lr,'
Herbert Marcusc. ( ltt98-1979): born in Berlin, sort 01'a Jewish buildel and arcltitec(; activc irr 'l Aclorno to Kracauer. l7 June 1925, quoted in Wiggershaus, FrankJitrt St'hool, p.76.
Soldiers'Cguncils in Berlin duriug t[e lt)18 Revplution; stucliecl phi)osophy at Bc-rlirl rttlcl I;r't'ilrrrr" " Wrrltcr Bcnjlrtrirr (l,l9l 1940); born in Berlin, son of a rvealthy Jewish art-dcaler; str"rdied at
universities:afterreacling Beingrud Tilre returnedtoFreiburgin l929tostudyr,rnderllcitlcsst't rttt,l l;r't'ihrrrg. Ilcrlirr. Mrrrtit'lt. rrttrl Ilcrtr universities. l9l2 20: active in youth nrovementt his
Husserl; lefr Gerrnany,, Dcceurtrer 1932. joinctt Institute in lc)33: nloved to US in l9-l l: rtl1,.'r lr,'irrI lltrltilittrtit,tr.t.trlrrtlt (ir lx)\l tlor'l.r':rl tlrcsisrcr;trircrl totlrrirlilyirsitrrrrivcrsitvtcachcrinGcrrtrany)
gratJually sc;ueezer.l oLrt ol'thc Irrslitutc h_r, Ilorkhcinrcrtttttl Atl<trntl. wtlt'kctl lirrlltc Ollicr'lirI Slr;rl rr,;ts tt'it'r'lt'rl lrl,llrr'l,lrrl,,.,,,l,lrr l;rr rtlly ol li':rrtklirll Urrivr'r'sil1,; livr'rl lrs tr utilt'r'iuttl llrttslltlor.
cgicSttrdics(l)rccgl's()rol ('lA), l9ll 5():tlitl n(|(r'clrrr)(o(icrrturtt\ltl'(t't(lrt'urtt.(ltttflt( rt( llt;rtttl'r. ;rllr'r l()l\ rrrorr'rl l, l',rrr', ulr,'r,'lr,'lx'(;rr(';rn:rssoti;rlt'ol llrc Irtslilttlt': r'ottttltillcrl sttit'itlc lrt
Ilrrirersit\, l()5I ()5: lr.rrrp,rl;111 ,ll)t)r)t1t1t(.trt\;rl tlrt'tlrritetsitt'ol ('ttlilorttr;t S.tll l)it'r'o. l()()\ /(i l\rt llrott lr S('|lrtrl'( t l(l lll rr ltrl, lt\ rttt' l(, llt't' ltrrltt Vrt ltf' l'tittt( (' l(t S;xrirr.
ilrlil
I

250 The Golden Age The Golden Age 251

emphasis was on establishing that those living in rnisery had a right to material lations or configurations. These constellations operate like montage in film or
egoism and that it was not base to think that 'the improvement of material exist- like Cubist collages - they are apparently random combinations of images which
l
ence by a more useful rcstructuring of conditions' was 'the most important thing somehow manage to evoke an idea that is not present in experience. This
in the world' . . . It was as if an awareness of the finiteness and transitoriness of idiosyncratic conception of nrethod reflects Benjamin's peculiar synthesis of
human existence was being given a historical-materialist backbone.Tl
neo-Kantian philosophy, Jewish messianic thought, and avant-garde Modern-
ism. From the late 1920s onwards, he mobilizes this method in an effbrt, in-
r1
This position implied a commitrrent to the method of Lukäcian Marxism. spired by Historv and Class Consciousness, to arrive at an understanding of
but not to the conception of proletarian self-emancipation which Lukäcs had bourgeois society at its apogee. [n the Passctgen-Werk, Benjamin's unfinished
inherited fiom the classical tradition. During the last days of Weimar, the Insti- study of Paris under the Second Ernpire ( 185 l-70), he orchestrates a vast col-
I
tute conducted a study of working-class attitudes, from which it concluded that,
l lection of facts and observations. The thoroughly commodified society they
as Jay puts it, 'the German working class would be far less resistant to a right-
portray is permeated with images of a mythologized past which represent what
wing seizure of power than its rnilitant ideology would suggest'.'* In a key Susan Buck-Morss calls 'areenchantment of the social world'.77 These 'dialec-
essay, 'Traditior"ral and Critical Theory' (1931), Horkheimer contrasts what tical images' are ambiguous: they serve both to legitimize existing society, and
remains a relatively conventional conception of the Marxist method to 'trad- to evoke memories of the prirnitive communism of prehistoric hurnankind. In
itional theory'. which reflects the intellectual fragmentation caused by the their latter aspect they can have a revolutionary potential.
division of labour. Yet he denies that 'critical theory' can, as Lukäcs argued, Adorno was in many ways strongly attracted towards what Habermas calls
lll simply articulate worki ng-class consci ousness :
Benjamin's method of 'redemptive critique'. He believed, as he argued in his
major philosophical work, Negative Dialectics ( 1966), that the German idealist
Even the situirtion of the proletariat is, in this society, no guarantee of correct
tradition, culminating in Hegel, had systernatically denied any validity to what
knowledge. The proletariat may indeed have experience of meaninglessness itl
he called the non-identical - the individual, the particular, the material, the
:iI the forrn of continuing and increasing wretcheclness and injustice in its own life.
L
Yet this awareness is prevented fiom becoming a social force by the dif'fbrentia- empirical. Everything is instead reduced to the product of absolute, self-
tion of the social structure which is still imposed on the proletariat from above constituting subjectivity. One can see how Lukäcs's concept of the identical
1li and by the opp<tsition between personal Iand] class interests which is transcended subject-object would seem to Adorno a continuation of this tradition rather
only at very special moments. Even to the prolelariat the world superficially seems than a break from it. Benjamin's 'micrological' approach, his preoccupation
i quite different than it really is.75 with tiny details. offered an alternative model for the relationship between
thought and its content, one that did not simply efface that content by making it
This demotion of the working class fiom the position assigned it by Lukäcs an exemplification of the conceptual, but allowed it its freedom. By construct-
tl gave rise to a second problem. The cornprehension of society as a totality de- ing constellations one could simultaneously demonstrate the antagonistic char-
pencis in Historl, oncl Clttss Cortsciousne.§s on the role of the proletariat as thc acter of the existing social world and evoke a genuinely reconciled condition
identical subject-object. In the absence of this absolute subject, can critical which might come about in the future.
theory still aspire to totalize? As early as his 1931 inaugural lecture Adorntr Adorno was, however, highly critical of Benjamin's use of dialectical irn-
renounced any such totalizing arnbition: 'The mind is indeed not capable ol ages in the drafts for the Passagen-Werk, and particularly of his tendency to
producing or grasping the totality of the real, but it may be possible to penetratc .iuxtapose cultural and economic phenomena. Adorno objects that it is 'meth-
the detail, to explode in miniature the mass of merely existing reality.'76 odologically unfortunate to give conspicuous individual features from the realm
This view reflects the influence on Adorno of Benjamin's The Origitt rt.l of the superstructure a "materialistic" turn by relating them immediately and
German Tragic Dramu (1928). Here (grossly to oversirnplify) Benjamin ar' perhaps even causally to corresponding features of the superstructure. Materi-
gues that in an unredeemed, inherently fragnrented world, knowledge consis(s alist determination of cultural traits is only possible if it is mediated through the
in the cronceptual organization of empirical phenomena into specific colrslt:l totul .socinl proc'e,ss.'78 Benjamin's 'theological' method can thus collapse into
vLrlgar rnaterialisrtr. T«r ward off this danger, Adomo invokes the Lukacian
7r Wiggershaus. Fronklilrt School. p.51.
" Jay, Diulet'ti«l Imug,irttttittn. p. I 17. " S. llrrt'k l\1or sr. llt,' l)r,tl,', trr't ttl ,\t'r'itr.g 1('lrrtthritlgt'Mlrss., l()l{9), p. 2-53.
'l'ltt't,rt'(Ncw York. l()72 ). P1l. I I r ll. '" Lt'llr'tlolltttl:tttrtrr lONor l()lS.rrtl'. Illrxlrt'( lrl..,'1r'r//tr'tittrtrttl l'.1i1i1 .1 (l.,lttl.lt.
" M. Horkltcirrrcr'. ('t'itittrl l()77). 11

/'' '1 . W. Arlorrro. "l'lrc Aclrrlrlily ol l'ltilosoPlt-t,'.7r'lrrr. ll tl()//). l) I i I l.,r)

ki
252 The Golden Age The Golden Age 253

concepts of totality and mediation. He is able to do so despite his rejection of L942, Horkheimer argues that the 'authoritarian state', whether Stalinist or fas-
the 'identitarian' tradition of German idealism because he believes that the cist, is a form of state capitalism, in which what Marx called the anarchy of the
effect of commodity fetishism is precisely to transform society into a totality. market is overcome, but on a basis that perpetuates exploitation. Any future
Thus he writes: 'Even in the theory of the conceptual mediation of all being, social revolution will be 'not a further acceleration of progress, but a qualit-
Hegel envisaged something decisive in real terms . . . The act of exchange ative leap out of the dimension of progress', for '[a]s long as world history
implies the reduction of the products to be exchanged to their equivalents, to follows its logical course, it fails to fullil its human destiny.'83 ln the absence of
something abstract.'7e The suffocating self-identity of the Absolute Idea thus even Benjamin's theory of dialectical images, revolution no longer has any
corresponds to the way in which the exchange of commodities transforms the social anchorage, and is thus reduced to a mere hope.
concrete activities engaged in by human producers into mere quantities of ab- This despairing outlook was reinforced by the move to Los Angeles. The
stract social labour. Idealism thus has a certain historical truth which permits Frankfurt School found themselves part of the community of exiled German
the use of Marxist theory to provide a totalizing view of society. intellectuals who took refuge in the city. Horkheimer, living in Pacific Palis-
This is, to say the least, a position that contains within it substantial tensions. ades, had the novelists Thomas Mann and Leon Feuchtwanger among his neigh-
These become clear with the later development of the Frankfuft School. The bours. There is something ineffably comic in the thought of such immensely
outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 and the Nazi conquest refined products of the extraordinarily sophisticated intellectual culture of early
of western Europe the following summer proved a turning-point. This catas- twentieth-century Mitteleuropa coming to rest in southern California, the home
trophe was all the greater because it was preceded by the Hitler-Stalin non- of Hollywood, capital of what Horkheimer and Adorno were soon to call the
aggression pact: the USSR's betrayal of the anti-fascist movement had a 'culture industry'. They experienced Los Angeles as a nightmare of banal con-
devastating effect on the international left. It was in this context that Benjamin sumerism. Mike Davis acerbically comments:
wrote his 'Theses on the Philosophy of History' in which he depicts 'the angel
of history' staring aghast at 'the one single catastrophe' that is the past, while 'a Exhibiting no interest in the wartime turmoil in the local aircraft plants nor in-
storm . . . . from Paradise' blows him willy-nilly into the future. 'This storm is clined to appreciate the vigorous nightlif-e of Los Angeles's Central Avenue ghetto,
what we call progre"".'80 Horkheimer and Adorno focused instead on the little single-family boxes that
The 'Theses' are a powerful critique of the idea of historical progress, and in seemed to absorb the world-historic mission of the proletariat into family-centred

particular of the complacent determinism shared by both Communist and So- consumerism under the direction of radio jingles and magazine ads.8a
cial Democratic Parties in the face of fascism. Benjamin himself, even though
he was soon to fall victim to Hitler's Blitz.krieg, did not abandon his own pecu-
Dialectic of Enlightenment (1941), the collaborative work that was the main
liar version of revolutionary socialism. Thus in the prepatory materials for the intellectual fruit of these years in California, and companion texts, radicalize
'Theses', he wrote: 'Three moments must be made to penetrate the foundations the earlier Frankfurt School analysis in two fundamental respects. First of all,
of the materialist view of history: the discontinuity of historical time; the de- Horkheirner and Adorno argue that the tendency, characteristic of authoritarian
states, to absorb the individual into the social is also present in liberal bourgeois
structive power of the working class; the tradition of the oppressed.'8r In thc
'Theses' he conceives revolution as a sudden irruption into the 'homogeneous, societies. The individual subject of nineteenth-century competitive capitalism
rro longer exists. 'Late capitalism' has broken it open, and subordinated its con-
empty time' of bourgeois society, 'a tiger's leap into the past', in which the
memories both of past exploitation and of primitive communism are activatecl scious and unconscious mental life directly to the impersonal rhythms of mass
grroduction and consumption. This claim is most fully developed in Horkheimer's
to demolish the existing order.82
For the core of the Frankfurt School, however, the catastrophe of 1939-40 lrnd Adorno's analysis of the 'culture industry' - an oxymoronic expression
linally marked the moment, from their American vantage-point, to say farc lkrm the standpoint of German intellectual tradition which symbolizes the way
well, for the foreseeable future, to the prospect of socialist transformation. lrr in which the creation of meaning has become, in the modern mass media, an
irrdustrial process. 'In the culture industry the individual is an illusion not merely
an essay originally published in a private memorial volume for Benjamin irr
h1:gi111ss of the standardization of the means of production. He is tolerated only
'7e so long as his cornplete iclcntification with the generality is unquestioned.' This
T. W. Adorno, 'Sociology and Empirical Research', in Adorno et. al., Thc l'ositit,i,sttt l)i.:ltrrtr'
in German Sociology (London, 1976), p. 80.
Ito W. Benjamin,Illumination.r (London, 1970), p.260. " M. l lolklrr.ilrrt'r. ''l lrt' Arrtlror rtru lrrt Stlrtc'. irr A. Arlrlo lrrrtl Ii. (it'hltttrtl, ctls, 77rc Iirtrttklitrt
8r Quoted in R. Wolin, Wulter Ben.jurnin: Atr Ac.stltclit ol ll«ltttrlttiorr (Ncw Yolk, l()liJ). p. .)(rl .\', lt,,r,l lir'tt,l,'t (()rlot(1. l()/)it. IP lllI.Il1
r{r Beniarnin, lllumitrutionr, p. 263. ''' l\1 .l);rvi.,. ( tt\ ttl (.)rr,trt ll ottrlltt l()(X)t |r .lS
,tl

254 The Golden Age The Golden Age zls


process goes much deeper than the mere concession of improved material con- neutral in regard to ends; its element is co-ordination.'8e This is plainly Weber's
ditions to the working class: 'The unleashed colossi of the manufacturing in- instrumental rationality, which serves the selection of efflcacious means but is
dustries did not overcome the individual by granting him full satisfaction but unable to determine the values guiding the ends of action. His pessimistic view
by eliminating his character as a subject.'8s of the course of Western history stemmed largely from his belief that the pro-
The abolition of the individual subject is paradoxically the outcome of a cess of rationalization which is that history's inner meaning involves the in-
process which involves the systematic subordination of nature to humankind. eluctable triumph of instrumental rarionality (see s§.7.2 and I .3 above).
This is the second great theme of Dialectic of Enlightenment. Exploitation, class Horkheimer and Adorno often express views that seem little different. The
struggle, and crisis, the features of capitalist society on which Marxist critique assertion, for example, that '[r]eification is a process that can be traced back to
has traditionally focused, pit human beings against each other. But the funda- the beginning of organized society and the use of tools', reverses Lukäcs's at-
mental contradiction is not that between classes, but that between humankind tempt in History and Class Consciousness to represent rationalization as a
and nature. Here we must confront the contradictory character of enlighten- historically speci{ic feature of capitalism that socialist revolution would
ment itself. 'Enlightenment is as totalitarian as any system.' It seeks systemat- remove.e0 As Habermas observes, 'Horkheimer and Adorno anchor the mecha-
ically to know and to control nature. This implies the destruction of nature as an nism that produces the reification of consciousness in the anthropological foun-
order of being of which human beings are merely one aspect. Thus in the sub- dations of the history of the species, in the form of the existence of a species
jective conception of reason characteristic of modern Western thought, '[a]ll that has to reproduce itself through labour.'er Labour, for Marx the central ac-
the power of nature was reduced to mere indiscriminate resistance to the ab- tivity through which humans realize themselves, is thus the inevitable cause of
stract power of the subject.'86 Classical German idealism expresses a hatred of domination. A few months before his death, Adorno told Martin Jay that 'Marx
nature in its effort to eliminate anything outside the absolute subject: 'The sys- wanted to turn the whole world into a giant workhouse.'e2
Horkheimer and Adorno do indeed sometimes counterpose 'subjective
i

tem is the belly turned mind, and rage is the mark of each and every idealism.'87
Enlightenment justifies itself by claiming that it is a liberating force; the spread reason', 'the ability to calculate probabilities and thereby to co-ordinate the
of scientific knowledge breaks the hold of myth on humankind. But in fact it right means with the right end', to 'objective reason', which is concerned with
erects a 'second nature', the fetishized social world of capitalism which es- 'a comprehensive system, or hierarchy, of all beings, including man and his
capes from human control or comprehension. Thus: 'The more the machinery aims'.e3 Ob.jective reason would thus determine the ends as well as the means of
of thought subjects existence to itself, the more blind its resignation in repro- action. But Horkheimer and Adorno offer nothing like a systematic account of
ducing existence. Hence enlightenment returns to mythology, which it nevcr' this conception of rationality. While they were working on Dialectic of En-
{,
really knew how to elude.' Consequently, '[c]ivilization is the victory of soci- I ightenmenl, Adorno admitted:
I

I
ety over nature which changes everything into pure nature.' Fascism is nol
i simply the negation of enlightenment, but the price it pays for having sought It often seems as though we were prof'essing objective reason 'dogmatically' to a
:

to efface nature. Desires and drives which the subject is unable to acknowledge certain extent, having previously determined that subjective reason is inelucta-
i'.
l{ ble. In reality, two things must be made clear: first, that there is no positive 'solu-
:* as its own burst out in the barbaric destruction of the other. 'Fascism is also
tion' in the sense of providing a philosophy which could simply be contrasted to
totalitarian in that it seeks to make the rebellion of suppressed nature against
subjective reason; secondly, that the critique of subjective reason is only possible
domination directly useful to domination.'88 on a dialectical basis, i.e. by demonstrating the contradictions in its own course of
There seems to be little space fbr resistance, let alone revolution, in the air' development and transcending it through its own determinate negation.ea
less world of what Horkheimer and Adorno increasingly call the 'totally atl

ministered society'. The problem goes deeper than politics, however. From whrrt In the absence of a'positive "solution"', critical theory in fact became the
ll
vantage-point is critical theory able to conduct its interpretation of world his Itl'rstract negation of the present. For Adorno, dialectics could no longer take the
[,
:

tory as the triumph of myth masked as enlightenment? Rationality is dccplr


ffi
HI
implicated in this process: 'Reason is the organ of calculation, of planning: it r.'
-ig
& )r'') lhitl.. p. 13tl.
F ''r M Ilrrrkhcirrrcr'. /:i/i7r.r'r,ttf llttt.sorr, (Ncw Y«rrk. 1941 ).p.41.
''' .1. I lrtlrt'lltl:ts. 'l'lrr' I lt, ,tt t of ('ontnnutit trtivt Ar'tiotr, I (l.o1tlorr.
I

85 M. Horkheimer and T. W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment (London, | 97-1 ). pp. I 5.[. .'}o , I()1t,1 ), p. 379.
86 Ibid., pp. 24,90. '' .l;ry. l)ittlt't tit ttl lrrt,r.r'irr,rtr,trr.lt \-1.
n7 T. W. Adorno, Negutive Diulcctit',s ([-onclort, 1973).1't.23. ')r llrrt[r111';1s11';. I , lr1't, 1tl lir'rrtr,rr.
|lll .lO..l.5.
r{t ''r I r.llr'r lo I.sr.rrtlr.rl. I lrrlrr. l,)l', ,lrr,rlt.rl
H«rrkhcinrcr itrtrl Atkrrno. l)ittlct'lit'. 1't1't.27. ltt6. llt5. rrr \\'rllt.rslr;rrr.,. /,r.tutLfttt.t,\'r.ltt,r,l. P. Il.)

h, i
256 The Golden Age The Golden Age 257

form that it had in Marx, of identifying the tendencies inherent in the existing was privately syrnpathetic, but afiaid of the conservative backlash that public
order that are leading to its transformation. Since these tendencies have been support might attract against the Institute (it happened anyway). Marcuse wel-
destroyed or absorbed in late capitalism, dialectics could only be negative, 'the comed the students with open arms. He told Adorno: 'We cannot ignore the
consistent sense of nonidentity', whose task was to show 'the untruth of iden- fact that these students have been influenced by us (and not least by you) . . .
tity, the fact that the concept does not exhaust the thing conceived'.es Intima- this situation is so horrible, so suffocating and humiliating, that rebellion against
tions of an emancipated society could only come indirectly, Adorno argued, it forces you into a biological, physiological reaction: you can no longer bear it,
through philosophical reflection on the most austere forms of Modern art: the you're suffocating and you have to get out.'e7
plays of Beckett and the music of Schoenberg, in their formal, fractured struc- The Frankfurt School indeed offered an explanation of this sense of suffbc-
tures, were both a reproach to the suffering secreted within the totally adminis- ation, by portraying the enclosure of human potential within the narrow, all-
tered society, and an allusion to a redeemed social existence beyond its limits encompassing structures of late capitalism. But it was too good an explanation,
where humankind and nature could finally be reconciled. since it offered no escape, either theoretical or practical, from these structures.
Not all the members of the Frankturt School drew such gloomy conclusions. Moreover, as Habermas observes of Dialectic of Enligttenment,'this descrip-
i Though Marcuse's best-known book, One-Dimensional Man (1964), was es- tion of the self-destruction of the critical capacity is paradoxical, because in the
sentially apopularizationof Dialectic of Enlightenment, as Habermas says, there moment of description it still has to make use of the critique that has been
is 'an atlirmative feature of Herbert Marcuse's negative thinking'.e6 The chief declared dead. It denounces the Enlightenment's becoming totalitarian with
influences on him were Lukäcs and Heidegger. From both he took the idea of its own tools.'e8In struggling with what Habermas calls 'this performative con-
an integration of subject and object - something which, as we have seen, both tradiction' Adorno and Horkheimer anticipated one of the main dilernmas of
Adomo and Horkheimer emphatically rejected. In his early writings on Hegel social theory at the end of the twentieth century.
and Marx, Marcuse saw life as the force unifying subject and object. This theme
recurs in his most original work, Eros and Civiliz.ation (1955). Here he seeks to
reconcile Marx and Freud, arguing that in class society men and women are
subordinated to the'performance principle', which exacts from them a'sur-
plus-repression' that, like surplus labour, reflects the exigencies of exploitation
rather than the minimal repression and sublimation of desires without which
human survival would be impossible. Socialist revolution will thus be a liber-
ation of the instincts as well a social and political emancipation. Recalling some
of the speculations of the Utopian socialists, Marcuse imagines an emancipated
society where the difference between work and play has been transcended, and
where nren and women could finally escape from the relentless drive to pro-
duce, and enjoy the easygoing existence evoked in popular conceptions of a
lost golden age.
Even though Marcuse was as sceptical as the rest of the Frankfurt School
about the revolutionary potential of the Western working class, his philosophy
of history made him highly receptive to the radical student movements which
developed in the United States and western Europe in the late 1960s. Horkheimer
and Adorno were, by contrast, highly embarrassed, especially when the youth-
ful revolutionaries invoked their own writings to justify their rebellion.
Horkheimer, who had by this time settled for Western liberal capitalisrn as the
best society on offer, was genuinely hostile to the student rnovement: Ad«lrno

(r5 Adorno,
Neg,utive Diule cti<.s. p. 5.
e6 J. Habcrrnus, 'Psychic Thcrrrrirkrr lrntl thc Ilebirtlr ol'I{cbclliotrs Srrbjcclivity'. irr l{. l)ippin t'l l.t'llt'r. \;\l,t l(,(rr). rlu,lr'rl rrr \\'rl'iir.lsllrus. lit.trtt/.lirt.l,\r.ltrntl.1lll. (rll .l
ltl., Mtrn'tr,st': ('ritirttl 'l'ltr'ttry trrttl tlrt'l'ntttri,st'ttl lltttltitr(Sotrllt Ilrrrllr'v. lVlrrss., l()lili l. P I I ll:rlrt'rrrr;r... /lt, l'ltrl,'1,'1'111,,t1 l)rtrrtut\t,t'l lllrtrlt.ttritt ((';rrrrlrrirllt., l()li/),;r I l()
I I
I

Crack-Up? 259

reordering of personal relationships that was highly ambiguous in its conse-


quences. The signilicance of the 1960s is that it represents the nromenf at

11 which the pressures for both socio-political and personal transformation came
to consciousness. Typically the trigger was provided by political issues. In the
United States, the racial oppression of African-Americans and moral outrage
at the Vietnam War together stimulated movements which sought, in however
Crack-Up? confused a way, social revolution, but within which all sorts of other demands
were raised - fbr example, for a more expressive and less instrumentally
rational culture, and for the liberation not merely of blacks, but of women,
lesbians and gays, and Native Americans.
While many of the same issues came up also in Western Europe, they did
so in a notably different context. Here the tension between authoritarian social
and political structures developed to govern predominantly peasant popula-
tions and societies that had been transformed by the spectacular growth-rates
11.1 The 1960s and after achieved by continental Europe tiom the late 1940s onwards produced a suc-
cession of major class confrontations. Student movements, like their American
The meaning of the 1960s is a matter o[ intense political and cultural debate. counterpart opposing the Vietnam War and demanding a liberated lifestyle,
It nevertheless seems undeniable that (whether or not one thinks it a good served as the detonator of mass strikes in France in May-June 1968 and in
thing) the decade repl'esented for the developed countries a profound shift in Italy in the 'hot autumn' of L969. The terminal crises of the dictatorships in
consciousness that has had long-term consequences. Eric Hobsbawm argues Portugal, Spain, and Greece in the rnid-1970s similarly unleashed large-scale
that the long boom of the 1950s and 1960s was responsible for 'the tnost dra- mobilizations of working classes whose power and nurnbers had been vastly
matic, rapid and profbund revolution in human affairs of which history has increased by rapid industriali zation.
the record'.r The crux of this transfbrrnation was the extension of the process The same pattern has been repeated elsewhere, as societies in the so-called
of capitalist industrialization, which had begun in Britain in the late eighteenth 'periphery' underwent crises reflecting their own transformation as a result of
century, to much larger portions of the globe; even the end of the boom in the accelerated capital accumulation. South Africa, for example, experienced its
early 1970s did not bring this process to a halt, as. for example, a cluster of equivalent of the 1960s during the 1980s, when the structures of apartheid
new capitalisnrs emerged in East Asia. Features of the original industrializa- finally cracked under the combined impact of the political rebellion of a black
tions in north-western Europe and the United States now became a global working class that had become too powerful simply to repress and of long-
experience - the decline of the peasantry, the movement to the cities, trans- term socio-economic trends that rnade many racial laws simply unenforceable.
continental flows of migrants. The intensive character of the industrialization For South Korea. the most important of the East Asian 'Tiger' economies, the
under way was, furthermore, indicated by several phenomena which were 1960s began in 1981, when a revolt by students and workers brought nearly
either novel or marked accelerations of earlier trends - the increasing incor- thirty years of military dictatorship to an end.
poration of women into the labour market, the extraordinary expansion ol' The political aspirations raised in the movements of the t960s were, fbr the
secondary and higher education, and a tendency for the commodification ol' rnost part, unrealized. At most, different forms of authoritarian capitalism
every aspect of social life. were replaced by closer approximations to the free-market version prevailing
The effect of these changes was to put increasing pressure on existing social in the US. Indeed for some commentators, for example, R6gis Debray, the
and political structures. The resulting conflicts involved a peculiar nrixture ol' inner meaning of May 1968 in France and its counterparts elsewhere is
changed lif'estyles and political movements. Most obviously, the dernand ol' reduced to this largely unintended consequence.2 This seems an unnecessarily
growing numbers of women for political, economic, and social equality witlr clcterrninist way of looking at such events, one that implies that their actual
men entailed both struggles for institutional refornt, and a ficrccly collleslc(l outcorrtc was thr' «lnly possible one. Nevertheless, the political radicalization

' lt l)t'lrt;t\. ,'\ \lrrrlr".l ('rtttltilrttlirttt lo lltc ltilcs lrrrrl ('ct'r'tttottir'\ ol'lltt"li'rrllr Attltivt't'sltt'y',
I lr. .1. Ilollshlrwnt, A,qr'r,l l'.'rltt'tttt'.t (l.otttlott, lt)t)'l), p lli(r. Nt'tr 1.,'lt /r'r'l /r'tt l/l l'r I l'l /rll

h
q'

260 Crack-Up? Crack-Up? 261

produced by the eruptions of the 1960s was followed in Western Europe and cially because it sought to liberate this tradition from its confining association
North America - above all in Britain and the US - by a reaction which was with the official Communist parties aligned to Moscow. This involved the
marked by a series of serious defeats for organized labour and by the revival systematic scrutiny of the entire corpus of Marx's own writings, including
of the laissez-.faire economic policies which Keynes had so scornfully demo- those texts (for example, the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844)
lished in the inter-war years. which Communist orthodoxy found unpalatable; the rediscovery of earlier,
These political reversals did not prevent Hobsbawm's 'social revolution' heretical currents of thought - for example, the Hegelian Marxism of the
from continuing to work its way through as a long-term process expressed in 1920s, and the Frankfurt School; and the development of a number of new
an immense variety of different general trends and specilic alterations. But - variants, of which the most influential was probably Althusser's 'anti-
as confidence in any project of collective transformation dwindled in an ideo- humanist' Marxism (see §1 1.2 below).
logical climate dominated by the neo-liberalism of the American New Right This revival of Marxism produced an explosion of new literature in the
and the Thatcherite wing of British Toryism - the decline of many traditional 1970s, much of it 'applied' work seeking to deploy theoretical concepts in
structures was often experienced as having produced a fragmented, thor- empirical research. Even the English-speaking countries, whose universities
oughly commodified social world from which moral guidelines for individual had hitherto been strongly resistant to any Marxist intrusions, witnessed the
action were absent. The political response took diverse forms: descending into spectacular development of scholarship inspired by different versions of
cynicism and indifference (probably the most common reaction); making socialist theory; indeed the 1980s saw the emergence of a short-lived school
some identity - revived from the past or adopted in pursuit of personal libera- of 'analytical Marxism', which sought to use the conceptual tools of the tradi-
tion - the basis of collective action; seeking to restore a fictional past when tion of analytical philosophy dominant in the English-speaking world to
communal reference-points were clear and unambiguously authoritative; clarify and correct the central propositions of historical materialism.
eagerly embracing the present as the beginning of a new era of unprecedented Like earlier versions of Western Marxism, this new 'Social-Scientific
structural fluidity, social mobility, and individual choice. Marxism', as Göran Therborn dubbed it, was located primarily in the universi-
The claim that this condition (dubbed that of 'postmodernity' by the French ties rather than in the working-class movement.3 Whether or not for that
philosopher Jean-FranEois Lyotard) is radically novel is historically dubious. reason, it proved vulnerable to the swing of the political pendulum back to
Quite aside from the question (touched on in ch. 12 below) of whether the the right which developed from the late 1970s onwards. The most spectacular
characteristic structures of capitalism have undergone a fundamental trans- reversal took place in France, where Marxism in some version had dominated
formation over the past thirty years, the kind of cycle of politicalradicalization intellectual life since the German Occupation. In the mid-I970s, a group of
and disillusionment which very large numbers of intellectuals have experi- young ex-Maoists collectively dubbed the nouveaux philosophes succeeded,
enced since the 1960s proper (or their own local version of the 1960s) is far with considerable backing from the mass media and from the leadership of
from being unprecedented. Radical intellectuals who came of political age in the Socialist Party, in portraying Marxism as a philosophy of domination from
Europe during the 1840s experienced a period of exciting social and artistic which atrocities such as the Gulag Archipelago of labour camps in Stalinist
experimentation centred on Paris that was followed, after the defeat of thc Russia ineluctably flowed.
revolutions of 1848, by one of reaction and disillusionment. Flaubert's great The ensuing abandonment of Marxism by the French intelligentsia - encour-
novel Sentimental Education is, among other things, a reflection on that expc- aged by political events such as the outbreak of the so-called Second Cold
rience. More recently, for many young American intellectuals the 1930s was War in the late 1970s and the suppression of the Solidarno§i trade union by
a decade when Marxist theory, working-class politics, and Modernist art the Polish regime in December 1981 - was repeated in less dramatic form
opened new vistas that were all too rapidly closed in the 1940s, especially clsewhere in continental Europe and Latin America. The process of retreat
after the onset of the Cold War. At most, this cycle has been globalized, srr was slower in the English-speaking world, but by the beginning of the 1990s,
that, for example, South African and Korean radical intellectuals experiencctl ttnder the impact of postmodernism and the collapse of 'existing socialism'
in the early 1990s the kind of political let-down their Western counterparts in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Marx was a dead dog for most intel-
had suffered on earlier occasions. lcctuals there as well.
In any case, how have the social transformations and the political uphcirvrrls
of the past t-ew decades aff-ected the deveklprnent «rf social thc«»'y'/ Tltc rttosl
obvious consequence conccrncd Marxisrn. Thc raclical lllovcnlcrtls ol' lltt' ' (;. 'f lr,'rlrrrt tt 'l'to1,11 111 . ol ('l.t:.r. r\rr:rl1'sis'. ilr ll M;rlllrt'ws. t'r1.. llltrt t; ,,\ lltrtrtln,tl l'ttrt.s
1960s stilnulatccl a rcnuiss:urcc: ol'Murxist tlrcory llurl w:rs sigrrilit'rrrrl t'sgrt' ()rr (l.otttlort l()s II lr l(rl
262 Crack-Up? Crack-Up? 263

Nevertheless, the crisis that Marxism underwent from the mid-1970s Moore cultivated a relationship of studied ambiguity towards both Marxism
onwards did not procluce an intellectual relapse into social theories implicitly and liberalism (in the prefäceto Social Origins he thanks Marcuse and another
celebrating the status quo. Thus various critiques of Parsonian sociology had alumnus of the Frankfurt School, Otto Kirchheimera). Others who sought to
been gaining strength through the 1960s. These tended to concentrate on its develop further the approach he had pioneered were often members of a
failure to thematize historical change and social conflict which they often younger generation radicalized by the 1960s - for example, Theda Skocpol,
linkecl to what they argued were apologetic tendencies which privileged an whose States and Social Revoltttiorts (1979) sought to develop Moore's pursuit
idealized version of Western capitalist development. Such criticisms could of compttrative historical analysis within a theoretical framework which
easily be made the basis of the attempt to develop a Marxist alternative to attached equal importance to domestic class-structures and inter-state compe-
Parsonian orthodoxy: thus Therborn argues that the 'social-Scientific tition,5 A dramatic further extension of historical sociology took place in the
Marxism' which emerged in the 1970s had undertaken a 'Critique of Sociol- I980s, when several large-scale theories of history appeared. These were the
ogy' that continued Marx's 'Critiqtre of Political Economy' and Western work, in the main, of British social theorists - Ernest Gellner, Anthony
Marxism's'Critique of Philosophy'. Giddens, Michael Mann, and W. G. Runciman.
Nevertheless, many theorists pursued a third alternative. They sought to Mann and Runciman in particular produced very ambitious, theoretically
develop a version of sociology whose frame of interpretation was provided by articulated and historically wide-ranging multi-volume works, respectively
historical transformation rather than by social stability. but which, in dialogue The Sources of Social Power (two volumes so far, published in 1986 and 1993)
with Marxism, continued themes to be found particularly in Weber's thought. and A Treatise on Social Theory (three volumes, published between 1983 and
A founding texr of this tradition of historical sociology is Norbert Elias's Tfte 1997). There are considerable differences between the individual theories each
Civitizing Proc:ess (1939). Elias offers a new slant on the process of rationali- offered. Runcirnan, for example, has tried to develop a version of evolutionary
zation which preoccupied Weber. He seeks systematically to connect the social theory which eschews the teleology and the Lamarckianism of earlier
development of centralized bureaucratic states in the early modern era to the variants for a more strictly Darwinian account of social selection: individual
gradual transformation of personal behaviour and psychic structures that he social practices are selected when they enhance the power of a specific social
traced in European court society in particular. Elias describes how individuals group (or 'systact') in its competition with others. Giddens and Mann, by
were encouraged to regulate their interpersonal relations, table manners, contrast, express a strongly anti-evolutionary bias, and tend to highlight the
bodily hygiene, and conduct in the bedroom in a process whose unforeseen contingency of historical outcomes.
long-term results are now taken for granted certainly by the Western rniddle All, however, belong recognizably to the tradition founded by Weber in
classes, but which represented a drastic change fiom what was considered rejecting historical materialism and arguing that social events and processes
appropriate in feuclal society. When his book was republished in the late are caused by the interaction of several irreducibly distinct fbrms of power -
1960s, Elias explicitly contrasted his own approach to the ahistorical version (at least) political. economic, and ideological domination. Probably the most
of sociology practised by Parsons and his followers (though his explanatory influential theme in their writings was the stress they laid. following some
framework relies heavily on the concept of social differentiation central to hints of Weber's, on military competition as an autonomous social reality and,
evolutionary theory since Comte and Spencer). consequently, on the role played by the early modern inter-state system in
Other sociologists took this emphasis on history further by linking it explic- creating the conditions for the emergence of contemporary capitalism. Webe-
itly to the theme of class conflict. Barrington Moore Jr off-ered in The Soc'iul rian historical sociology is thus a version of social theory that, like Marxism,
Origins o.f Dictatorship and Democrac),(1966) an explanation of the dit-ferent studies societies from the perspective of their transfbrmation, which it explains
routes to modern industrialized society taken by various societies in which in terms of the conflicts constitutive of them. The difference between the two
the historically variable outcomes of worldwide struggles between lord antl traditions lies in the fact that the Weberian theorists insist that social divi-
peasant played the decisive role. Moore's analysis had a more or less explicit sions are inherently plural in nature, and that there is no prospect of their
critical dimension, since he challenged Parsonian theories of modernizatiolr. being abolished. The main political reference-point for this form of historical
arguing that the degree to which a society had developed genuinely dernocra(ic
political structures depended on the thoroughness with which it had sctllctl
accounts, by revolutionary means, with its agrariatn past. It wzts thus tlo :tct'i
' l|. N4,,,,rt. .lt. \'rrr.rrrl I)(turtt'rrtt'\' (I I:r'rttortrlswor llr. l9(r() ).
dent that those countries which suc'cumbed to firscism in the itrter-wltr ycrtl's l). \ \'
hacl graftecl capitllist industl'ializlrliott ortlo socilrl silrtlclttrcs tlotttirrltlctl hy
prc-ltrotlc:l-n l:ttttlowttiltg t'lltsst:s.
tl

ll 264 Crack-Up? Crack-Up? 265

sociology is classical social democracy as traditionally represented by the 'epistemological' tradition which, stemming from Comte, sought to recon-
British Labour Party. struct the conceptual history of particular sciences (in this case psychiatry),
English-speaking Marxists (who emerged from the crash of the 1970s in Foucault's book was also an attempt to render visible
better shape than their continental counterparts) also made an important
contribution to what was, in this self-conscious form, the new genre of histori- the space, at once empty and populated, of all those words without a language
cal sociology. In the two published volumes of a never-completed study of the which allow the person who lends an ear to hear a muffled voice from below
origins of the capitalist state. Perry Anderson offered a comparative genealogy history, the stubborn murmuring of a language which seems to speak quite by
of European absolutism as a specific form of f'eudal class rule that provided itselt-, without a speaking subject and without an interlocutor, huddled in on
itself, a lump in its throat, breaking down befbre it has achieved any formulation
an influential reference point even for those who disagreed.6 Robert Brenner
and lapsing back into the silence frorn which it was never separated.s
developed what in many ways was a Marxist riposte to Moore in a more nar-
rowly focused burt also more analytically rigorous account of the origins of
There is the thought here, not so much of speaking for the silenced, but
agrarian capitalism in Europe that once again gave explanatory primacy to
perhaps of helping to create the conditions in which they can speak for
the variant outcomes of the struggles between lord and peasant, this time in
themselves. The efflorescence of political movements addressing particular
late medieval Europe. One distinctive feature of Brenner's argument was the
forms of oppression (for example, those suffered by women, blacks, lesbians,
ernphasis it laid on the motives and interests of dift-erent categories of indi-
and gays) encouraged the idea that the marginal and excluded give themselves
vidual actors: thus he claimed that it is only under capitalist property relations,
a voice through various forms of writing
where neither workers nor capitalists have direct access to their means of - fictional, autobiographical, histori-
cal, and analytical. A book that far more explicitly articulates the politics of
subsistence, that economic agents have the incentive to seek productivity-
such writing than the Histoire de lafolie is Edward Said's Orientalism (1918).
increasing innovations of the kind that drives modern economic growth.
Here Said, a Palestinian Arab trained and working in American universities,
Brenner's widely debated historical interpretation was in this respect akin to
systematically analyses the literary and scholarly discourse of Orientalism
the school of analytical Marxism that emerged in the late 1970s with the
ostensibly developed by Westerners in order to know the East as what Foucault
publication of G. A. Cohen's Karl Marx's Theory of Historv and that increas-
in works somewhat later than the Histoire calls an apparatus of power-knowl-
ingly sought to restate the propositions of historical materialism on the basis
edge (see §11.3 below): representations of an essentialized East as stagnant,
of rational-choice theory, which seeks to reduce social structures to the con-
sensual, and irrational thus function as mean.s of dominating the actual East.
sequences of the actions of instrumentally rational actors.T
Orientalism marked the beginning of what is now known as postcolonial
After the watershed of the 1960s. faced with lively Marxist and Weberian
theory, which focuses on the relationship between Western societies and those
challenges, structural functionalism was therefore much less plausible than it
formally or informally colonized by them, and in particular on how this
had been earlier. But the political upheavals of that decade were also associ-
relationship structures various kinds of writing.
ated with an expansion of the scope of social theory. New, previously margin-
At work here was a massive denaturctlization of social relationships that
alized subjects - in the double sense of areas of study and collective agents
hitherto had not been problernatized by social theorists. The most important
- were now thematized. Two books may serve to illustrate this development. example is that of gender. At the end of his great work Suicide, Durkheim
Michel Foucault's Histoire de la.folie (1961), an abridged version of which
considers the case of suicide 'springing from conjugal anomy', which he
was translated into English under the title of Madness and Civiliz.atioz, sought
argues arises from the fact that 'the interests of husband and wife in mar-
to trace the history of the constitution of madness, through a series of social
riage are so obviously opposed'. He explains this antagonisrn by the fact that
practices (notably the institution of confining those classified as mad in 'man is much more highly socialized than woman. His tastes, aspirations
asylums) that developed in the eighteenth century, as the 'other' of reason, a
voice that has been silenced and excluded. While situated within the French
8 Qucrted in D. Macey, The Lit,es o.l' Michel FoucuLtlt (London, I993), p. 93. paul-Michel
Foucault (1926-84): born to a rich bourgeois family in Poitiers; studied philosophy at the Ecole
t' P. Anderson, Pas'sages from Antiquitl, to Feutlalism (London, 1974) and [-itrt'trgc.s tlf tltr N«rrnrale Sup6rieurc- (ENS) in Paris, 1946 50;taught at the University of Lille and ENS, 19,52_5;
Absolutist State (Lontlon, 1974). rlircctor. Mlrisorr t[. Itr':utr-'c. Ilppslla, lt)-5-5-8; directrlr, Ccntrc Franqais. University ol'Warsaw,
' T. S. Aston and C. H. Philpin, ecls.'fht lJretrttrr I)chrtc (Canrhliclgc. lgtt-5)rrrrtl Il llrt'nrrt'r. It).5|i (): tlilt't'lot. lrrslilrtl lit;tttr,':tis. llirrrrhrrrg. 1959 60: tlrrght irt rlrr.r urrivcrsilics ol'Clcnnont-
'Thc Strcitrl Brrsis of' Ijcorrrlrtric I)t'vckrprrrcnt', irr .1. Ilocrrtcr, cd., tltttrlylit ttl hlrrt'tisttr (('rrrrr It'rr:rrrtl. lt)(ro (r, lirtrr:,, lr)(r(r S. rrrrrl Virrt't'rrrtt's. l()(rti (). t'lt.t'lt'tl l)roli.ssol irr llrt.llis{or.v ol'
hritlsc. l()l{(r). SVslt'ltts ol llrottt'ltl ,rl lltr'(','ll,'l,t'rlt. l,1rrrtt', l()(r(). 1li1.1l ,l All)S.

tll
266 Crack-Up? Crack-Up? 267

and humour have in large part a collective origin, while his companion's for the trees when dealing with one's rough contemporaries). They have been
origins are much more directly influenced by her organism.'e Though chosen because of their influence, exernplary value, and intrinsic merit, in
Durkheim goes on to express the hope that social relations between men and somewhat varying cornbinations. I have chosen to concentrate largely (though
women can become more equal. his underlying assumption is that gender not exclusively) on French thinkers partly because of their enormous interna-
differences are biologically based - an assumption largely shared by the tional influence since the Second World War, and partly because doing so
social theorists surveyed in the preceding chapters (though Friedrich Engels makes it easier to extract a coherent narrative from the immense diversity of
challenged it directly in The Origin of the Fantily, Prittate Property, crnd the different theories.
Stote t18841). The emergence of the women's liberation movement in the late
1960s and early 1970s and its impact on the academy caused severe damage
to this assumption, in particular through the distinction feminist theorists 11.2 Structure and subiect: L6vi Strauss and Althusser
tencled to draw between the biological differences between the sexes and
gender as the historically variable social construction of sexual identities. Perhaps the most important novelty about social theory since the I960s has
From this denaturalization of the relationships between men and women (and been the importance that language - conceptualized in often divergent ways
associated phenomena such as heterosexuality) calne a flood of feminist - has come to assume. Foucault suggests this is one example of a more per-
social theory: a major theme, for example. of Judith Butler's work (see §13.3 vasive characteristic of Western culture in the twentieth centurv:
below) was gender as not simply socially constructed, but enacted through
continuous performance. When we consider the extraordinary destiny of fbrmalism in painting or formal
research in music, or the importance of fornralism in the analysis of folklore
These and related developments plainly mark a major expansion in the
and legend, in architecture or its application to theoretical thought, it is clenr
extension of social theory. It is much more open to argument whether they
that formalism has probably been one of the strongest and at the same time one
have brought about a radical transformation of its conceptual structures. The
of the most varied currents in 2Oth-century Europe.rr
idea, for example, that the various forms of oppression arre irreducibly plural.
and represent distinct sites of struggle which cannot somehow be incorpo- Certainly Modernism's preoccupation with questions of form and with the
rated (as orthodox Marxists would claim) into an all-ernbracing movement process of artistic creation brought the nature of language itself into fbcus.
centred on the working class, can be formulated in terms that derive directly 'The real metaphysical problem today is the word', Eugene Jolas declared in
(post-structuralism) or indirectly (Weberian historical sociology) from
1929 in an essay devoted to James Joyce.rz Language has indeed become a
Nietzsche's doctrine of the will to power. Novel content does not necessarily preoccupation for philosophers, a phenomenon worthy of investigation in
entail comparable conceptual innovation. Thus Said's critique of Orientalism its own right, where once Western thought tended to take it for granted as
is expressed in terms which, as his critics point out, rather eclectically either a transparent medium for, or an obstacle to, the expression of thoughts.
combine Foucault's variant of post-structuralism with a more traditional The resulting philosophies of languase have been of markedly different
tiberal humanisn'r. Or again, the feminist theorist Nancy Fraser describes her character.
attempt to distinguish between two kinds of injustice, that of distribution, In the analytical tradition, for exermple, the early and later writings of
arising from material inequalities, and that of recognition, which refuses to Ludwig Wittgenstein have ellcouraged two quite distinct approaches, one of
acknowleclge the existence of different identities such as those of gender, which identifies meaning with abstract logical form while the other consists
race, ancl sexuality aS 'a quasi-Weberian dualism of status and class'.rO in the description of speciflc linguistic practices; more recently, the work of
Perhaps the best way of determining if contemporary social theory has
American philosophers such as W. V. Quine, Donald Davidson, and Saul
broken through the boundaries set for the debate on modernity after the col- Kripke has offered contrasting versions of this first approach. A gulf separates
lapse of Hegel's system (see §2.3 above) is to consider some individual cases.
alnrost all English-speaking philosophers of language fiom Hans-Georg
The theorists discussed in the rest of this chapter are selected from a t'ar wider'
Gadamer's attempt to develop Heidegger's remarks on the subject into a theory
array of potential candidates for inclusion (it is rnore difficult to see the wootl

E. Durkheim, Suicide (London, 1970), pp. 384, 385. " M. F«rucrrtrll. 'sllrrt'(trralisnr ancl Post-structuralisnr'. Telo.s. 55 ( 1983), p. 196.
l1)
N. Fraser, 'Heterosexism, Misrecognition und Capitalisrl'. Ncw Itl't /lllllrr'. I/l2ll (l()9li). '' l:. .lolrrs. "l'lrt'lit'rolttliott ol'Langrrirgc ancl Jirnrcs Joyce', in S. Bcckctt ct al.. ()ttr L:rrrrtitrtt-
tirttr lirtrrrrrl lttt Ltr lrlrr rrtirttt ttl Wttrl, itr l'nt,qrt,,s,t (l,orrtlorr. l()7)\. p.7().
p. 142; see also id.,'Frorn Rctlistrihtrli«rtt to llccognilioll'J'. ibitl.. I/ll.) tl(x)rl
'ilfl|
ijill 268 Crack-Up? Crack-Up? 269

of the hermeneutic interpretation of texts in which understanding is conceived Lingtti.stic.r (1915), has two crucial features. First, Saussure argues that'the
till as a relationship between two speakers sharing the same tradition. Meanwhile, linguistic sign unites, not a thing and a name, but a concept and a sound-
challenging any such consensual view of language is the approach developed image'. Signification, the production of meaningful utterances, thus consists
il
lt
in Russia during the 1920s by Mikhail Bakhtin and his pupils: while they in the relationship between signifiers and signified, that is, between the sounds

rll make dialogue between speakers the paradigm situation, they treat the utter-
ance as impregnated with the social conflicts that constitute its context.
which form the basic elements of language and the concepts which they can
be combined to signify. secondly, words succeed in signifying by means of
What Richard Rorty calls 'the linguistic turn' has thus taken very different the differences between them. It is because signifiers consist in a set of con-
l1 forms.'r Plainly the implications of this development for social theory will trasting sounds that they are able to locate concepts that are similarly i6enti-
ll therefore depend heavily on which particular philosophy of language is taken Iied through the difTerences between thern. Language thus consists of two
up in order to elucidate the nature of society. The most influential such phi- parallel structures, the signiliers and the signified, sounds and concepts, each
t,
losophy has proved to be that of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure: the of which is defined by the relations of diffbrence between its constituent items.
reception of his thought in France constituted one of the starting points of Indeed:
i what has come to be known as structuralism and therefore also of post-
ili structuralism (see §11.3 below). In order to understand this reception some- In language there are only differences. Even more important: a difTerence gen-
thing must be said about its context, in particular in the structural anthropology erally irnplies positive terms between which a difference is set up; but in lan-
ii
of L6vi-Strauss.'' guage there are only differences vttithottt po.sitit,e terms. Whether we take the
signified or the signifier, language has neither ideas nor sounds that existed
The French sociological tradition had already highlighted the role of systems
betbre the linguistic system, but only conceptual and phonic dif-fbrences that
of concepts in 'primitive' societies. In their 1903 essay Prim.itive Classifica-
issue fiorn the system. The idea or phonic substance that a sign contains is less
tion Durkheim and his nephew, the anthropologist Marcel Mauss, declared: important than the other signs that surrouncl it.16
il. 'Every mythology is fundamentally a classification, but one which borrows its
principles fiom religious beliefs, not from scientilic ideas.' They also argued
Saussure's holist theory of meaning thus brackets the question of the natural
r

that there was a direct continuity between 'primitive' systems of categories, and social context in which utterances are made, anrJ that of reference, that
which constitute 'a first philosophy of nature', and the logical structure o1' is, of their relationship to the iterns in the world to which they ref'er. Saussure
modern scientific rationality.rs This analysis must be seen against the back- himself never denied the importance of context and reference, but by focus-
ground of Durkheim's later sociology, according to which the actual ref'erent ing on the internal relationship between signifiers and signified he made it
of religious representations is society itself (see §6.3). Moreover, Primitivt, possible to conceive of language as an autonomous system. Fredric Jameson
t,
ClctssiJication ofters nothing in the way of a philosophy of language thal observes:
would explain how mythical categories acquire meaning, or how they function
i
in relation to each other and to the social and physical worlds. The lines of flight in his system are lateral, fiom one sign to another, rather
li'li
Ldvi-Strauss sought to continue the tradition of Durkheim and Mauss in than frontal, from word to thing. a movement alreacly interiorizecl in the sign
which the concepts of classilication and of exchange (notably in the latter's itself as the movement from signifier to signifiecl. Thus, irnplicitly. the terrnincil-
essay The Gift U9251, which seeks to uncover the logic of reciprocity govern- ogy of the sign tends t«l affirm the internal coherence ancl comprehensibility,
ing transfers of goods in 'primitive' societies) are set to work. He filled thc the autonomy of the system of signs itself-, rather than the constant movement
gap left in their account of primitive classification with Saussure's theory ol' outside the symbol system to the things themselves.rT
language. For our purposes, this theory, expounded in the Course in Genenrl
L6vi-Strauss, itt taking over Saussurian linguistics, drew out this potential.
rr R. Rorty, ed.. The Linguistit' Turn (Chicago, 1967). He argues that there is 'a superabundance of the signilier. relative to the
sig-
r* Claude Gustav'e Ldvi-strauss (1908-): born Brussels, into a family of French.lcwish p:rirrt nifieds'. This is a consequence of the fact that, since it consists of two parallel
ers; studied philosophy at the University of Paris, 1927-32; schoolteacher. 1932 4: l)roli'ssor ol ,r.\'.r/crl7.r, 'language can only be born at once', rather than clevelop piecemeal.
Sociofogy, University of Säo Paulo, 1934-7l. undertook field research anrong lnclirrns ol I\Irrll' Iltrt lhc signifieds, the concepts to which the system of signifiers point,
Grosso, 1938-9; taught at New School fbr Social Rescarch. Ncw York, l9-ll -5: ;rssot'i:rtt'rlirt't can
tor, Mus6e de I'Homme, Paris. 1949: dircctrlr ol'slurlics. Il'.c«llc I)rlrtirluc tlt's llrrtrlt's l'.lrrrlt.,
It)ltl-14, electecl Pr<llcssrlr ol'Sociul Artllrrrrllokruy lrl tltc ('ollr'ge tlc lilrurt't'. l()5t. '' lt. tlc Sirrrssurc. C'orrr.sc in Gctr<,nrl l,itrgrri,stit..s. (Ncw \irr.k. l9(r(r1, pp.6(r. l2O.
l' Ii I)rrrklrr'irrr rrnrl M. Mlrrrss, l'rirttitirt' ('ltr.ttilit rttiorr (l.orrrIrrr. lt)(r l; pp // s. sl ' f '. .lrrrrrcson,'l'ltc Pri,stttt-ltorr.tt ,f l.rrtr,gtrrrqr, (r)r'irrr.'t'lorr.
l()7.1), P. J].

lrl
Il
,il

til Crack-Up? 271


t 270 Crack-Up?
I

betiefs and social institutions, over that of diachrony, of historical transfbrma-


I
I of knowl-
only acquire their content gradually, as a result of the development
of signifiers to tions. In a celebrated polemic in The Savage Mind (1962), he demolishes
So: 'Man from his origin disposes of an integral system
"0g". thereby being known' Jean-Paul Sartre's attempt in his Critique of Dialectical Reasnr? to conceptual-
he must allocate a signified, given as such without
t'
which
in the existence of ize history as a process ir-r which individual subjects are, in some cases at least,
There is always a discrepancy between the two', reflected
able collectively to act and to change the 'practico-inert' structures that nor-
I

,floating signiliers' which, themselves lacking any sense. serve to take on any
giving the signitier primacy mally weigh down on them. Ldvi-Strauss dismisses this attempt to read the
meanin-g that is given them. L6vi-Strauss, in thus
whole of human history in terms of Western experience since the French
I

language' Indeed: 'Like


over the signified, explicitly asserts the autonomy of
Revolution as an ethnocentric attempt to make the concept of a collective
I

language. the social is an autonomous reality


(the same. moreover); the
i

the signifier precedes subject 'the last refuge of a transcendental humanism: as if men could regain
synrbols are more real than that which they symbolize,
the illusion of liberty on the plane of the "\rye" merely by giving up the "I"s
i

iiiii
and determines the signified.'18
that are too obviously wanting in consistency'.22 Elsewhere he declares history
I

(1949) Ldvi-Strauss treats


Thus in The Elemintary Strtrctures of Kinship
itself to be the domain of irreducible contingency''"
,lrl
in which
kinship systems as linguistic structures, sets of binary oppositions
of messages' J' Q' Secondly, therefbre, L6vi-Strauss's adaptation of Saussttre assigns to the
tt'," .*.frunge of women functions as the transmission
,rii

consists in 'Stand- subject, either individual or collective, a secondary and constituted rather than
Merquior argues that 'his entire anthropological approach'
the a primary and constitutive place: 'the ultimate goal of the human sciences to
ing Durkheim on his Head': 'Durkheim's method always moved from
be not to constitute, but to dissolve man'.r4 This anti-humanism is one of the
,ii

mental to the social: fiom belief to social structure ' ' '
With Ldvi-Strauss
to the common features of what (somewhat misleadingly) came to be known as
it is the other way round. [n structuralism we move .from the social
1ri

or structuralism, the most influential intellectual trend in France during the


L

mentnl. from social relations or cultural constructs, like kinship systems


is somewhat overstated' 1960s. Jacques Lacan used Saussurian linguistics in his attempt to restate
myths, to intellectual structufes.'re This contrast
il

primarily of col- Freud in terms which avoided either the reduction of the unconscious to bio-
since Durkheim came to think that social facts consisted
1

ll it is undoubtedly the logical instincts or the transformation of psychoanalysis into a therapy of


lective representations (see §6.2 above). Nevertheless'
he seeks to detect adaptation to reality. The slogan of Lac,an's self:proclaimed 'return to Freud'
case that Ldvi-Strauss conceives the unconscious Structures
'guided by the search for the con- was thus 'the unconscious is structured like a language'. Freud had shown that
ll
as essentially mental. Thus he says he is
'starting from ethnographic the subject is 'decentred'. since underlying and shaping its conscious lif-e is
straining structures of the mind', ancl declares:
of mental patterns' the record of its formation in the unconsciolts, to which is denied access.
experience, I have always aimed at {rawing Llp an inventory
lnverting Descartes's cogito ('I think therefore I am'), Lacan declared: 'I think
it1

and to attain a level


to reduce apparently uibirrury clata to some ki,d of order,
I

underlying the illusions where I am not, therefbre I am wher-e I do not think.'25


at which some kinä of necessity becomes apparent,
il

them by making use of Lacan's reinterpretation of Freudian theory was one of the main influences
of liberty.' Thus 'myths signity the mind that evolves
i{

on perhaps the most systenratic attempt to fbrmulate an anti-hun-ranist social


I

the world of which it is Part"20


I

I
anthropology theory, Althusser's reconstruction of historical materialistn.r6 Indeed, invok-
The philosopher Paul Ricoetrr called L6vi-strauss's structural
description which the latter ing Freud's description of his own 'Copernican Revolution' (see §8.3 above),
'a Kantianism without a transcendental subject', a
the unconscious conceptual Althusser draws a parallel between his achievement and that of Marx, arguing
accepted.2l In other words, he seeks to uncover
ascribing these
structures presupposed by conscious experience, but without
This approach has two
to the activity of a self that itself underlies experience'
important imPlications. rr C. L6vi-Strauss, I/rc Savuge Mind (Lottdon. 1972), p.262'
privileges the ''i C. Ldvi-Strauss, From Hone,- tct Aslte.s (I-ondon, 19131, p' 415'
First, taking over a contrast drawn by Saussure, Ldvi-Strauss
underlying concrete sets tll' rr L6vi-Strauss, Sovage Mincl. p.247.
study of synchrony, of the universal structures 15 J. Lacan. Ecrits: A Selectir.tn (London. 1'971), p. 166.
)(r Louis Pierre Althusser (1918-90): born in Algeria, the son of a banker: prisoner of war,
1940--5: studied philgs6phy at the Ecole Normale Sup6rieure, 1945-7'.joined the Cornmtrnist
ä l'ceuvre ile Marcel Mauss', in M' Mauss' Socirtlttgtc t't
'n C. L6vi-Strauss,'lntroduction l)rrrty irr lL)48.. t,<ti'trrtg r (philosgphy tut()r) at thc E,NS. l94c) li(): suft'ered repeated bouts of nlental
ctnthropologie (Paris, 1950), pp' xlix' xlvii, xlix' xxxii' illrrrss (;trtrl'rtrltlv lr t»lrrri,.'-rlu;'rrcssivc psyehosis): tttttrtlctctl his rvilt'. H6ltnc Rylnlan' Ntlverllher
(London' 1986)' p' 3t{'
'' J. Q. Merquior. Frrtrn Prtr,gtte trt Prtri'v
r() C. Ldvi-strauss (lt)64), Tltt'Rtttt'ttrtd tlrt'Cttttked (l'otrdon' 197())' Pp' l0' lll' l()S0: tlt't.ltrrt,tl rrrrlrt lo sl;rrrtl tIitrl, sllcrtt rrtost ol his rcntltirtitll] y('ltls itt tltt'ttlitl ittslittrtitrtts: irt
'/7lrrr'.
l()t\ wt.()l(';t (r)nlr.,..,tr,rr.rl ntt'trrou. l'ltt'l:rrtrrtt'ltrtts tt ltttt.t' llrrhlisltt'rl lrllt'r'lris tlt':rllr.
,, (-. L(.vi-Str.;rtrss. 'A ('orrll'orrtltli0tt'. Ntw l.tltll(r'idrr'. l/(t2 (1970). P {rl
!rlill
l,'ill 272 Crack-Up? Crack-Up? 273

llii that both have contributed to the displacement of the subject from the central
role hitherto clairned for it: 'Since Marx, we have known that the humatl
social phenomenon is treated as replicating the central economic contradic-
tion, as, for example, in History and Class Con.sciousness every aspect of
subject, the economic, political or philosophical ego is not the "centt'e" of social life reproduces the structlrre of reification.
,ll I

history - and even, in opposition to the Philosophers of the Enlightenment


and Hegel, that history has no "centre" but has a structure which has no neces-
Hegelian Marxism (or 'historicism', as Althusser rather confusingly calls
it) thus conceives itself as a rebellion against the fatalism of the Second
sary "centre" excepf in ideological misrecognition.'27 International; but the conception of social totality that it employs leads it to
tl Althusser's version of Marxism is thus radically different frorn the theory collapse into another kind of economic reductionism. As a Messianic young
i of class subjectivity which Lukäcs and Gramsci conceived it to be (see §9.1 Stalinist in the late 1940s. Althusser had espoused a particularly extreme form
above). For him, 'history is a process vt'ithout a .subject'.2s Each social forma- of Hegelian Marxism. But in his most influential works, For Marx and the
I tion is a complex structured totality consisting of a plurality of distinct collectively written Reading Capitol (both published in 1965). he argues
'instances' - the economy, politics, ideology, and theory (the sciences). None that Marx, in breaking with the Young Hegelians in the mid-1840s, also
i
of these, even the economy, constitutes the centre of the social formation. Each abandoned his own earlier 'humanist' works, fbr example, The Economic and
has its own distinctive internal logic which allows it to develop according ttr Philo.sophic Manuscripts of 1844. This shift constituted an 'epistemological
ll a particular dynan-ric, and even its own 'dift-erential temporality" break'. in which Marx replaced the ideological and (indeed. because) human-
The economy is 'determinant in the last instance'. In other words, economic ist problematic of his early writings for a new scientific problematic first
causality operates inclirectly, less through immediately affecting specific present in The German ltleology and the 'Theses on Feuerbach'.
I

political or cultural events than by selecting a particular instance to play thc Althusser's theory of overdetermination implies the 'relative autonomy' of
I

role of directly shaping the other instances (the 'structure in dominance'). the politico-ideological superstructure (an expression that he and Norbert
Therefore historical events - say, the Russian Revolution - do not have lt Elias seem to have coined more or less simultaneously3O). This result was
l single, economic cause. Althusser invokes a Freudian concept to bring oul important to him for several. primarily political, reasons. In the first place, it
tll
what is involved here. They are 'overcletermined': ITlany diff'erent factors comc offers him a rleans of explaining Stalinism: the Great Terror of the 1930s is
LI

together, fusing into a single complex formation that produces a historical to be seen as a consequence of the presence in the superstructure of 'survivals'
rupture: from the past which, because the different aspects of the social whole develop
runevenly with respect to one another, could continue to have effects despite
i

The economic dialectic is never active in the pttre statel in History. these the fact that the economic base had been transformed along socialist lines.
instances, the superstructures, etc., are never seen to step respectfully aside Secondly, along with the superstructure, theory also gains relative autonomy.
Ii
when their work is done, or when the time collles, as his pure phenomena, to As a member of the French Communist Party (PCF), Althusser had experi-
I scatter before His Majesty the Econonry as he strides along the royal road to cnced during the height of the Cold War at the end of the 1940s and the begin-
'last
the Dialectic. From the lirst moment to the last, the lonely hour of the ning of the 1950s what he later called 'the period of intellectuals in arms,
I instance' never colnes.t" hunting out error from all its hiding places'.3r Throughout the Communist
nrovement, party apparatchiks enforced on its intellectual supporters the idea
I

Althusser's interpretation of Marx intplies a radical diff'erence between the lhert every aspect of cultural life was polarized along class lines, and that
latter's dialectic ancl that of Hegel. Althusser challenges the traditional fbrrtttr in every lleld of research two sciences -'proletarian' and 'bourgeois'-
lation (inherited from Engels) acc-ording to which Marx kept Hegel's dialccti
l

confronted one another: this 'theory of the two sciences' legitirnized the
I

cal 'method' wl-rile abandoning his idealist 'systetn'. Method and systerll ltrt' l,ysenko affair in the USSR, the persecution of Mendelian genetics as
I too closely intertwined tbr such an operatiou to succeed: to retaitl one is tt' 'hourgeois science'.
retain both. More specifically, Hegel's conception of totality is an 'expressir"t" ln reaction to what he described in retrospect as this'madness', Althusser
one, i1 which each indiviclual partreflects the structure of the whole. I1'socirrl rrrgucd that 'theory is a practice' - in other words, each science has its own
tbrrlltions are viewecl in this way. the et-tbct is economic reductionistt]: cvt. r\ s;'tccilic logic irrcc'lucible to that of any other, let alone to that of other instances
I

L. Alt[-russer. Lctrirt ttnd Philo.sopht,ttntl Otltcr E.sstr.t'.r ([-tlnc]ort. l97l). p.2()l


i

l-. Allhtrsscr'. l'rtlitir'.: trtttl llitlrtt't' (l-otltlort. 1t)111. 1l' lttl' ' I llt'tllrtort. Ilrt' lii.:r' r4 .\ot ittl l lt,'t,t't'(('lrrrrhrrrllr'. l()()5 ). P ?.15.

L. Altlrtrsst'r'. litt' frlrtr.t (l.otttlrtl' l()(r())' p. l l l- " ,\lllrrrsst'r. l:r,t lllttt t. 1,. -'l

I ri
274 Crack-Up? Crack-Up? 275

of the social whole, and must be appraised according to its own internal thought, the theory of history, was it possible to account fbr the historical reli-
criteria of validity. This argument reflected the influence on him of the gion of reading: by discovering that the truth of history cannot be rea«l in its
manifest discourse, because the text of history is not a text in which the Logos
French 'epistemological' tradition, whose leading practitioners were Gaston
Bachelard and Georges Canguilhem. Rejecting the tendency of English-
speaks, but the inaudible and illegible notation of the eft-ect of a structure of
structures.la
speaking philosophers of science to treat theories as generalizations from
sense-experience, both treated sciences as historically constituted and devel-
Thus 'theoretical practice' is necessary because social reality is complex
oping systems of concepts. The political eff-ect of Althusser's version of this
and opaque and so must be decoded. Althusser takes this idea to the length
philosophy of science, the 'theory of theoretical practice' was. he later claimed.
of developing a theory of reading. Texts, like dreams, have a manifest. content
'to justify the thesis o1' the relative autonomy of theory and thus the right of
which conceals their latent content, the 'problematic' or systenr of questions
Marxist theory not to be treated as a slave to tactical political decisions, but
underlying the surf-ace discourse which can only be wrested from the text's
to be allowed to develop, in alliance with political and other practices, without
gaps and silences by a theoretically informed reading. The complexity of tfie
betraying its own needs'.32
text exemplifies the complexity of the social itself. Marx in his theory of com-
This attempt to creeite a certain distance between theory and practice did
modity fetishism argued that there is a systematic discrepancy between the
not mean that Althusser had no interest in politics. On the contrary, between
surface appearance and the underlying reality of capitalist society (see s§4.2
the early 1960s and mid-1970s he more or less openly expressed his sympathy
and 4.3 above), but Althusser takes this idea much further.
with the Chinese Cornmunist leader Mao Zedong's critique of the Soviet
Individuals must be seen as 'bearers' or 'supports' of the prevailing rela-
Union's 'revisionist' policies. Indeed, many of his pupils abandoned the PCF.
tions of production, not as agents capable of initiating action. The category of
whose leadership remained loyal to Moscow, in the mid-l960s to set up inde-
the subject does not merely mislead us about the real nature of inclividual
pendent Maoist groups. Althusser himself never left the party, on the grounds
human beings. It also plays a critical role in the structure of ideological mis-
that it was the main political organization of the French working class. This
recognition through which individuals are prepared for their role as 'supports'
situation - member of a highly disciplined mass party with whose policies he
by. so Althusser claims, subsuming them under the fbrm of subject s: ,The
strongly disagreed - helps to explain the often ambiguous and elttsive nature
categctry o/'tlrc sttbject i,s only cortstitutive of'all ideologv- ittsofar as oll icl.eol-
of his political pronouncements. When the letl suffered a humiliating defeat
ogy ha,s the func:tion (which defines it) of "constitutirlg" cortcrete inclititluals
in the legislative elections of March-April 1978, he launched an open polernic
as subject ."t By 'interpellating' individuals as subjects ideology encourages
against the PCF leadership, denouncing in particular the lack of internal party
them to conceive themselves as indepenclent agents for whom reality exists.
democracy, but this was soorl overtaken by the extraordinary tragedy in which
and thereby secures the perfbrrnance of their actual role as sllppol-ts. This
Althusser strangled his wife, an event inevitably tollowed by his disappear-
function - performed in capitalist society through the 'Icleological State Appa-
ance from public life.
ratuses' (fbr example, churches. schools. universities, trade unions, political
The loosening of the tight connection which Marx had established between
parties) - would be necessary in any society:'ldeolog-y.(«,s ct sy-stent o.f mass
theory and practice must be seen in the context of Althusser's theory of ideol-
representations) i,s indispensable if men are to be.formed, transformed ond
ogy. He conceives the economic structure of capitalist society rather as
ecluipped to respontl to the tle mancls c4f their conelitions oJ- e.ristent'e.' Indeecl.
Heidegger clid Being - as present only in its own absence (the influence ol' 'histttrical nruterialism caruufi conceive thut even a contntutt.ist societ r- c:oulcl
Heidegger on postwar French philosophy was pervasive, though Althusser'
ever do +vithout ideologt', for'[h]urnan societies secrete ideology as the very
claims to have reacl him mainly in the 1980s33). Thus:
element and atmosphere indispensable to their fur-rctioning'.36
in the real, Practice is thus necessarily mystified. This seems a long way fiom Marx's
Cupital. . . exactly measures a distance and an internal disloczition
as to tnake theil' theory of working-class self-emancipation, where collective action is precisely
inscribed in its slructure, a distance attd a dislocation such
own ef'tbcts themselves illegible, and the illtrsion of an immediate leading ol' the process throurgh w'hich human beings come both to understand and to
tlrem the ultirnate apex of their effects: fetishisnl . . . Only t'rom history in tritnsform their situation. Critics suqgested that Althusser's theory of ideology

t: L. Althusscr, /'/rilo.r ttlth.t' trtrtl Ihe Sltttrtttrtrt'tttr's l'hiltt,sttltht' ttl tltt' ,§r'lcrr/i,r't.s trrrtl ()tlr,'t " L. Althusscr and E. Balibar, Rt,trcling Capitul(Lonclon. 1970). p. 17.
ctl. (i. l:lliolt (l.orrtlorr. 1990). p. 20u.
1r'.r',rrrr'.r. ''' Althrrssr,r. lt.tritt rttrtl l)lrilo.soplri.. 1t. l(r0.
" 1.. Allltrtsst't. ,\rrt ltr 1tltil,,.t'ttltltit' {l'lrris' l()()11' pp.
()li () llr ll(' " Alllr,,.r,'r l:,,r lllrrr r. PP 2(l-1, 212.

lr
!I
Crack-Up? Crack-Up? 277
276
in which the Sciences' (1967), he counterposes the concept of 'centred structure' to that of
bears a close resemblance to Parsonian functionalist sociology,
fbr their place in the systern of 'play'. The latter term refers to the tendency of every binary opposition to
mechanisms of socialization form individuals
the austere distance it took up subvert itself, generating a new one which is in turn subverted, and so on to
roles (see §10.2 above). Nevertheless, despite
an enormous influence on infinity. 'The concept of centred structure is in fact the concept of a play based
from political practice, Althusserian Marxism had
of the 1960s, both on a fundamental ground, a play constituted on the basis of a fundamental
yourg intellectuals raclicalized by the political upheavals
immobility, and a reassuring certitude, which itself is beyond the reach of
in France and elsewhere. To unclerstand its sudden collapse in the 1970s
we
which displaced it as the tnain play.' Br"rt the nature of the signitying process undermines this notion of
must consider the rise of post-structuralism,
strlrcture. Each signifier points towards a signilied wl-rich is itself another sig-
fornr of avant-garde theorizing'
nifier. In other words, signification is itself a process of infinite play. The only
way in which this movernent could be halted would be if one could posit a
'transcendental signifled' outside language which is immediately 'present',
11.3 Nietzsche's revenge: Foucault
that is. to which we somehow have direct access without the mediation of
and Post-structuralism
language. But to imagine such a possibility is to commit a philosophical error
and others by talling into what Derrida calls 'the metaphysics of presence'. The collapse
Under the irnpact of the writings of L6vi-Strauss, Lacan, Althusser,
that they of the transcendental signified 'was the momeut when, in the absence of a
(for example, the literary critic Roland Barthes), the belief developed
it was centre or origin, everything became discourse . . . that is to say, a system in
represented a single current in French thought, 'structuralism', and
were consider- which the central signifled, the original or transcendental signified, is never
under this label that they were received elsewhere. In fact, there
thus absolutely present outside a system of diff'erences. The absence of the tran-
able differences arrrong the leacling figures identitied with structuralism:
for having 'flirted' with scendental signified extends the domain and the play of signification
Althusser, though fre subsequently criticized hinrself
'bad infinitely.'38
structuralisrn, was consistently hostile to what he called Ldvi-Strauss's
the idea 'Everything became discourse.' Derrida famously expressed the same
Formalisrn'.37 Nevertheless, around the rnicldle of the 1960s that
model tbr the 'human thought elsewhere: 'There is nothing outside the text... There have never
Saussure's conception of language offered a general
been anything but supplements, substitutive significations. which could only
sciences' generally did influence even thinkers who were later to deny
any
come forth in a chain of differential ref-erences. the "real" supervening and
connection with itructuralism. So Foucault tn Tlte order rlf Thing,s
(1966)
governed by a singlc being added only when taking on meaning from a trace and from an ittvoca-
divicles intellectual history into periods each of which is
provides the horizon ol' tion of the supplement, etc. And thus to infinity.'3" The most influential way
episteme, an implicit conceptual structure which
in which post-structuralism has been received in the English-speaking world
thinking across ditTerent disciplines.
is indeed as a fbrm of linguistic idealism, what Richard Rorty calls 'textual-
The structuralist moment proved all the same to be a short-lived one' This
ism', according to which the world, rather than existing independently of the
reflected tensions inherent in the philosophy of language which Ldvi-Strauss
ways we talk about it, is coltstructed in discourse.*" This is, however, quite
and others hacl extracted from Saussure's Cotrrse. They tended to
think ol'
of from which arr rnisleading, and indicates the problematic way in which the work of what in
structure as a series of permutations of a finite set elements
generated' Thus myths firr tnany ways are quite ditferent thinkers - notably Derrida, Foucault, and the
infinite number of binary oppositions could be
philosopher Gilles Deleuze - has been marketed especially in the United
Lfvi-Strauss represent variations of a very small nutlrber of basic thentcs'
ol States under the labels 'post-structuralism' and 'postrnodernism'.
There was always a tension between this essentially closed conception
signified' Tht' The significance of post-structuralism is less that Derrida or Foucault wish
structure ancl the primacy which he gave to signifiers over
Io deny that tables and trees exist when we are not talking about them than
decisive step in constitutin g post-structuralism lay in resolving this
tensittrr
to disrupt the stabil iti' lhat the subversion of the Saussurian model of language created a space within
by, in effect, using the infinite rnovement of signiflcation
which certain themes deriving frorn Nietzsche could be pursued. Thus if
of structures.
lristory no longer has a strLlcture. then chance and contingency can assume a
The clearest example of this move is provided by Jacques Derricla. Itt
rr

famous essay,'structure. Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Htttttrttt


"' .1. l)t'rlirl;r. ll't ititt.q rttttl l)il'li'n'n<t' (l.orrtkrrr. l97lJ), pJr. 27t). 2|i0.
,, L. Alrltrrsscr, 'Srrr. Ldvi,sllrrtrss', irr itl., l:., t it: ltlrilt,.tttltltitlttt"s <'l ltrtlilitltrt'r {) r'ols' l'lttr" ''' .l- l)r'r'r itl:r. ()l (;ttu)ttuttlltltt.q\' {l}lrllirnolr'. l()7(r). Pp l.5li ()
"' l( l<,,rlt I lt, t',t,t\t tltt ut.t \ ttl l'ttnltttttti,rrr ( llrilltlott. l()li.ll. 1l I ll.
l()()-l 5t. ll. P 'll().

hrr
ilti
278 Crack-Up? Crack-Up? 2Zg
lltil
far greater irnportance. Sirnilarly, if discourse does not mirror the world, but recourse to history - one clf the great facts of French philosophical
thought for
iilttt
in some sense constitutes it, then maybe scientific theories could be seen as -
at least twenty years is meaningful to the extent that history serves
to show
il11'
elements in strategies of domination. A Nietzschean preoccupation with power how tharwhich-is has not always been: i.e., that the things which seem
most
dlil also helped to express the political concerns of many French intellectuals. evident to us are always formed in the confluence of encounters
and chances,
during the course of a precarious and fragile history.al
Disillusionment with the fäilure of Mery 1968 and its aftermath to produce any
lrl
fundamental social transformation and the remarkably belated discovery of
Foucault's writings of the 1960s were, as we saw above, influenced
the crimes committed by the Stalinist regimes in the USSR, China, Cambodia, by the
general structuralist preoccupation with language. By the end
and elsewhere promoted the view that history is a succession of tbrms of of that decade,
iri however, he came to think of himself as engaged in a practice he
domination. called
ii 'archaeologY', whose task 'consists of not of no longer
Althusserian Marxism proved highly vulnerable to this change in the politi- - - treating discourses
as groups of signs (signifying elements ref.erring to contents or representa-
cal and intellectual climate. This was partly because Althusser and his fol-
lowers tended to give only very superficial explanations of Stalinisrn, which tions) but as practices that systernatically form the objects of which
,i they
speak'.*a 'Discursive practices' consist of articulations of particular
they traced back to ideological deformations. But Althusser's reconstruction discourses
and the institutional contexts from which they gain their identity in
;1 of Marxism also contained within it major conceptual tensions. For one thing, which
neither term - neither the discursive nor the non-discursive is reducible
his conception of totality is thoroughly ambiguous. On the one hand, as we -
the other. Thus, even at this stage, Foucault was moving beyond
to
saw above, it seems to imply a version of structural functionalism, in which the idea of
the autonomy of language.
self'-perpetuating structures shape individuals according to their needs; on the
other hand, Althusser offers only the most formal of explanations of how his
Coming up with a satisfactory account of the relationship between
the discursive and the non-discursive turns out to require a resort
'structure of structures', as a plurality of relatively autonomous instances, to Nietzsche.
constituted a genuine totality rather than a mere aggregate of independent
In a key text, 'Nietzsche, Genearogy, History' (tg7l), Foucault embraces the
factors. For another thing. he insists that each science has its own internal
doctrine of the will to power: 'Humanity
does not graduaily progress from
combat to combat until it arrives at universal reciprocity where
criteria of validity. He denies, in other words, that there can be what Karl it-," iut. of law
Popper calls a 'demarcation criterion' on the basis of which one can discrimi-
finally replaces warfare; humanity installs each of its violences in a system
of
rules and thus proceeds fiom domination to domination.' He also espouses
nate between scientilic and non-scientific theories. The difliculty is that we
Nietzsche's critique of scientific reason:
therefbre have no way of telling whether a theoretical problematic is scientific
or ideological. Why not then give way to the temptation of denying that any
In appearance, ot'rather, according to the rnask it bears, hisb.ical conscirus-
such diffbrence exists, and of claiming that all theoretical discourses are
ness is neutral, devoid of passions, ancl committecl solely to trsth.
constituted by extra-scientific intercsts? But if it
examines itself and if, more generally, it interrogates the vtrrious fbrms
The conceptual flaws of Althusserian Marxism thus meant that it was entific consciousness in its history, it linds that all these fbrms ancl
of sci-
liable to collapse into sornething much closer to the kind of Nietzschean transforma-
tions are aspects of the will to knowledge: instinct, passion, the inquisitor's
social theory which began to gain ground in the mid-1970s. The key figure in devotion, cruel sUbtlety, and malice.a5
eff'ecting this shift was Foucault (though, as what he called 'a Nietzschean
Comrnunist', he was briefly a PCF member in the early [950s, he never Archaeology, the historical description of discursive practices, thereby
ili, claimed to be a Marxist*';. His influence was chiefly expressed through a becomes genealogy, whose object is 'power-knowledg",. i, Disciplirrc
and
series of texts which, though they fonnally belonged to the genre of intellec- Punish (1975) Foucault declares: 'There is no power-relation without
the cor-
Lli

|il tual history, in actuality represented a novel form of historical writing. Foucault relative constitution of a lield of knowledg., no. any knowledge
that does not
hirnself said: 'My books aren't treatises in philosophy or studies in history: presuppose and constitute at the same time power-relations.'a6
Insteacl of trying
at most they are philosophical fragments put to work in a historical fielcl ol'
i

lo reconstruct the episteme, the underlying conceptual structure, constitutive


problems.'42 He later elaborated:
rl

il lirucaull. 'structurirlisnt'. p. 207.


lr l\1. 1r.11c111;11. I'lrr' ,ltr'lttrt,.rtt.ql, tf-Kttt»rlt,d,qc (l..ntkln.
'' M. Fottcurtlt. llcrtrttrks otr lllrtt r (Nclv \irrk. I<)()ll. p. 5l
r" l'. llllrirr()\\. ('(l Ilt,, l.t,ur
19721.1-1. 4t1.
trtrlt llt,trrlt,t. (ll;rr.ilrontlswor,{lr, l()lJ(r). r).5.
1'] M. lioutlrrll. '(-)rrr'sliorrs ol l\4t'llrorl', /.t('. t tl()tlt. lt11. 8.5,
P.
I "' M. l,irr11 ;11,;1 l)tt,tl,ltrr, rrrrrl l,rrtritlt(l.orrtlorr. 1977).p )l

li'
280 Crack-Up? Crack-Up? 281

of any historical epoch, we should look for the prevailing 'apparatus' (disposi- their behaviour. The prison is one of a series of new institutions - schools,
tifl of power-knowledge, 'a thoroughly heterogeneous ensemble consisting of factories, barracks, and hospitals are other examples - in which the 'discipli-
di scourses, institutions, architectural forms, regulatory decisions, laws, admin- nary society' takes shape:
istrative measures, scientific statements, philosophical, moral and philan-
thropic propositions - in short, the said as much as the unsaid'.47 The historical moment of the disciplines was the moment at which an
l For our purposes, Foucault's theory of power-knowledge has three decisive art of the human body was born, which was directed not only at the growth of
elements. First, there is his concept of power. Power consists of a multiplicity its skills, nor at the intensification of its subjection, but at the formation of a
relation that in the mechanism itself makes it more obedient as it becomes more
of specific, localized relationships which together constitute the social body.
useful, and conversely. What was then being formed was a policy of coercions
It is not the attribute of any subject either individual or collective, nor does
i

that act upon the body, a calculated manipulation of its elements, its gestures,
its exercise depend on the pursuit of a global strategy. Rather, a multiplicity
its behaviour . . . it defined how one may take a hold on others' bodies, not only
of local tactics combine, unintentionally, in a way that is functional to a par- so that they may do what one wishes, but so they may operate as one wishes,
i
ticular apparatus of power-knowledge. Furthermore, power is not negative: it with the techniques, the speed and the efficiency that one determines. Thus
does not act by repressing or controlling the initiatives of independently discipline produces subjected and practised bodies, 'docile bodies'.5r
formed subiects. On the contrary, power is productive: in particular, acting
directly on human bodies, rather than relying on the intermediary of ideology. Thirdly, Foucault's genealogy implied a fundamental critique of modernity.
it transforms them into individuals and allocates them to their position within To begin with, the emergence of modern society in the epoch after the Revolu-
the social body. Finally,'[w]here there is power, there is resistance.'Power- tion represented not even the beginnings of a process of liberation, but merely
l
relations generate 'points of resistance' which are necessary conditions of theil' the installation of another apparatus of power-knowledge in the shape of the
functioning.a8 disciplines. Not only liberal capitalism, but also its supposed other, Marxism,
Secondly, this theory of power continues the anti-humanist critique of thc were implicated in the resulting form of domination. Foucault argued that
subject. Thus Foucault acknowledges that one position he shares with L6vi- 'what has happened since 1968, and arguably what made 1968 possible, is
il
Strauss, Lacan, and Althusser is 'the calling into question of the theory of thc something profoundly anti-Marxist'.s2 He believed that the explosion of move-
subject'.ae He takes this challenge even further than they did: rnents contesting specific forms of oppression could not be contained within
the framework of historical materialism with its totalizing focus on class
I
It is already one of the prime ef'tects of power that certain bodies, certain ges-
cxploitation. Foucault was personally active in one such movement, concerned
tures. certain discourses, certain desires come to be identi{ied and constituted with the prison-system, in the early 1970s; this involvement is an important
as individuals. The indiviclual, that is, is not the vls-ä-vls of power; it is, I
;rart of the background to Discipline and Punish.It took place during a period
I

believe, one of its prime effects. The individual is an efTect of power, and at thc
when Foucault was a fellow-traveller of the Maoist group Gauche Prol6tari-
same time, or precisely to the extent to which it is that eff-ect, it is the element
cnne. Many of the intellectuals attracted towards this milieu moved rightwards
l
of its articulation. The individual which power has constituted is at the same
irr the second half of the 1970s, thereby giving birth to the nouvelle philoso-
time its vehicle.5"
1thie, which claimed that the Gulag Archipelago was the logical consequence
ol' Marx's own thought (see § 11.1 above). Foucault followed this general drift,
Thus Discipline and Punislr traces the emergence at the beginning of the
nineteenth century of a new apparatus of power-knowledge. This is exempli tlcclaring:
fied in changes in the nature of punishment. Power no longer relies on spc('
i.

tacular public executions which serve to demonstrate in the pulverized botlv Stalinism was the truth, 'rather' naked, admittedly, of an entire political dis-
coLrrse which was that of Marx and of other thinkers befbre him. With the Gulag,
of the criminal the sovereignty of the absolute monarch. Imprisonment in-rplit's;
one sees not the consequences of an unfbrtunate error but the effect of the most
the application of a comprehensive body of rules which, enforced hy rrlcrttts
q

i 'true' theories in the order of politics. Those who sought to save themselves by
li of the continual surveillance of the inmates, seeks to regulatc attd trltttslirt'trt
titt opposing Marx's real beard tcl Stalin's fälse nose won't be happy.5r
:i i
j
41 M. F<rucerult . P6wt,r- Knt»rlctlgc, ctl. ('. ( iortlorr ( Ilriglrtttn. l9li0 ). p. l()'1, 'r lrorrr':rrrlt, I)i,tcipline.pp. 137-8.
i '' lirrrt'rrtrll . Pon'cr-Knowletlge. p. 57.
1ri M. I,-«rtrcar.rlt.'l-fic I{i,stpt'.t'ttf ,sctrrtrli/r', I (Ilitt'tttotttlswol llr. l()li I), p.()5.
1" froucaull, /i'rrrru*,s. P. .5li.
'' M. Iiruclrrrlt. 'l-lr (iranclc C«rlörc dcs lrrits'. l.t Ntttn'tl Olt,vt'tvttlt'rrt. () Mlry lr977. p.84,
()fi. rr';llrlt'tl irr lirrrt'lrrrll. l)it,rt't I'.('rit.\'l9.5li /(/,\§(-r vols. I'lrlis. l(X)l). ll. PP. )7li ()
'() lirLtr'lttrll, l'orrr't A'rrorr'/,'rl,qr'. p.

h,u
282 Crack-Up? Crack-Up? 283

But Foucault's critique of modernity extended to scientific reason itself. His between genealogy and particular localized forms of resistance. But resistance
concept of power-knowledge was not a crude instrumentalism: the relationship is itselI a mystery.
between power-relations and forms of- knowledge is a two-way one. Neverthe- Foucault asserts that 'where there is power, there is resistance'. What,
less, it does commit him to a version of Nietzsche's perspectivism according however, are the sources of resistance? Other thinkers have answers to this
to which every body of knowledge must be scrutinized for the particular will question. For Marx, the antagonistic relationship between exploiter and
to power which it embodies. More specifically, it was the claim to objectivity exploited necessarily gives rise to class struggle. Nietzsche thinks that reality
of modern scienti{ic rationality which he challenged, that is, is composed of nothing but rival centres of power. But Foucault claims that
power constitutes the individuals through which it then operates. There is,
a rationality that has been historically and geographically delined in the West, moreover, no escape fiom it: 'It seems to me that power is "always already
I
starting from the sixteenth century on. The West could never have attained the there", that one is never "outside" it, that there are no "margins" for those who
economic and cultural effects that are unique to it without the exercise of that break with the system to gambol in.'s7 It seems hard to see how the subjects
specific form of rationality. Now, how are we to separate that rationality from of power can resist it - except when it wants them to. And indeed Foucault's
the mechanisms. procedures, techniques, and effects of power that determine
ll it, which we are no longer prepared to accept, and which we no longer accept
discussions of particular forms of resistance are often pretty functionalist,
depicting them as opportunities for the prevailing apparatus to restructure
and which we point to as the form of oppression typical of capitalist societies,
and modernrze itself. He does at one point say that 'against the apparatus of
I

and perhaps of socialist societies too? Couldn't it be concluded that the promise
of Au.fklärang (Enlightenment), of attaining freedom through the exercise of sexuality', which is one aspect of the modern apparatus of power-knowledge,
reason, has been overturned within the domain of Reason itself, that it is taking one must counterpose 'bodies and pleasures'.sS But this seems to invoke
more and more space away from freedom?54 Rousseau's idea of a natural man repressed by civilization - a conception
totally at odds with the rest of Foucault's writings.
This is, of course, a version of the problem with which both Weber and the It is nevertheless in the second and third volumes of his History of Sexual-
Frankfurt School struggled. Towards the end of his life Foucault acknowl- iry, published very shortly before his death in June 1984, that Foucault begins
edged their importance. He said, for example: 'if I had been familiar with the to indicate a way out of the closed system of power-knowledge. He began this
Frankfurt School [in the 1950s and 1960s] . . . I would not have said a number History in the mid-1970s. Initially his aim was to undermine the idea, which
of stupid things that I did say and I would have avoided many of the detours he attributed to Freud, that sexuality is a kind of natural essence to which we
which I made while trying to pursue my humble path - when, meanwhile, have till recently been denied access by repression. He argues that sexuality
avenues had been opened up by the Frankfurt School.'s5 Yet this comparison is not a natural substance, but a historical construct, formed in a specific
indicates the main contradiction in Foucault's genealogy. Like Adorno ancl context of power-knowledge. Secondly, he seeks to show that the attempt to
Horkheimer, he takes up a critical stance towards the history of domination discover our inner nature by exploring sexuality is not something which we
which he reconstructs. Like them also, he lacks a vantage-point from which owe to psychoanalysis, but can be traced back to the early Christian centuries,
to take up this stance (see § 10.3 above). What will to power do his genealogi- and thereby to establish 'how it comes about that people are taught that the
cal histories articulate? secret of their truth lies in the region of their sex'.5'
Sometimes Foucault tries to evade this question by denying that his texts In the event, Foucault found it necessary to go back ever further, into the
have any truth-value: 'I am well aware I have never written anything but history of classical antiquity. In doing so he refined the nature of his theoreti-
fictions.' But these assertions are contradicted by the labour of historical cal enterprise. Thus he announces: 'My objective . . . has been to create a
research and narrative construction which he puts into his books. And il history of the modes by which, in our culture, human beings are made into
they are fictions, how are they to be of any political use, as he plainly hopcs subjects . . . Thus it is not power, but the subject, which is the general theme
they will be? He says that genealogy is 'based on a reactivation of local of my research.'60 As Thomas R. Flynn observes, 'at each spiral of his
knowledges . . . in opposition to the scientihc hierarchization of knowledgcs
and the effects intrinsic to their power'.s6 This suggests some connectiori 5/ Ibid.. p. l4l.
\x lirtrcuult. IIi.ttot'r'. p. l-57 (translation rnoclificcl).
5'1 Fotrcault, Remttrk.v, pp. I l7-ltt. "' lirtrt'rttrll , l'ttl'r't httttt'lr'rl.qr', p.21r4.
t5 F<lrcuult.'structrrnrlisrn'. p. 2(X). rr(' M. lirrrtrrrrll. llrt' Srrlrlt'tl rrrrrl l'owcr'', rrp;rt'rrrlir lrl II. l)reylrrs rurtl l'. lllthirt«lw, Mi<'lrcl
r(' IirLtcrtrtll. l'orrt't'-Kttorrlt'tl.qt'. pp. l() t. li5 lit,ttt trrtll ( llr rllrl,,tt. l'lli r). pp .)Oli t).
284 Crack-Up? Crack-Up? 285

research. Foucault has read the previous turn as dealing with what the next ernism' (however much he and other supposed exemplars of this current might
professed to study'.6' Thus in the second and third volumes of the History, reject such a description6a;. The difliculties he encounters - in particular those
he introduces the concept of 'technologies of the self', that is, 'techniques of specifying the theoretical and political vantage-point from which this cri-
which permit individuals to effect, by their own means, a certain number of tique is conducted - are representative ones: one can see them recurring, for
operations on their own bodies, their own souls, their own thoughts, their example, in much cruder and less interesting examples of the genre. fbr
own conduct, and this in a manner so as to transform themselves, modify example, the work of the cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard. But theories which
themselves, and to attain to a certain state of perf'ection, happiness, purity, can, without too much violence to their content, be packaged as postmodernist
supernatural power'.6'The main example Foucault gives of such a technology do not exhaust the contemporary intellectual scene. A number of thinkers have
is the practices of enkrateia (mastery) performed by citizens of ancient sought to continue what one might call the classical tradition of social theory
Athens in order to develop the self-control necessary to rule over non-citizens - represented above all by Marx, Durkheim, and Weber - in a way that is
- women, children, and slaves - in both the city and the household. responsive to the 'revolution of language' characteristic of so much twentieth-
The account which Foucault provides of this 'aesthetics of existence' in The century thought. Some of these are Marxists; others, however, are more diffi-
Use of Pleasure (1984) is strongly reminiscent of Nietzsche's descriptions o1' cult to classify. Among the latter are two of the most interesting and influential
the practices o[ 'self-overcoming' necessary if the Overman is to arise from social theorists of the late twentieth century, Jürgen Habermas and Pierre
amidst the dreary mediocrity of the 'last men' (see §5.3 above). But what is Bourdieu. I conclude this chapter, therefore, with a discussion of some of the
significant for our purposes is that Foucault treats these as processes of seff- main themes in their work.
constitution, through which subjects act on and form themselves. At the very
least this represents a marked shift of emphasis compared to the writings ol' (l) The healing powers of reason: Habermas. Habermas is the chief intel-
his 'middle' period in the 1970s. Another sign of this shift is a late text wherc lectual heir of the Frankfurt School.6s But he is in no sense an uncritical pupil
Foucault takes up the question first posed by Kant: 'What is Enlightenment?' of Horkheimer and Adorno. He points to what he calls the 'performative
He rejects what he calls 'the "blackmail" of the Enlightenment', in other' contradiction' inherent in Dialectic of Enlightenrnent: 'If they . . . still want
words, the idea that 'one has to be "fbr" or "against" the Enlightenment'. But to continue w,ith critique. they will have to leave at least one rational criterion
at the same time he argues that humanism (which he continues to oppose) ancl intact for their explanation of the corruption of all rational criteria.'66 Interest-
the Enlightenment are not the same thing, and suggests that the Enlightenmenl ingly, in their correspondence, Horkheimer and Adorno adumbrated precisely
project is best continued as 'an attitude, an ethos, a philosophical life in which the kind of resolution of this paradox that Habermas was to purslle. Thus
the critique of what we are is at one and the same time the historical analysis Horkheimer writes: 'Language intends, quite independently of the psychologi-
of the limits that are imposed on us and experiment with the possibility ol cal intentions of the speaker, the universality of the speaker, the universality
going beyond them'.63 This suggests, once again, a convergence betweett that has been ascribed to reason alone. Interpreting this universality necessar-
Foucault and the Frankfurt School, and one in which Nietzsche's reduction ol' ily leads to the idea of a correct society.' Thus:
reason to an expression of the will to power is no longer simply taken firr'
granted. To speak to someone basically means recognizing him as a possible member
of the future association of fiee human beings. Speech establishes a shared
relation towards truth, and is therefore the innermost affirmation of another
11.4 Carrying on the tradition: Habermas and Bourdieu 6r See, for example, Foucault, 'structuralism', pp. 204_5.
rr5 Jürgen Habennas (1929_): born in Düsseldorf and brought up in Gumrnersbach, where his
Foucault's writings are a particularly distinguished example of the kind ol litther was clirector of the Charnber of Commerce; studied at Göttingen , Zurich, and Bonn uni-
critique of modernity now apparently indissociable from the label 'postr.ttotl vcrsities, 1949-54 joined the Frankfurt lnstitute for Social Research in 1956 as Adorno's
rcscrrrch assistant; after Horkheimer prevented him pursuing his Habilitation at Frankfurt,
t'orrrplctecl it under the supervision of Wolfgang Abendroth at Marburg University; Extraordi-
o' Tlromas R. Flynn, 'Truth and Subjectivation in the l-atcr Foucault'. .lottt'ttttl o.l'l'lriltt.srt1,l11. rrirry Prol'essor of Philosophy at Heidelburg University, 1961-4 Professor of Philosophy and
82 (198s), p.532. Sociol«rgy at Frankfurt University, 1964 1l: director of Max Planck lnstitute, Starberg. 1971-82;'
f 'r.oli'sstrr ol' Phi losophy, Frankfurt University, 1982-93.

''r' .1. llrrhcrrturs. 'fltt, Philo.sophicul Discourse of Moderrzlr.v (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 119,
'/.
I .)(t
286 Crack-Up? Crack-Up? 287

existence, indeed of all forms of existence according to their capacities. When only if
we give up the paradigm of the philosophy of conscrousness - namely
speech denies any possibilities, it necessarily contradicts itself.67 toils with them - in favour of the paradigm
a subject that represents objects and
of linguistic philosophy - namely that of intersubjective understanding or com-
Though Adorno endorsed this idea, it appears in neither his nor Horkheim- munication - and put the cognitive-instrumental aspect of reason in its place
as part of a more encompassing communicative rationality.ll
er's published writings. It became, however, the leitmotif of Habermas's theory
of communicative action. 'Our first sentence expresses unequivocally the
Habermas is therefore as critical as Foucault of any attempt to make the self-
intention of universal and unconstrained consensus', he says.68 Every speech-
act involves the speaker undertaking to provide the hearer with good reasons
certain individual subject the foundation of knowledge, but he believes that
for accepting whatever assertion, command, etc. he or she is making. Under- Foucault's solution - the attempt to continue Nietzsche's critique of reason -
ends up in precisely the same kind of performative contradiction that wrecks
standing consists of the hearer's acceptance of this 'redeemable validity-
claim'. Implicit in every utterance, therefore, is an orientation towards the Dialectic of Enlightenment. What is required, then, is 'a dffirent way out of
achievement of an uncoerced agreement between speaker and hearer. It is this
the philosophy of the subject'.72 The theory of communicative action offers a
broader conception of rationality, one which treats instrumental rationality as
orientation, not some ungrounded moral aspiration or obsolete philosophy of
history, which entitles us to pursue an emancipated society whose basis would merely one form of rationality, pertinent to 'action oriented to success', which
is fundamentally different from communicative action, where 'the actions of
be precisely the kind of freely undertaken consensus which is the telos of
every speech-act: 'The Utopian perspective of reconciliation and freedom is the agents involved are coordinated not through egocentric calculations of
success but through acts of reaching understanding.'73
ingrained in the conditions for the communicative sociation of individuals; it
is built into the linguistic mechanism of the reproduction of the species.'6e This philosophy of language allows Habermas to identify what he argues
This philosophy of language, which is a development of the speech-act is the critical weakness of Weber's theory of rationalization, namely that it
theory developed by J. L. Austin, H. P. Grice, and John Searle, and is most relies on a one-sided and narrow conception of reason which, like the
fully expounded in The Theory of Communicative Action (1981), provides Frankfurt School after him, equates it with instrumental rationality:
Habermas with what he believes to be the solution to the dilemmas of the
Weber's intuitions point in the direction of a selective pattern of rationalization,
early Frankfurt School. Horkheimer's and Adorno's error was, in effect, to
a jagged profile of modernization. Yet Weber speaks of paradoxes and not of
equate reason in general with what they call 'subjective reason', Weber's
the partial character of societal rationalization. In his view, the real reason fbr
instrumental rationality, which is oriented on selecting the most effectivc the dialectic of rationalization is not an unbalanced institutionalization of avail-
means to achieve ends that are, as Parsons puts it, 'random' (see §10.3 above). able cognitive potentials; he locates the seeds of destruction of the rationaliza-
This reductive conception of reason reflects the fact that they were operating tion in the very differentiation of independent value-spheres that released that
within the framework of the 'philosophy of consciousness' that has dominatecl potential and made that rationalization possible.Ta
Western thought since Descartes. Here subjectivity is conceived as 'mono-
logic', isolated from other subjects and confronting a world of things which it Modernity thus represents a partial realization of the potential inherent
seeks to use and control: from this perspective, reason is necessarily instru- in communicative rationality; it is 'an incomplete project'.1s Habermas fol-
mental, a means to allow the subject to dominate nature. Classical Marxisnt lows Weber and Parsons in seeing modernization as essentially a process
(or what Habermas calls 'praxis philosophy') bases itself on this conceptiorr of differentiation. This crucially affects what he calls the 'lifeworld'
of subjectivity: the 'production paradigm' depicts human beings as constitutctl (l,ebenswelt). This concept derives from the idea, found in different forms
through their interaction with nature through the intermediary of labour.7" in both Husserl and Heidegger, that understanding presupposes certain tacit
We can escape from this framework, which denies us a vantage-point f«rrrr 7rrr,-understandings which allow us, without being consciously aware of it,
which to criticize the work of instrumental rationality,

'' lhirl.. p. 390.


67 Letter to Adorno, l4 September 1941, quoted in R. Wiggershaus, The Franklirrt ,\t'ltool
/' lhitl.. P.301.
(Cambridge, Mass., 1994), p. 505. " Il:rbt'r'nr:rs, 77rrar'.r', I, 1-t1-1.
2tt5-6.
6n J. Habermas, Knowledge and Humon Interests (London, 1972), p. 314. " lbi.l.. pp. 2.1I 2.
6e J. Habernlas, Thc 7-hcttr), rl/'Cotnnttnicrttit,e Acliott.l (l,onckrn, l9lt4;. p. 3t13.
'' .l lllrht'r.rrr;rs.'Motlt'rrrilt, Arr lrrt'orrrlrlctt' I)rojccl', irr IL lirstcr, ctl.. I)o.rlttrtttlcrn Ctrlltrre
10 Fllberrnus, l'ltilo,toltlrit'rtl l)i.st'tttrr:t,, pp. 7.5 ti2. (l orrtlorr- l()t5).

hut',
288 Crack-Up? Crack-Up? 289

to interpret the actions and utterances of others (see §9.2 above). The lifeworld as a continuously renewed compromise between two series of imperatives',
is 'a culturally transmitted and linguistically organized stock of interpretive those of the essentially communicative understanding of actors rooted in a
patterns', it 'circumscribes action situations in the manner of a pre-understood shared lifeworld (social integration), and those involved in the functional
context that, however, is not addressed'.76 It forms the background which we interdependence of sub-systems operating according to logics which we cannot
take for granted when seeking through our utterances to reach agreement fully control (systern integration).78
among ourselves. Habermas argues that the differentiation of system and lifeworld is inevi-
With the forrnation of modernity, the lifeworld undergoes rationalization, table and, up to a point. desirable. 'Marx's error stems in the end from dialecti-
in two respects. First of all, we see 'a differentiation of independent cultural cally clamping together system and lif-eworld.' In consequence, 'he fails to
value spheres' - science, law and morality, and art emerge as distinct practices recognize the intrinslc evolutionary value that media-steered sub-systems
regulated by their own specific procedures. It is this development which possess . . . the differentiation of the state apparatus and the economy also
Weber portrays as the 'war of gods', the struggle of rival values each making represents a higher level of system difl'erentiation, which simultaneously opens
incommensurable claims to our obedience (see §7.2 above). This interpretation up new steering possibilities and forces a reorgani zation of the old feudal class
involves a failure to understand that rationality consists precisely in the relationshipt.'" Late capitalism involves an 'institutionalization' of class
formal procedures through which claims in the different value-spheres conflict between capital and labour through the development of structures
are assessed: and policies - parliamentary democracy, the welfare state, ancl Keynesian
demand-management - that represent forms of normative regulation of the
Weber goes too fär when he inf-ers fiorn the loss of the substantial unity of sub-systems.
reason a polytheism of gods and demons IGlaubensmäch.te) struggling with one This appraisal does not mean that Habermas follows Parsons in believing
another, with their irreconcilability rooted in a plurality of cornpeting validity- that basically all is well with modernity. On the contrary, he argues that
claims. The unity of rationality in the multiplicity of all value-spheres rational- 'capitalist modernization follows a pattern such that cognitive-instrumental
ized according to their inner logics is secured precisely at the formal level of rationality surges beyond the bounds of the economy and the state into other,
the argumentative redemption of validity-claims.77
communicatively structured areas of life and achieves a dominance there at
the expense of moral-political and aesthetic-practical rationality'. This
Secondly, modernization involves the differentiation of system and life- amounts to'a colonization of the lifeworld...the imperatives of the sub-
world. Here Habermas draws heavily on the tradition of normative functional- systems make their way into the lifeworld from outside - like colonial masters
ism whose chief representatives are Durkheirn and Parsons. Every society coming into a tribal society - and force a process of assimilation upon it.'80
requires in order to exist social integration, through which the orientations ol' As a result, 'processes of monetarization and bureaucratization penetrate the
actors are harmonized in the medium of communicative action. But the imper-
core domains of cultural reproduction, social integration, and socialization.'
atives of material reproduction, which receive full expression with the devel-
These processes represent the rational core of Weber's and the Frankfurt
opment of capitalism. require the formation of 'systemic mechanisms that School's critique of modernity. But we should not, like them, despair of
stabilize non-intended consequences of action by way of functionally reason. Habermas's more differentiated conception of rationality allows us
intermeshing action consequences'. The two main examples of these mecha- to see that 'it is a question of building up restraining barriers for the exchanges
nisms which Habermas discusses are the bureaucratic state and the markcl hetween system and lifeworld and of building in sensors for the exchanges
economy. His analysis of them follows Parsons's theory of the 'sub-systenrs' hetween lifeworld and system'.Sr
of polity and economy quite closely (see §10.2 above). Thus. with the develoJr- Haberrnas's theory of communicative action represents an extraordinarily
ment of the market and the state, '[d]elinguistified media of communicatiorr itttpressive attempt to pursue the questions which have been constitutive of
such as money and power, connect up interactions in space and tinrc into nrorc social theory since Hegel. How plausible one finds it will depend heavily on
and more complex networks that no one has to comprehencl or bc responsihk'
for'. And so,'[f]ollowing Parsons, we can conceive the intcgration «rl'socicl-y
" lbicl.. Il. pp. 1.50, lU4. 233.
"' lhirl.. II, pp. 340. 339.
16 J. Haberrnas, Tha 'l'hcttrt' tlf'Corrtrttrrtrir'trtivc At tiotr. ll (('rrrrrbr irlgt'. r, llrrtl.. ll. pp. 304. .j5.5.
11 Hrrbcrntls, 'l'ltcot'.t'. I. pp. 2r1.1. 2-19. "' I lrrlrt'r rrr;.rs. I'lriltt.trtltltit'trl l)i:t.rtn /',rr,. 15.5. 164.
l)l).

ii
290 Crack-Up? Crack-Up? 291

one's assessment of the way in which at every level of his system, from his Bourdieu, like L6vi-Strauss, was a philosopher turned anthropologist (and.
theory of meaning to his analysis of late capitalism, Habermas privileges a later, sociologist). He started out employing the tools of structural analysis.
tendency towards intersubjective understanding or consensus. As Perry but his research among the Kabyle Berbers of Algeria uncovered a systematic
Anderson puts it, 'where, we might say, structuralisrn and poststructuralism discrepancy between the 'official' kinship structures and actual practice. He
developed a kind of diabolism of language, Habermas has unruffledly pro- concluded that
duced an angelism'.s2 Whether this is a sustainable approach to a social world
riven by every kind of conflict is open to question. In his later work, most the logical relations of kinship, which the structuralist tradition almost com-
notably his major study of the philosophy of law and democracy, Between pletely autonomizes with respect to economic determinants, exist in practice
Fact ancl Norm (1992), the priority that Habermas gives to consensus leads only through and for the official and unofficial uses made of thern by agents
him systematically to narrow the gap between normative critique and explana- whose inclination to keep them in working order and to make them work more
tory social theory. He portrays contemporary liberal capitalist societies as intensively . . . rises to the degree to which they actually or potentially fulfil
useful functions. satisfying rnaterial or symbolic interests.86
already possessing the communicative resources to fulfll all that we can rea-
i

,l
I

sonably expect in the way of deliberative democracy and as beginning, through


Talk of interests reintroduces agency into social theory. Axel Honneth sug-
their military interventions, to realize the cosmopolitan norms of a Kantian
gests that 'Bourdieu is guided by utilitarian motifs in overcoming structural-
perpetual peace. As Anderson notes in a stringent assessment of the later
ism. He proceeds from the assumption that symbolic constructions . . . should
Habermas, the 'effect is apologetic. Our societies are better than we know.'*3
also be conceived as social activities performed from the point of view of utility
(2) Competition andfinitude: Bourdieu. Certainly, Habermas's social theory maximization.'87 And indeed the idea that any given state of society is the
product of 'a struggle to appropriate rare goods' is a generalization of the eco-
represents a dramatic contrast with Bourdieu's.84 The latter offers a vision not
nomic model the marginalist tradition (drawing on utilitarianism) constructed,
of a movement towards uncoerced agreement, but of unremitting struggle:
where competing actors seek to make the best use of scarce resources. Bourdieu
goes so far as to claim that '[t]here is an economy of practices. a reason imma-
Every state of the social world is thus no more than a temporary equilibrium,
a moment in the dynamics through which the adjustment between distributions
nent in practices', that is 'constitutive of the structure of rational practices, that
and incorporated or institutionalized classifications is constantly broken and is, the practice most appropriate to achieve the objectives inscribed in the logic
restored. The struggle which is the very principle of the distributions is inex- of the particular field at the lowest cost'. One such objective is 'the maximiza-
tricably a struggle to appropriate rare goods and a struggle to impose the legiti- tion of monetary proflt, the only one recognized by economism'.88
mate way of perceiving the power-relations manif-ested by the distributions, a In proposing 'a general theory of the economy of practices' of which the
representation which. through its own efficacy, can help to perpetuate or subvert 'theory of strictly economic practices is a particular case', Bourdieu does not
85
these power-relations. totally break with structuralism.se Thus he toys with the formulations'genetic
structuralism', or 'c'onstrltctivist structuralism' in order to characterize his
own position. He believes that 'there exist in the social world itself, and not
rr2 merely in symbolic systems, language, myth, etc., objective structures which
In the Tracks o.f Historical Materialisra (London, 1983), p. 64.
P. Anclerson ,
83 Id., 'Norming are independent of the consciousness and desires of agents and are capable of
Facts', in Spectrum (London,2005), p. 128. See also A. Callinicos, Againsr
Postmoderni.rrz (Cambridge, 1989), ch. 4, and The Resources of Critique (Cambridge, 2006), guiding or constraining their practices or their representations'.e0
§ l.l. Social structure is in fact, according to Bourdieu, a Saussurian system of
It:lPierre Bourdieu (1930-2002): born in the B6arn area of south-eastern Francel son of a civil differences in which agents' positions are defined by their antagonistic rela-
servant; studiecl philosophy at the Ecole Normale Supdrieure; schoolteacher. l9-5-5-6; servecl irs tions to one other:
French conscript in Algeria, 1956-8; from this experience wrote Sociologie de Alglrie (19-5tt);
taught at the University of Algiers, l958-60t taught at the universities of Paris and of I-illc.
l96O-4;DirectorofStudiesattheEcolePratiqueclesHautesEtutles. 1964-81;clireclorol'Ccrrllt' x(r lbid., p. 35.
de Sociologie Europdenne, 1968-2002; elected Prof'essor of Sociology at thc Collöge rlc l;r'rrrrc(', x7 A. Honneth, 'The Fragmented World of Symbolic Forms', Theory Culture & Society,3l3
l98l; after the 1995 public sector strikes assurnecl a rnuch rttorc rrctivc politit'rrl rolt'lrs;r t:;rrrr tl()lt(r). p. 56.
paigneragainst neo-liberalisrn. in associatirlrr witlr (lrc I(irisorrs tl'irgir rrt'twol'k thirl hr'hclpctl lrr x§ B«rurdieu, Logit', p. 50.
firu nd. s(' lhitl., p. I22.
ss l). lltttrrtlictr (l9tiO). 'l'ltt' ltt.qir' ttl l't'rrr'tit t'(('trrrrh;irlgc. l()()Ol. l.ll 'rr l'. ll«lrrnlictr. ltt ()tlttr Wttnl.s (('trrrrhrirlgc. l(XX)). PP I l. l-) l.
,.

rli
292 Crack-Up? Crack-Up? 293

These objective relations are relations between the positions occupied in the of gratitude aroused by benefits, can be one of the foundations of this
distribution of resources which are or may become active, effective, like trumps recognition).e5
in a game of cards, in the competition for the appropriation of the rare goods
of which this social universe is the locus. These fundamental social powers This mechanism of 'symbolic violence' - 'the conversion of economic
are, according to my empirical researches, economic capital, in its different capital into symbolic capital, which produces relations of dependence that
forms, and cultural capital, and also symbolic capital, a form which is assumed
have an economic basis but are disguised under a veil of moral relations' -
by different kinds of capital when they are perceived and recognized
operates in capitalist societies as well.e6Indeed, it is the process through which
as legitimate.er
a given social structure is reproduced:

Bourdieu's general theory of economic practices thus involves a generaliza-


By virtue of the fact that symbolic capital is nothing more than economic or
tion of the concept of capital to embrace more than narrowly 'economic'
cultural capital which is acknowledged or recognized, when it is acknowledged
capital. Although he pays homage to Marx's formula that 'capital is a social in accordance with the categories of perception that it imposes, the symbolic
relation', in fact, as Craig Calhoun points out, 'Bourdieu . . . consistently sees power-relations tend to reproduce and to reinforce the power-relations which
I capital as a resource (that is, a form of wealth) which yields power.'e2 Thus constitute the structure of the social space."
i
cultural capital is the degree of mastery one has of the cultural practices which
a given society recognizes as legitimate. Educational capital - the formal It follows, Bourdieu believes, that a proper account of social class must take
qualifications an individual acquires - is one index of the amount of cultural into account the dimension of symbolic capital: A class is defined by its
capital, but the two are not equivalent. Cultural capital is, for example, present being-perceived as by its being, by its consumption . . . as much as by its posi-
in 'the paradoxical relationship to culture made up of self-confidence amid tion in the relations of production (even if it is true that the latter governs the
(relative) ignorance and of casualness amid familiarity, which bourgeois fami- former).' His best-known book, Distinction (1979), pursues this project in
lies hand down to their offspring as if it were an heirloom'.e3 loving detail. An empirical study of the judgements of taste, particularly
The different forms of capital are mutually convertible. For example, the (though not exclusively) with respect to art, made by the bearers of different
bourgeoisie may undertake the 'reconversion of economic capital into educa- class positions, it allows Bourdieu to explore the endless struggle for classifica-
tional capital', investing in the acquisition of academic qualifications by their tion which permeates and constitutes modern societies. Modern art presup-
offspring so that the latter may gain access to a share of profits in the form poses the autonomy of cultural production which in turn privileges 'that of
of salaries and other kinds of 'earned income'.ea The most important such which the artist is master, i.e., form, manner, style rather than the "subject",
conversion involves symbolic capital. Drawing on Marcel Mauss's analysis of the external referent, which involves subordination to functions'. Responding
'primitive' exchange in The Gift, Bourdieu argues that in pre-capitalist socie- appropriately to art of this kind i'equires 'a specific cultural competence'
ties the generosity of the rich serves as a means through which the economi- which 'is, for the most part, acquired simply by contact with works of art'.e8
cally dominant class can secure the consent of the dominated in the shape of This 'aesthetic disposition' is differentially distributed throughout society.
gratitude, respect, and a sense of obligation: It is directly opposed to 'the "popular aesthetic"', which is 'based on the
affirmation of continuity between art and life, which implies the subordination
In an economy which is defined by the refusal to recognize the 'objective' truth of form to function'. The capacity to respond appropriately to autonomously
of 'economic' practices, that is, the law of 'naked self:interest' and egoistic produced art thus allows its bearer to distinguish herself from the working
calculation, even 'economic' capital cannot act unless it succeeds in being rec-
class. Indeed: 'The pure aesthetic is rooted in an ethic, or rather, an ethos of
ognized through a conversion that can render unrecognizable the true principle
elective distance from the necessities of the natural and social world.' Such a
of its eflicacy. Symbolic capital is this denied capital, recognized as legitimate,
stance presupposes the possession of economic capital, for '[e]conomic power
that is, misrecognized as capital (recognition, acknowledgement, in the sense
is first and foremost a power to keep economic necessity at arm's length'. But
the aesthetic disposition does not simply reflect the conversion of economic
'' lbid., p. 128.
e2 C. Calhoun,'Habitus, Field, and Capital', in C. Calhoun et al., ctls, lJorrnlictr: (ritit'ttl
(f5
Perspec'tives (Cambridge. 1993), p. 69. Compare P. Bout-dicu. /)i,slirtt'titttr ll .orrrkrr. l9li.l). Bourdieu, Logic, p. 118.
p. 1 13. "6 Ihid., p. 123.
l
e'3 Bourdier.r, Di.slitrction,
1't.
(t6. ')t llourdieu, In Other Word.s, p. l3-5.
e:r Ibid.. p. t37. ''x l]«rrrrdieu, I)i.stirtction, pp. 4113, 3. 4.

hr r
294 Crack-Up? Crack-Up? 295
into cultural capital. Both the 'dominant' and the middle class are internally painters internalize the whole history of the field, defining themselves nega-
diff-erentiated between a fraction which possesses considerable economic tively with respect to both their predecessors (who may, as the process of
capital (employers at the higher level, craftsmen and shopkeepers at the inter- innovation speeds up, be only a few years older) and their contemporaries.
mediate level) and a fraction that is materially poorer but has plentiful cultural Distinctictn and The Rules of Art are major works by any standard. yet
capital (university and secondary-school teachers in the 'dominant class', reading them one is struck by the extent to which Bourdieu is influenced by
prirnary-school teachers in the middle class). Therefore 'the structure of the the classic structuralism of Saussure and L6vi-Strauss. Thus, when presenting
distribution of economic capital is symmetrical and opposite to that of cultural a complex set of diagrams depicting the relationships between the different
. .. oo
capttal ." forms of capital and the dispositions and strategies of its bearers, he says that
The uneven distribution of cultural and economic capital both between and his aim is to show 'the homologies between systems of difference,.rOr or.
within classes therefore gives rise to a relentless struggle in which the contest- again, he writes of the 'structural and functional homology between the space
ants each seek to take advantage of the resources in which they are relatively of authors and the space of consumers (and of critics) and the correspondence
wealthy in order to impose their deflnition of the social and in particular of between the social structures of spaces of production and the mental structures
their position within it on the others: 'The struggle of classifications is a fun- which authors, critics, and consurners apply to their products (themselves
damental division of class struggle. The power of imposing a vision of divi- organized according to these structures;'.r02 Direct or inverse homologies
sions, that is the power of making visible and explicit the social divisions that between structures defined by the differential relations among their terms play
are implicit is the political power par excellence: it is the power to make a central explanatory role in Bourdieu's analyses.
I groups, to manipulate the objective structure of society.'r00 Bourdieu nevertheless expresses his vehement opposition to 'structuralism
lf Distinction offers an account of the demand side of cultural production - and its strange philosophy of action which. implicitly in the Ldvi-Straussian
I the consumption of works of art - Bourdieu's more recent The Rule,s of Art notion of the unconscious and avowedly among the Althusserians, made the
(1992) portrays the supply side. Here he traces the origins of the idea of autono- agent disappear by reducing it to the role of supporter or bearer. . . of the
rlous art particularly in the fiction and criticism of Flaubert under the Second structure."nt One of the main purposes of his best-known concept , the habitus,
Empire, but also develops a theory of the field of cultural production, which is is to transcend the opposition between structuralism, which reduces agents to
in turn one instance of a more general theory of fields. The concept of a field the effects of structures, and the methodological indiviclualism of Sartre and
is a specification of Bourdieu's 'relational' view of society. Every field consists rational-choice theorists such as Jon Elster who treat structures in turn as
of a set of positions defined by their mutually antagonistic relations; it exists, merely the unintended consequences of individual actors.
therefore, in the continuous struggles among the bearers of these positions. By habitus Bourdieu means a particular set of dispositions, consisting
The constitution during the nineteenth century of an autonomous field of cul- especially in the practical abilities required to apply categories that are means
tural production in both painting and literature took the form of competition of perceiving and of appreciating the world, appropriate to a specific objective
among producers for symbolic capital where the decisive claim is that of the position within the class structure. Thus:
aesthetic innovator who is able to gain recognition tbr his claim to novelty.
The artistic field is deflned by its antagonistic relationship to the 'economic' The conditionings associated with a particular class of conditions pro«luce con-
field in the narrow sense, represented in this case by commercial publishing, ditions of existence, produce habitus. systems of durable, transposable disposi-
art-dealers, etc. The commerciaily successful writer or painter can claim tions, structuring structures predisposed to function as structr-rring structures,
within the artistic field far less symbolic capital than the 'pure' artist. But, in that is, as principles which generate and organize practices and representations
a process that has the structure of Weber's dialectic of charisma and routine, that can be objectively adapted to their outcomes without presupposing a con-
the artists who are successful within the artistic field tend to gain 'conse- scious aiming at ends or an express mastery of the operations necessary in order
crated' status. This allows them to convert symbolic capital into economic to attain them. objectively 'regulated' and 'regular' without being in any way
the product of obedience to rules. they can be collectively orchestrated without
capital; but it also makes their works more commonplace and less scarce, and
being the product of the organizing action of a conductor.r0a
so renders them vulnerable to the challenge of new innovators. The further
the autonomous developrnent of the artistic field goes, the nr«rrc writcrs uncl
Bourdieu. Distinctiott, p. 126.
e'.) lbid.. pp. 12.
P. Bor"rrdieu, The Rule,s rlt'Arr (Ctrmhridge, 1996), p. 162.
-5. .5.5. l20. lhitl.. p. l7t).
r(r(1 llorrrtl icrr, ltt ()tltt't.Wttnl:,11. l.lN. llotrtlit'rr. / rr,glr', p. -5.j.

hr
296 Crack-Up? Crack-Up? 297

The habilus constitutes the means through which individual actors are past conditions of production of their generative principles are adapted in
adapted to the needs of speciflc social structures. It must therefore be seen as advance to the objective conditions whenever the conditions in which the
'a virtue made of necessity'; each class's habitus reflects its adjustment to the habitus functions have remained identical, or similar, to the conditions in which
it was constituted.ros
possibilities defined by its access to the different kinds of capital. Thus in the
case of the working class 'necessity includes for them all that is usually meant
This argument looks very much like a form of functionalism, in which a
by the word, that is, an inescapable deprivation of material goods'. The relative
phenomenon is explained by its beneficial consequences (in this case the
'modesty' of working-class tastes reflects a tacit recognition that any more
reproduction of social structures) without the mechanism responsible for this
expansive aspirations do not correspond to the distribution of social power.
process being specified.r0e Bourdieu has vehemently repudiated this criticism,
Accordingly: 'social class is not defined solely by a position in the relations
without, however, more than restating his original claim.l"'It is true that, as
of production, but by the class habitus that is "normally" (i.e. with a high sta-
the passage just cited implies, he admits the possibility of situations where
tistical probability) associated with that position.'r0''
hubitus and lield are not mutually adjusted because the present objective situ-
Bourdieu does not think of the habitus as anything resembling a set of
ation is different from that in which the habitus was fbrmed. He calls this 'the
consciously held beliefs. For one thing, it is quite literally embodied - 'social
Don Quixote effect', which arises 'in cases of discordance between the condi-
necessity turned into nature, converted into motor schemes and bodily autom-
tions of acquisition and c-onditions of use, i.e., when the practices generated
atisms', present in, for example, tastes for different kinds of food, and in the
by the habitus appear as ill-adjusted because they are attuned to an earlier
way in which people hold and orient themselves physically, dress, and so on."'6
state of the objective conditions'.r'l
For another, it consists not in anything resembiing the grasp of an explicit
Yet the constant reiteration, notably but not solely in Distinction, of the
proposition, but a kind of tacit competence implicit in actors' practical ability
phrase 'everything takes place as if' suggests that society is objectively ori-
to cope with a wide range of situations in ways that are predictabie without
ented towards goals even if no individual or collective agent has adopted or
being reducible to the conscious observance of a set of rules. Bourdieu's
pursued them. Similarly, though the various fields are constituted by the strug-
analysis here reflects the influence of Heidegger and the later Wittgenstein,
gles among agents, these struggles serve primarily to reproduce the existing
both of whom see social conduct as consisting in the mastery of practical skills
structure of the fields rather than to transform them. Thus, Bourdieu com-
unamenable to formal representation. Philosophers influenced by these think-
ments on struggles over classification in which educational qualifications
ers have therefore welcomed Bourdieu's social theory.r0T
become more widely available, leading to the development of new, ntore
It is nevertheless unclear whether he has succeeded the in transcending
exclusive qualifications which preserve the existing structure of social differ-
opposition between structuralism and methodological individualism. The
ences, 'what the cornpetitive struggle makes everlasting is not differrnt condi-
habitus represents the eff'ects of social conditioning on agents that adapts them
tions, but the diffbrence between conditions'. This shows that 'social
to the requirements of the field in which they operate. Bourdieu believes that
contradictions and struggles are not all, or always, in contradiction with the
such a pre-established hannony (he even invokes Leibniz, the author of this
perpetuation of the established order'.rr2
concept), or 'spontaneous orchestration of dispositions', legitimizes the idea
Bourdieu does not claim that social struggle always reproduces the existing
of 'objective strategies', that is, of
order. Indeed: 'Competitive struggle is the form of class struggle which the
dominated classes allow to be imposed on them when they accept the stakes
those strings of 'moves' which are clbjectively organized as strategies withor,rt
being the prodr"rct of a genuine strategic intention . . . If each stage in the offered by the dominant classes.' His overall conception of class structure,
sequence of ordered and oriented actions that constitute objective strategies can though very sketchily outlined (the boundaries of the 'dominant class', for
appear as determined by anticipations of the future, and in particular, of its own example, are set very wide), plainly does bear some kinship to Marx's, since
consequences (which is what justilies the use of the concept of strategy), it is both view class as a set of antagonistic relationships. Yet the classification
because the practices that are generated by the habitus and are governed by the

ros Bourdieu. Distinction, p. 372. Bourdieu, Logic, pp. 59, 62.


106 Bcrurdieu, Logit', p. 68. See J. Elster, Sour Grapes (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 69ff., 103-7.
to1 Forexample. H. Dreyfus and P. Rabirrow.'Can J'hcrc bc a Science ol'Existcltlilrl Strtrt'lrrrc For example. Bourdieu, ln Other Words, pp. l0-12.
anrl Sociirl Mclrnirrg')' antl C. 'Lrykrr. "lir Iirlkru' :r l{trlc...'- bol lt itt (':tlltotttt t'l ;r1.. r'tls. BoLIrclie-rr. Distinc'tiott, p. 109.

llorrnlit'rt. lbitl.. p. l(r-1.


298 Crack-Up?

struggles on which he concentrates seem very close to the picture Weber paints
of status groups competing in order to increase their social prestige. Bourdieu's
sympathies are plainly with the 'dominated', as is evident, for example, in his
description of the 'ethic of convivial indulgence' involved in forms of working-
12
class consumption that prize the immediate pleasures of eating and drinking,
and thereby challenge 'the new ethic of sobriety for the sake of slimness,
which is most rccognized at the highest levels of the social hierarchy'.lr3
Debating Modernity
Towards the end of his life Bourdieu's identification with the dominated
became publicly visible both in his academic work and through his identifica-
and Postmodernity
tion with the anti-globalization movement.rra Yet in his theoretical writings he
does not offer those at the bottom of society any prospect of a collective escape
from the structures of class domination and cultural distinction, stressing even
in his later work 'the extraordinary acceptance that the established order
manages to maintain'.1 ls
That this is not merely a consequence of the particular focus of Bourdieu's Evidently this overview of the development of social theory over the past 200
published writings but is an inherent feature of his social theory is suggested years cannot end, as does Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, in a moment of
by this remarkable passage from his inaugural lecture at the Collöge de reconciliation in which the various contending viewpoints are integrated as
France, in which Durkheim's deification of society meets Heidegger's analysis partial insights into a single, total truth. As the preceding chapter should have
of Being-towards-death : made clear, the debate about modernity goes on. The different positions staked
out in that debate - the revolutionary transformation, critical acceptance, or
What is expected of God is only ever obtained from society, which alone has outright rejection of modernity - may be reformulated, they may gain strength
the power to justify you, to liberate you from facticity, contingency and absurd- as a result of wider intellectual developments or historical transfbrmations, or
ity; but - and this is doubtless the fundamental antinomy - only in a differential, they may go into temporary eclipse or find only weak or oblique expression.
distinctive way: every form of the sacred has its profane complement, all dis- But the struggle between them is still unresolved.
tinction generates its own vulgarity, and the competition for a social lif-e that In these final chapters I present the current state of this debate as I see it,
will be known and recognized, which will free you from insignificance, is a in two stages. First, in this chapter I provide a critical assessment of some of
struggle to the death for symbolic life and death.r16
the main themes that emerged in discussions of modernity among social and
cultural theorists in the last decades of the twentieth century and of what these
So the only way to give human linitude a meaning is (to use one of Bourdieu's
controversies tell us about the broader state of social theory today. Then, in
favourite metaphors) to play the game, and throw oneself into the perpetual
the fbllowing and concluding chapter, I look at the way in which, as I see it,
struggle to transmute one's resources into symbolic capital. For all Bourdieu's
the subject has changed in the last decade or so as the nature of globalization
undoubted originality, and his determined effort to liberate himself tiom an
has come to be the focus of debate. Inevitably, given the current nature of the
intellectual context dominated by the heritage of structuralism, he offers
issues treated in these chapters, my own views about the best way to carry on
another restatement of the theme common, despite all their differences, to
social theory become more explicit, but my aim is not to close off controversy,
L6vi-Strauss, Althusser, and Foucault, that human beings are fated to be pris-
but to identify some of the questions which it is particularly urgent to
oners of the structures of domination.
address.

(l) Postmodernity? The first of these questions concerns the issue which has
come to dominate cultural debate since the end of the 1970s. Has the dialectic
rr'r lbid., pp. 165,119.
Ir'1 For cxample, P. Bourdieu et al., The Weight tfi'tltc Worltl (('arnbrirlgc. 20(X)) irrrrl «rl'modernity been transcended thanks to our entry into a postmodern condi-
I'.
tion constituted by the collapse of the 'grand narratives' which offer compre-
Bourdieu, Act.s o.f' Rc.ristotl(c (Carnbridgc. l99u).
rr5 P. Botrrdicu, I'tt.st'ttlitur Mctlilttliotr,v (('lrrrthl itlgc. l0(X)). p. l71 hcnsivc interpretations of the totality of human history? The short answer to
rr6 Ilotrrrlictr. ltr ()tlttt' Wottl.s.;r. l(Xr. ('otttp:rtt' l'rr.tt'ttlirttr lllr'tliltttir,tr.t. t lr. (r. llris rprestion is 'No.' Many reasons could be offbred in support of this response,

h
300 Debating Modernity and Postmodernity Debating Modernity and postmodernity
301
but two are particularly relevant here. The first is that versions of what we that focused now on the implications
of globalization is a vindication of
now call the postmodernist critique of modernity have been around fbr a long resistance (see this
sl3.l below).
time - at Ieast since Nietzsche.
French post-structuralism has since the 1960s reformulated this critique, (2) Modernitv antl capitalistt.
This then raises the question of the
detaching it from the biologistic cosmology of The Will to Power, and situating which the debate should be conducted. terms on
The concept of modernity is in
it with respect to issues arising from, among other things, Saussure's theory highly ambiguous' It can be understood fäct
first of all as a philosophical idea
of language and Heidegger's philosophy of Being. In the process, the the historical realization of the
Enlightenment's conception of a present -
as
Nietzschean position has been enriched, and we have a much better idea of justifies itself by its difference which
fiom the past it leaves behincl and
its potential and its lirnitations. But only historical ignorance or rhetorical nite progress it wiil achieve in the by the indefi-
future (see §r.2 above). This is
exaggeration can explain the claims made for the radical novelty of the kind 'incomplete project'. secondry, Habermas,s
and more.nn.r:"r"ry, modernity
of critique of modernity developed by Foucault, Deleuze, and Derrida in par- of as a particurar kind of society, tvpi.urrv can be thought
ticular. Thus, as we have seen, towards the end of his lif-e Foucault began to ary social theory which treats it as
,p..ii;a in rerms of an evorurion_
a stage in human history _ the
realize that his problematization of the Enlightenment had been largely antici- industrial society which Durkheim concept of
inherited from comte and saint-simon
pated by the Frankfurt School. Post-structuralism reactivated and redeployed an example' Thirdly,-modernity is
can be identified with the particular
a set of arguments that have been around fbr over a century. experience associatecl with ttrls kincl of
kina of society.
Secondly, these arguments have not definitively resolved the debate on Marshall Berman has given a brilliant
account of this type of experience:
modernity. The mere existence of social theories as powerful and sophisti-
cated as Habermas's and Bourdieu's which stake out positions at odds with There is a modg of vital experience
postmodernism should make this clear. Habermas's The Philosophical and others' of lif'e's possibilities
- experience of space ancl tinie, of the self
and perils - that is shared by men
all over the worlcl today. I will call an6 wonren
Discourse r$' Modernity - by far the most powerful theoretical critique of tÄis bocly of'exp..i.n." ,moclernity,.
modern is to llncl ourselves in To be
postmodernism - has gone without serious answer. The fact that postrnodern- an environlnent tÄat promises us
power' joy, growtrr, transfbrmation adventure,
ism has nevertheless become entrenched as the unchallengeable orthodoxy in of ourserves and the worrcr_ and,
time, that threatens to crestroy everything at the same
many parts of the Western academy invites a sociological explanation. Ideas we have, everything we kn.w,
everything we are' Moclern environments
that spoke to the sense of political disillusionment of many members of the and experiences cut across all
bounrJ-
aries of geography ancl ethnicity,
1960s generation (see § ll.l above) have now become institutionalized in many ogy: in thi.s sense modernity tan
of class an.I nutionality. Of religion
and ideol-
university departments, providing the basis on which courses are set and be sai<, to unite a, mankind. But
paradoxical u.ity, a unity of
disunity: it pours us into a maelstrom
it is a
assessed, degrees awarded, appointments made, and book contracts awarded. disintegration and renewar, of struggre ol perpetual
and contracriction, of ambiguity
To that extent, postmodernism became the Parsonian sociology of our.fin cle anguish' Ttr be mo«rern is to be part and
of a universe in which, as Marx saicr, .ail
s iäcle.l that is solid melts into air,.2
This is no reason to give way to the pressures to accept postmodernist defi-
nitions of the issues confronting social theorists (as well as the rest of us). To These three concepts of modernity
and historical experience -_ are not -
as philosophical iclea, fbrnr
do so is to risk the enormous intellectual impoverishment that would follow of society,
equivalent to tne another. In the
from ignoring the resources offered by the traditions which represent the other passage frorn the Manife,sto fhnroLrs
which Berman .it.., Marx treats .[c]onstant
positions in the debate about modernity - for example, Weberian historical revolutionizing of production, uninterrupte«l
disturbance of all social condi-
sociology and those versions of Marxism which have survived the debacle of tions, everlasting uncertainty and
agitation, as distinguishing f.eatures,
Stalinism. Paradoxically, despite postmodernists' claims to represent intel- moderniry, bur of the bourgeois not of
epäcrr. 1re. t+-i'oüo".). one
lectual openness and plurality, it is only by resisting their attempts to close he explains what Berman *tlt mighr say rhar
tt . experience of modernity in ter,rs
this debate that social theory is likely to retain its vitality. The way in which laws of motion of a specific socio-economic of the
system, the capitarist nrocre of
social theory towards the end of the 1990s opened up again to new debates and in parricurar of its pecuriarry dynamic
ä:lä,::n, an<r destabirizing

' See A. Callinicos. 'Postrnoclernism as Norrnal Science', Brirish Journal o.f' Sotiolrt.qt'.
46 ( 199.5).
t M. Berm an, All That l.s Solicl Melts Into Air(Lonclon, 19t33), p. I-5.
302 Debating Modernity and Postmodernity Debating Modernity and Postmodernity 303

This then poses the question of whether the concepts of capitalism and rnodernity, we are moving int«r onc in which the consequences of modernity
modernity represent alternative ways of theorizing the distinctive form of are becoming more radicalizctl und universalized than before.'7 Ulrich Beck
society which might be seen as both a historical realization of the philosophi- has sought to conceptualizc thcse consequences through what he calls 'the
cal idea of modernity and the context in which the specifically 'modern' theory of reflexivc lnodcrnization: at the turn of the twenty-lirst century the
experience analysed by Berman becomes possible. To put it another way, is unleashed process ol' rnodernizatton is overrunnin-e and overcoming its co-
modernity (as idea and experience) a response to and a consequence of capi- ordinate system.'8
talism, or is capitalism merely one of the dimensions of modernity (conceived Industrial society, Beck argues, is 'a semi-modern society', since it'never
as the social form produced by Hobsbawm's dual revolution)? Fredric Jameson is and never was possible only as industrial society, but always as half indus-
might be thought of as taking the first option when he proposes, as a 'thera- trial and half Jbudal society, whose feudal side is not a relic of tradition, but
peutic . . . recommendation', 'the experimental procedure of substituting capi- the product and foundation of industrial society'. Among these 'feudal' pre-
talisrn for modernity in all the contexts in which the latter appears'.3 Anthony requisites are the class division of society between labour and capital, the
Gidclens by contrast selects the latter alternative.t He argues that rnodernity nuclear fämily, the sexual division of labour, and large-scale public and private
has fbur 'institutional dimensions' - capitalism. industrialisnr, surveillance. bureaucratic organizations. But the process of modernization, whic,h in the
and war. Each of these dimensions is irreducible to the others; there is, there- nineteenth century swept away pre-industrial society, is now feeding on itself,
fore, no sense in which capitalism, for example, can be responsible for the thereby undermining the structures of industrial society. As a result, 'onother
general characteristics of modernity.s moclernity is coming into being.")
The issues involved here are plainly more than the verbal one of whe- What are the decisive features of this 'other modernity'?
ther 'capitalism' or 'modernity' is a better label. In particular, there is, first,
the rnethodological question of whether or not any fbrm of .social power In the weltare states of the West, reflexive modernization dissolves the tradi-
should be accorded explanatory primacy over the others. Weberian historical tional parameters of industrial society: class culture and consciousness, gencler
sociologists like Giddens are committed to explanatory pluralisrn, and antJ lamily roles. It dissolves these forms of the conscience collective, on which
therefbre answer this question in the negative. Michael Mann writes of the «lepend and to which ref-er the social and politic:al organizations and institutions

fbrmation of classes and nation-states during the 'long nineteenth century' in industrial society. These detraditionalizations happen in a sociul surge rtf'
(1160-t914): intlit,idrutli:.utittn. At the sarne tinre the relation.s of inequality remairl stable.
Hgw is this possible'? Against the background of a comparatively high material
standard of living and advanced social security systenls, the people have beett
they actually arose together, and this created a furl.her unresolved problem of
relngved from class commitments and have to ref-er to themselves in planning
ultimate prirnacy: the extent to which social Iif'e was to be organized around,
their intlividual labour-market biographies.r('
on the one hand, difTuse, market. transnational, and ultirnately capitalist prin- I

ciples or, on the other hand. around authoritative, territorial, nal.i«rnal, and statist
By In this 'capitalism w,ithout classes, but with individualized social inequality
ones . . . 1914, no simple choice had been made - nor has one yet been made.
These considerations remain the key anrbivalence of rnodern civilization.(' and all the related social and political problems', social conflict takes new
fornrs. Two are particularly important. First, '[iln advanced modernity the
There is, secondly. the related, but logically independent, and substantive social procluction of v'ealtlt is systematically accompanied by the social pro-
question of whether modernity has, as it were, transcended capitalisrn. The duction of risks'. The modernization process creates new hazards and uncer-
idea of 'high' or 'late' rnodernity developed by Giddens among others tends tainties, largely because of the unintended consequences of the ttse of scientific
to imply that it has. Thus he writes: 'Rather than entering a period of post- knowledge to control nature: global warming and mad cow disease are two

3 '* Giddens. Consequenca.s, p. 3.


F. Jameson, ASingulur Motlernitl, lLondon, 2002), p. 2l-5. U. Beck (1986), Ris( Socielr,(Lonclon, lL)92), p. tl7. Ulrich Beck (lc)44-): studied and
a Anthony Giddens (1938-): born Edmonton, North London; studied and taught sociology at workercl atMunich University, 19(t6-19: Prof'essor of Sociology at the universities of Münster,
the universities of Leicester and Cambridge; director clf the London School of Eson.)nrits. lgTL)-8I,antlBamberg, 198l-92: Prof'essorof Sociologyanclclirectorof thelrrstitutefbrSociol-
1991-2003: created a Labour lit'e peer, 2004. ogy. Munich University, 1992-.
t A. Giddens, Thc Con,taquentas of Modu'nil-y (Canrbridge, 1990t. pp. 5-5-63. '' lbitl.. pp. 14. ltg. 11.
n M. Mann,'l-ltc ,\ortn't,t o.l'Sot'ittl l)r»t'r,r, II (Carnbridge, 1993). p. 3. 1" lhirl.. p. S7.
FI
I

t,

1l

Debating Modernity and Postmodernity


Debating Modernity and Postmodernity 305
I

304
l'

class divisions: is melting away.' The reason why this is happening is that there is'a contra-
obvious examples. Risk transcends national borders and
,p6verty is hierarchic, st?to| is democrarlc" Therefbre 'everything which diction between the universal principles of modernity - civil rights, equality,
property and commercial inter- functional differentiation, methods of argumentation and skepticism - and the
threatens life on this Earth also threatens the
of lit'e and its prerequisites'. exclusive structure of institutions. in which these principles can only be real-
ests o[ those who live from the commodification
class lines' They are ized on a purtial, sectoral and exclusiye basis.'ra
The conflicts that develop in this 'risk society' cut across
proper road for tnodernity': at The nuclear fämily is thus'feudal'because it is inegalitarian. This sets it
'tloctrinal strttggles within t:ivilization over the
to clemocratize it'rr in conflict with 'the universal principles of modernity'. which are normatively
stake in thern is the status of science and the struggle
'modern defined, essentially in ternrs of the aspirations of the Enlightenment. The
secondly, the process indiviclualization' aff.ects in particular that
of
This a form of inrplication is that rnodernization has a necessarily dernocratizing dynamic:
counter-modernity' which is the nuclear family' represents
the basis of birth' But 'these hence its contemporary tendency to generate struggles over interpersonal
status hierarchy, in which roles are ascribed on
become problematic relationships and the status of science. But it is not obvious why the develop-
inequalities contradict the principles of modernity'
ancl
The result is ment of industrial society should necessarily undermine inegalitarian social
and conflictual in the continuity of reflexive tnodernization''
the rebirth of f'eminism and structures; there is at least as much evidence that it promotes the greater cen-
reflected not simply in macro-processes such as
market' but also in the tralization of ect>nomic and political power. Beck notes (and overstates) con-
the progres.iu" incärporation oi *orn"n into the labour
and men as they seek to redefine temporary trends towards 'the dismontling of hierarchically organized
micro-struggles between individual women
'rn cohabitation (befbre. mega-bureaucracies and administrative apparatus'.r5 But these changes have
their personar relationships: attfb,ns of rnale-t'emale
centurl' brelk through' Here not been erccompanied by an increase in citizens' political control over their
during and after malrriage) . the conflicts o.f'the governrnents in liheral denrocracies. while at the economic level the decline
they always s|ow their private, personal face' But the family is onlv the
of 'organized capitalism' caused by the increased dominance of national
setiirtg, not the caLtse of the events''rl
one of the economies by rnultirrational corprlrati«lns and globally integrated financial
Beck's is perhaps the most systematically ar-tued' and certainly
widespread sense ztlllong c«lntem- markets has led to the strengthening of democratically unaccountable concen-
most influential, attenrpts to articulate the
have experienced fundamental trations of economic power.
porary social theorists that Western societies
hirn and others' notirbly This suggests the inrpr>rtance ol' distinguishing between the explanatory
change over the past thirty years. One might regard
along parallel lines' as seeking theory of the capitalist rnode of production as a socio-economic systern with
Gicldens, whose i"."n, writings hatve developed
the extravagances and tallacies its clistinctive clynamics ancl phases of development from the normative
to iclentify the kernel of truth concealed amid
notably Fredric Jatnesgn and philosophical idea «rf modcrnity as the actualization of the ideals of the
of postmoclernism. Several Marxist writers, Enlightentnent. Drawing this distinction then poses, secondly, the question
similar, argtring that the emergence
OavlO Harvey, have attemptecl something
tlf the enlergence of how novel ilre the tettdertcic.s towarcls 'individr.ralization' on which
of Postnrodernist art nlust be understood as a consequence
which,they call respectively'multi- Beck lays such stress. Afterall. such tendencies form <lne of the main themes
of a new phase of capitalist development, of Tklcqucville's analysis of dernocratic societies. Both Lukäcs and the Frank-
capitalism' ancl'flexible accunlulation'.r3
'ational lar too cpmplex furt School used Marx's thcrlry «rf c«rmmodity fetishism in order to conceptu-
The issues raisecl by this quite {iverse body ol writing are
it rnay nevertheless be alize the atolnizittion ol'social lit'e under capitalism. Beck does indeed take
and wide-ranging properly to be addressed here. But
about Beck's these argur.rlents further irr that he clairns that individualization is breaking
i

helpful to make-rou. pointr, all of which involve reservi.ttions


I

first concerns his conception of indus- down class identities. He predicts: 'Class sclciety will pale into insignificance
thetry of rellexive rnodernization. The
I

Beck stresses that the 't'eudal' aspects beside an i rul u,s t r i o I i:.c d s oc i t t t' of' e nr p I ot, e e.t."o
ll trial society as a 'setni-moclern' hybrid. The thought here is not so much that class inequalities are disappearing but
I
of this society - class structure, Say, or the nuclear lamily - are not pre-
,1i1
process itself: 'The that they are increasingly likely to be experienced as constituting individual
,11
industrial survivals, but arise fiom the moclernization
problents to be solved through personal strategies. This raises a third question:
Miclclle Ages that inclustrial society not
just preserved but produced'
'i ) i
bit of the
,ii
I I
to what extent is Beck extrapolating from relatively short-term trends? The
rt{
ii{
1l

Il
rr lbicl., pp. tt8, 19, 36, 39. 40.
I

iA
[r ''
11
it Beck, Risk Society, pp. l l8.
iil
tT ll 1r Ibid., pp. i07. 104. 14.

,.' F..lames <-tn, po.stnotlt,rni.snt, rtr. Ihe Crtllurul Logit'o.f l'ttte Capilrtli'irrr (Ltrndtln' l()91): l) '' Ibid.. p. 218.
ilrLll Harl,,t'v..l,ltt,Ctlttliritltttt|.Ptl'sttlttltlernit.l.(()xfilr.tl.l9tJ9).
r" tbid.. p. loo.

rliil
306 Debating Modernity and Postmodernity Debating Modernity and Postmodernity 307

1980s, when he published his theory of reflexive modernization, were a time zation, they may generate their own reaction. Beck seems to believe that the
when, as noted in §11.1, the workers'ffIovements throughout the Western welfare state will prevent social inequalities from giving rise to lbrms of col-
world experienced severe setbacks as a result of a phase of brutal capitalist lective action: 'Processes of individualization . . . can only become entrenched
restructuring. These defeats cast cloubt on the viability of working-class poli- when material immiseration, as the condition of the formation of classes as
tics; at the same time, the hopes of many radical intellectuals focused on the predicted by Marx, has been overconte.')(t
so-called 'new social movements'. one of whose main concerns is environ- But contemporary trends involve not simply extensive economic restructur-
mental destruction, notably in West Germany, where the Greens made Some ing - the decline of traditional manufacturing industries, the 'downsizing' of
important electoral advances. How rnuch, then, is the idea of 'risk society' a individual firms, the flattening of managerial structures, outsourcing, and so
generalization of this political mood? Certainly, when confronted with the on - but also the emergence of a public policy consensus on the need drasti-
description by Beck and Elizabeth Beck-Gernsheim of 'the antagonisms cally to reduce the systems of social protection that were a fundarnental
between men and women over gender roles' as 'the "Status struggle" which f-eature of the postwar welfäre state. The resulting situation - chronic mass
comes after the class struggle', it is hard not to t'eel that the lif'e-experiences unemployment, unrelenting pressure on the earnings and working conditions
of a generation of Western intellectuals who came to adulthood in the 1960s of wage-earners, and continually eroded welfare provision - hardly suggests
are being hypostatized into social trends.rT that 'material immiseration . . . has been overcotne'. On the contrary, the
Other social theorists have been much more sceptical about the idea that available evidence points towards -growing inequalities of wealth and income
Western modernity underwent an epochal transfbrmation in the late twentieth accompanied by increasing levels of absolute poverty. Why should these con-
century. For example, W. G. Runcilnan argues that 'English society did ditions not give rise to distinctively working-class fbrms of collective organi-
uldergo an evolution from one to another sLrb-type of capitalist liberal democ- zation and action?
racy between l9l5 and 1922', marked by a much higher level ol'state involve- Developments in continental Europe during the 1990s suggest that this
ment in the economy and in the provision of welfare, the emergence of a mole question is more than idle speculation. Here the wider policy consensus or1
rrranagerial capitalism, and the institutionalization of class conflict. Neither the necessity of 'welfäre refbrnr' was brought into sharper tbcus by the obliga-
the social reforms introduced by Labour under Clement Attlee (1945-51) nor tion of governments seeking to meet the conditions fbr participation in the
the fiee-rnarket policies forced through by the Conservatives under Margaret single European currency by sharply cutting public expencliture. The ensuing
Thatcher (lg7g-90\ funclarnentally altered this 'sub-type': 'The 1940s, like assault on the welfare state produced it number of n-rajclr social confrontations,
the 1980s, exemplifly not a qualitative change in the relations between the beginning with the French public sector strikes in November-December 1995.
economy and the state but rather the continuing disjunction between the rheto- Ignacio Ramonet calls these'the greatest social ofl-ensive since May l96tl',
ric of politicians and journalists and the underlying processes of social evolu- and 'the first collective rebellion, on the scale of an entire country, against
tion which only with hinclsight can be seen tbr what they are.'rS Runciman neo-liberalism'.r'
disniisses the so-callecl 'Thatcher revolution' as 'no more . . . than another The French strikes, which played a clecisive part in creating the political
swing in the pendulum', a mere phase in the constantly shifting balance clirnate in which the plrties of the left won the legislative elections of Mry-
between state and market, and stresses 'the importance, in the study of the June 1997 and represented one of the starting points of the ernti-globalization
evolutiop of any society, of not mistaking a cycle fbr a trend''r" movement, are simply the rnost spectacular instarrce of a larger trertd towards
Whether or not we agree with Runciman's specific atrgumetlts, his rttethodo- class confrontation in the European Union. The development of this trencl has
logical warning undoubtedly has a bearing on the various theories which been particularly marked in Germany, which has becorne a markedly more
anlounce the emergence of 'another modernity' at the end of the twentieth polarized society and polity since reunification in 1990 ushered in a more
century. To the extent that" current trends towards 'individualization' and pronounced economic cycle of boom and bust than the Federal Republic had
'personalization' are bound up with a drarnatic process of capitalist reorgani- experienced since its fbundation in 1949. The response to Germany's pro-
longed economic stagnation by the Red-Green government headed by Gerhard
Schröder (1998-2005) - the adoption of a package of 'refbrms' entitled Agenda
,, U. Beck and E. Beck-Gernsheirn, 7/re Normrtl Chucts rtf' Lttve (Cambridge, 1995).
p.2. ro
,* W.C.Runcirnan.ATrcutiseott.Sot'ittl Tlteort',III(Calnbridge, 1997)'pp. 11.82' Beck, Ri.rll Societt', pp. 95-6.
,, W. G. Runcirnan.'Hls British Capitalisrn Changed Since the First Worltl Witr"J'. lJt'ititlt rl l. Ranrönet. 'Le Retour cle politiquc', in Offt,rtsivt,s drt tttottt'til('nt s()(iul: articles originully
;rtrblislrctl itr lt'Mrttttla tliltlortrtttitlrrc: rcptrhlishccl irr Mtrttii'n'tlc voit' 3-5 (Sept. l()97). p.6.
.ltttrrntrl rtl srtt'ittlrt,q-t'. 4:l ( l()()l)' pp. (r:1. 66'

[t,l
308 Debating Modernity and Postmodernity Debating Modernity and postmodernity 309

t5 2010 that made drastic inroads into the welfare state - offered further evidence extent to which even the first kind of risk might be reduced in a more demo-
T
that inequality and poverty remained structural features of the advanced socie- cratically organized society.
I
ties. One might then argue that advanced capitalist society generates tenden-
cies towards both individualization and class-based collective action. Further, (3) Reason and noture. Whatever the wider vali<lity of Beck's theory
of
the relative strength of these tendencies at any given tirne depends on a variety reflexive tnodernization. he is undoubtedly right to identify a contemporary
of speciflc conditions - the economic conjuncture. patterns of industrial trend towards the problematization of the natural sciences. As he puts it,
organization, states of political consciousness. broader cultural phenomena, '[s]cience is no longer concerned with "liberation" from pre-existirzg
depend-
etc. - which cannot be simply deduced from larger theoretical speculations. encies. but with the definition and distribution of errors which are produc.ecl
My linal reservation concerns the concept of 'risk society' itself. It is unde- hy it.self.'2r lnstead of freeing humankind from dependence on nature, science
niable that the large-scale intervention in nature involved in industrialization seems to have made it vulnerable to new fbrms of catastrophe arising lrclm
has produced unintended consequences representing severe dangers for both our interf'erence in the physical world. Yet the issues posed here are particLr-
humankind and the planet. Whether this justifies making such risks the con- larly difficult fbr contemporary sociar theory to address.
stitutive feature of 'late modernity' is, however, another mertter. More particu- Since Weber social theorists have tended to situate the physical sciences
larly, doing so may involve ef-facing the historical specificity of particular within the fiamework of instrumentally rational action. Scientific knowleclge
social relationships. Thus Giddens argues that modernity involves the develop- on this account constitutes one of the most eft'ective means of allowing social
rrent of 'disembedding mechanisms' through which social relations are actors tt> achieve their ends, typically by enhancing human control of nature.
stretched over 'indefinite spans of time-space'. These mechanisms take two Horkheimer and Adorno incorporated this interpretation into their critique of
forms - 'symbolic tokens'. for instance, money, and 'expert systems', through enlightenment as the process through which human bein_es. in seeking to
which (for example, when travelling by air) we entrust ourselves to qualified control nzlture, erect fbrnrs of social domination in which they find themselves
professionals with whom we have no personal relationship. The emergence of trapped. Foucault's Nietzschean conception of power-knowledge easily lencls
these mechanisrns helps to give rise to the 'specific risk profile of modernity'. itself to a siltrilarly instrurnentalist conception of the physic:al sciences. Hab-
which includes both the kind of risk on which Beck focuses. arising from 'the ermas' while challenging Weber's tendency to equate reason with instrumental
infusion of human knowledge into the material environment', and those pro- rationality. does nt>t reject this conception, bLrt insteacl incorporates it into a
duced by the 'development of institutionalized risk envirutnruents aff'ecting the multi-dilnensional conception of reason in which communicative rationality
life-chances of millions: tbr example, investment markets'.2r provides the basis for the kind of interpretive understanding requirecl for the
But there is an important diff-erence between risks which arise from the study of society.
unanticipated consequences of human intervention in nature and those caused Yet this instrumentalist approac:h is quite inaclequate as a basis for uncler-
by crashes cln the financial market. The first are an inherent feature of human standing the physical sciettces. For one thing, it involves a hopelessly iprpov-
social life. and predate the advent of industrial capitalism, even though it has erished conceptitln of scientific knowleclge. Other traclitions
undoubtedly rrrade them a pervasive feature of the modern world. Thus. rapid
- notably the
'epistentological' history of the sciences pioneerecl by Gaston Bachelard
ancl
population growth and the resulting scarcity o1'land led to extensive deforesta- Georges Canguilhem, which strongly influencecl Althusser ancl Bourclieu, ancl
tion in nineteenth-century China. and thereby contributed to a series of dev- the philosophy of science developed by Karl Popper have clisplaye<i a nruch
astating floods during the century after 1850. Financial markets, on the other
-
firmer grasp of what Irnre Lakatos calls 'the relutive utrtonomv- of'thesreticctl
hand, are the distinctive fbrm through which investment is organizedin devel- science'.24 The history of sciences such as physics, Lakatos argues. consists
oped capitalist economies. Grouping the two kinds of risk together suggests in the development of rescarch prograrlrnles successive versions of theories
-
that the irrationalities inherent in these markets, which Keynes so remorse- constituted by a 'heLrristic' which identities the problerns they are to adclress,
lessly depicted (see §10.1 above), are an unavoidable consequence of moder- indicates possible strategies, antl rules out certain solutions. Such a picture pf
nity. But this comes dangerously close to what Marx accused the classical the development of sciences, in which theoretical research is powered by an
political economists of doing - narnely. naturalizing f-eatures of a hisiorically internal dynar-nic, is hard to reconcile with the iclea that the pgrsuit of scie,tific
specific form of society. It may also encourage an underestimation of the knowledge is primarily governecl by instrumental considerations. One can

'' Ilcck. /li,r/,.\r,r'ir,/r', l-5tt.


1t.
rr Girltlens. Cott.s't'tpt'ttcc.r. pp. 22ff .. 124-5. '' L l.:rl\:rr()\ I'l11l1t11t1tl1i1rrl l'trl,t.t-.t (r ('lilrtllr.itlqc. lt)7ttt. I.
V0rs. P. -i2.
310 Debating Modernity and Postmodernity Debating Modernity and postmodernity 311

accept this picture without ignoring the various ways in which scientific These remarks are fär from being a plea for a return to the
biologistic social
research is integrated into public bureaucracies and private corporations, but theories which flourished with such disastrous consequences
in the era of
these forms of incorporation are likely to be far more complex and contradic- Social Darwinism. They amount rather to the suggestion that
most versions
tory than the instrumentalist conception suggests. of social theory would benefit from a dialogue wittr a naturalistic
conception
The instrumentalist view of science also makes ii very hard for social theory of the world which recognizes the continuities between both the physical
and
to conceptualize nature as a distinct reality. Partly in reaction to the tendency social worlds and the forms of scientific understanding appropriate
to thern,
of ideologies to eternize various historically specific social relations by pre- but which does nclt suppress or ignore the discontinuities between
thern. Such
senting them as natural, social theory tends to treat nature itself as a social a dialogue might permit an escape from the false pola rization between a
construction. At best it figures as a raw material to be used by instrumentally conception of the social from which natural processes and
constraints have
rational actors. Sometimes this view of nature takes the fbrm of a historical been banished and various attempts to reduce the human
and the social to the
thesis. Thus Beck writes: At the end of the twentieth century, nature is neither physical and the biological.2s
given nor ascrlbed, but instead has become a historical product, the interior
furnishings of the civilizational world destroyed or endangered in the natural (4) Thectry and practice. One reason why social theorists
have been resistant
conditions of its reproduction.'2'5 Similarly Giddens asserts: 'Nature is increas- to such a naturalism is that it might obscure the distinctive role of
human
ingly subject to human intervention, and therefore loses its very character as agency in constituting and reproclucing the social world. yet,
as we have seen,
an extrinsic source of ret-erence.'26 scepticism about human beings' ability to eff-ect any large-scale
transfsrma-
Quite aside from the fact that such claims confuse nature with develop- tion of social structures has becclme an increasingly powerful
motif in twen-
ments on one obscure planet, the idea of what Beck calls 'the societalization tieth-century social theory. Nor is this simply u .onr"quence
of the dissolution
lVergesellschaftungl of nature' tends to ignore the fact that the destructive of the subject eff.ected by French anti-humanists. Weberian
historical sociolo-
consequences of human intervention in the physical world do not abolish the gists ostensibly hostile to deternrinistic versions of social
theory have evinced
laws clf nature. Indeed. they rather demonstrate that, contrary to the anthro- the same scepticisrn- Mann. fbr example, summarily dismisses
Marx,s .view
pomorphic arrogance sometimes implicit in instrumentalist views, human of the working class' as 'absurdly utopian how unlikely that an explgitecl
actions are subject to physical constraints which sometimes subvert the inten-
-
class could confbund all of previous history and rise up to
destroy all stratifi-
tions with which they are performed. The very unintended consequences of cation'. so society may be what Mann calls a ,patterned
mess,, but it seems
human actions that Beck thematizes in the concept of risk society represent that there is enough pattern to rule out certain outcomes.r,,
how we rnay unleash processes - most obviously the climate change that is Giddens is a particularly interesting case of this combination
of voluntarism
increasingly evident and evidently caused by human carbon dioxide emissions and f'atalism. In works such as The Constitution rf Soc.iet.r'(l9tt4)
he seeks to
- that systematically transcend, and are likely dramatically to alter the context restore individual subjectivity to its proper, f«rrmative role
in the social worlcl.
of, social action. The tendency displayed by Beck and Giddens to see nature He refuses to analyse modernity as constitutecl by alienation
or reificati.n.
as merely the object of human action. lacking any structure or powers of its 'Modernity expropl'iates that is undeniable'. bui
- some rnorJernizipg proc-
own, is associated with the propensity of many social theorists to efface those esses 'make possible forms of mastery over lif'e-circunlstances
unavailable in
aspects of human beings which themselves partake of the physical. Habermas pre-modern circumstances'. In particular, the self
becomes 'a reflexive prdect,
is a prime example: his purely procedural conception of rationality depends fbr which the individual is responsible'.3(' Indivicluals in 'high
modernity,, nu
on, inter olia,the refusal to integrate into his theory of communicative action longer constrained by tradition, are confiontecl with a
wide range 9f genuine
the inescapable reality that human beings are embodied agents whose physical choices as to how to shape their lives, in particular with ,.rp..itn
whlt kind
structures and biological needs constitute inescapable parameters of and forces of personal relertionships they should seek. Yet the expansion of indiviclual
within social life.27 ch«lice is not accompanied by a cornmensurate increase
in collective free-
dom' On the contrary, the development of new fbrms of risk
which threaten

r's Beck. Rr.rk .§ociety, p. 80. '' I< llhask ar'. Tlte Po'v'sibilitt'of
Nururalisrr (Brighton . lgig).and A. Collicr, Critictrl Rt,rtli.s.nt
16 A. Giddens, Modemity ttntl Self'-ldenrir,y lCambridge, l99l). p. 166. t l .orrtlorr, l9t)4).
)'7 See A. Heller, 'Habe rmas and Marxisr.n'. in J. B. Thonrpson antl I). Hclrl. "' Mittttt. ,\'()uti t'\. ll. pp. J(r 7, -1.
Hubcrrnrt.s: ('ritit'ul l)cltttta.s (l-ondon. l9ll2). "' ( iitltlr.rrs. Älrtrlt r uttv ttn(l ,\'t,ll lrlt,tttitt,. 1tP. I()J. 75.
312 Debating Modernity and Postmodernity Debating Modernity and Postmodernity 313

environmental and economic catastrophe on a far larger scale than


in the past as is indicated by this anecdote told by C. H. Rolph about Keynes in his role
juggernaut 'a
- runaway as chairman of the left-wing weekly the New Statesman:
suggests that we should think of modernity as a
human beings we can drive
machine of enormous power which collectively as
out of our control and which Keynes . . . used to say that he could write the whole of a New Statesman issue
to some extent but which also threatens to rush
of having lost control hirnself and thoroughly enjoy the process, and that it was absurd to pay large
could rend itself asunder'.3' It was, of course. this sense
over central aspects of the social world that Marx sought to articulate by t-ees for a pleasant exercise that was also a privilege. The trouble was, everyone
knew that Keynes could have done precisely what he boasted (the only page
means of the concept of alienation'
that might have been a little below par, Raymond Mortirner told me, was the
One mighr argue that scepticism about the possibilities of social
transtbr-
from the music page).32
mation, however articulated theoretically, is a reasonable int-erence
e
ß
I

historical experience of the twentieth century: we saw in chapter t how' at


and Heidegger For all such virtuosity. enclosure in an exclusively academic environment
extreme opposites of the political spectrum, both Lukäcs
closer to is likely to have consequences for the kind of social theory produced there.
moved trom revolutionary voluntarism towards something much Russell Jacoby has noted the decline of 'public intellectuals, writers and think-
of this evolution Lukäcs's
fatalism (though I should stress that at every stage
ers who address a general and educated audience' in the United States since
justified' and
positions were much more explicitly fbrmulated, rationally the Second World War.33 He argues that a number of trends - fbr example.
politically defensible than were Heidegger's oracular and evasive
suburbanization, inner-city gentrification, university expansion have
pronouncements). destroyed the old urban Bohemias where such intellectuals had flourished, and
This may be so. It is nevertheless worth at least speculating about whether made the academy their only refuge. In the self-contained university world,
a connection exists between the political pessimism common to so many intellectr"ral life is specialized and professionalized: academics, even those
marked
social thinkers over much of the past century and their increasingly who think of themselves as political radicals, write for each other using an
tendency to take up residence in the academy. The biographies of individual
and idiom which renders their work unintelligible to those outside.
theorists record, over the course of this book, a steady march deeper Perhaps the itinerary of the Frankfurt School is emblematic of this larger
deeper into the universities. Though academics were there from the start - process: Marxism becomes 'critical theory', a body of thought elaborated in
think of Smith or Hegel - we see other social types, the man of letters, the
the academy at long remove from any political practice, profoundly pessirnis-
journalist, the politician, evett the revolutionary organizer, progressively tic about the possibility of social revolution, and expressecl in allusive and
replaced by the Professor. arcane language. In what is, however, all too common a feature of contempo-
At the extreme, this transtbrmation can help fbster a state of affairs where rary cultural lif'e, an avant-garde activity has now been massifred, as innumer-
intel-
particular academic institutions exercise an extraordinary influence on able academics engage in what Althusser called theoretical practice, matching
with the exception
lectual lif'e. Astonishingly, of Ldvi-Strauss, all the French
Adomo and Horkheimer in obscurity of expression, but not. alas, in novelty
theorists discussed in chapter 11. and indeed just about every
twentieth-
studied philosophy of content.
century French thinker of note fiom Durkheim onwards,
such as Althttsser Some theorists demonstrate an awareness of this situatiort and a desire to
at the E.ol" Normale Supdrieure. The biographies of figures escape from it. Bourdieu, for example, frequently draws attention to the
long of nornrctliens, caught in
and Foucault turn out to be one succession
socially situated character of academic discourse and the class positions it
and cornpetition as they ascend the aca-
lif-elong relationships of friendship tends to defend. And he argues for a specific political intervention by intel-
to endorse Nietzschean perspectivism to
demic laclder. One does not have lectuals, what he calls the 'Realpolitik of reason','a corporatism of the uni-
recognize a particularly tight nexlls of knowledge and power at work here'
versal'.3a This intervention is in response to the threat of neo-liberalism, 'a
Of course - as the case of the Ecole Normale indicates - even the narrowest return to a sort of radical capitalism answering to no law except that of
at least
academic elites can produce extremely gifted theorists. Sometimes maximum profit'. Apart from the negative economic and social consequences
the intellectual self'-confidence to cross
such rnilieux can give their denizens which this represents, '[t]he autonomy enjoyed by the universes of cultural
specializations. Perhaps mofe than any
the normal boundaries of intellectual
Maynard Keynes epitomized this confide nce'
other twentieth-century theorist.
'r C. H. Rolph, Kirtgsley (Harmondsworth, 1978), pp. l7-5-6.
" R. Jacoby,The Last Intellectrr«l.r (New York, 1987), p. 5.
t' Giclclens . Consequencc's, P. 139' 'r P. B«rrrrdieu. The Rules of Art (Cambridge, 1996), p. 348.
314 Debating Modernity and Postmodernity Debating Modernity and postmodernity 315
production in relation to the martet, which had increased continuously through demands' but - perhaps because of his personal origins, what
he called .an
the struggles of writers, artists and scientists, is under increasing threat'.r' extreme discrepancy between an elevated scholarly consecration
and a low
It is here that intellectuals have a particular role to play: social extraction, that is to say. a cloven habitt.ts'- he remained
acutely aware
of the costs imposed by the separation of theory and practice.3e
Intellectuals are two-dimensional frgures who do not exist and subsist as such There are other signs of discomfort with intellectuals' confinement
unless (and only r-rnless) they are invested with a specific authority, conferred
to the
academy. In a widely noticed presidential address to the American
by the autonomous intellectual world (rneaning independent from religious, Sociologi-
cal Association in August 2004,Michaei Burawoy championed
political or economic power) whose specific laws they respect, and unless (and what he called
'public sociology', which 'brings sociology
only unless) they engage this specific authority in political struggles. Far from into conversation with publics,
understood as people who are thenrselves involved in conversation'.
there existing. as is customarily believed, an antinomy between the search fbr Exarnples
of public sociology incrude w. E. B. du Bois's The sours o.f'Btack
autonomy (which characterizes the art, science or literature we call 'pure') ancl Fork (r903),
the search fbr political efficacy, it is by increasing their autonomy (and thereby,
David Riesman's The' Lonelv Crowcl (1950), and Barbara Ehrenreich,s
Nickel
qnd Dimed (2002), texts 'written by sociologists.
among other things, their freedom to criticize the prevailing powers) that intel- but ,read beyond the
lectuals can increase the ef-fbctiveness of a political action whose encls and academy' that 'become the vehicle of a public dlscussion about
the nature of
means have their specific logic of the fields of cultural production.36 US society - the nature of its values, the gap between its promises
and its
reality, its rnalaise, its tendencies'. Burawoy clistinguishes public
sociology
It is thus by virtue of the authority they gain fiom their position in autono- from policy and prof-essional sociology, which respectively
conduct studies on
mous fields of cultural production that intellectuals act politically. Moreover. behalf of specific clients and focus on the elaboration of re.search
programmes,
'it is especially urgent today that intellectuals mobilize and create a veritablc but also from critical sociology, whose interrogation of the foundations
of
Internotional o.f intellectunls committed to defending the autonorny of thc social theory is conclucted at the price of a tendency towards
dogmatism. He
universes of cultural production.'r7 Paradoxically, then, intellectuals shoulcl argues that, in an academic environment clominated by profbssional
sociology,
cross the border separating theory and practice in order to secure it. Thc in which the search for instrumental knowledge tends to crowd out more
French public sector strikes of November-December 1995 prompted Bourdieu reflexive fbrms of enquiry, more public sociology is needed:
in making explicit
to become much more visibly active politically, campaigning against the neo- sociology's inherent orientation 'fionr the stu;(tpoint of civil
society,. it .rep-
liberal economic policies whose darnaging effects on everyday life he harl resents the interests of humanity
- interests in keeping at bay both state cles-
already helped to document in the collective work The Weight of the Worlrl potism and market tyranny,.a0
(1993). He helped set up the network of activist researchers Raisons d'agir.
ril
which provided one source of the movement for another globalization thlt (5) Universu'l and particulor. Such efforts by leading
sociologists to inter-
became visible in the protests at Seattle and Genoa around the turn of the rogate their discipline's insulation frorn the rest of the social
wlrlcl pose the
li
millennium. question of-, as Burawoy (following Alvin Gouldner) puts
it, 'the Sgciglogist
I Informing this political engagement was a profound ambivalence on as Partisan'. In other words, what interests cloes social
theory serve? Bourdieu,s
1r
Bourdieu's part about the very status of the intellectual. 'l do not like the formula of 'a corporatism of the universal' proposes the intellectuals
as Hegel,s
intellectual in myself', he wrote. because 'ft)he.fundamental ambiguitr- of the 'universal class', whose social position requires it to
i def'end the general inter-
scholastic universe and of all their productions - lies in the fäct that thcir ests of society at large, and indeed tho.se of reason itselt.
But ever since Marx
ii
apartness fiom the world of production is both a liberatory break and a discon and Nietzsche in their different ways subjected the Enlightenment
to critical
rlii nection, a potentially crippling separation'.38 Bourdieu still thoLrght that tlrt' scrutiny, the very ideas of universality anä rationality have
been under suspi-
lrl autonomy of the cultural and scientific fields was worth defending, and encotrr' cion for secreting within themselves hidden particllarisms. As
we saw in
il
aged 'scholar-activists' to preserve their intellectual independence of politic'rrl §1.5 above, the universal rights and happin.r, p.o,rised by the American
,'
,i

.1.5
P. Bourdieu, 'A Reasoned Utopia and Economic Fatalism'. New Le.ft Revien'. l/227 (lt)t)\t "' P. Bourdieu, Esquiss,e pour u, auto-Luru1y.re (paris, 2004), p.
ir 127.
,i pp. 125.121. "' M. Burawoy, 'For public Sociorogy', Americrtn sociorogicar Review,7o
(2005), pp. 7,24.
l6
Bourdieu, RuLes, p. 340. 'l'ltisadclrcss hrts been republisheil, with extensive responses
l7 and a reply by Burawoy. as .public
11, Ibid.. p. 344. sot'iology: l'oPrrlisl l;rttl ttr Path to Renewal'l', which critically
discusses Bourdieu,s analysis of
P. Bourdieu, Pa,tcaliurt Mcditutiort.s (Clambriduc, 20(X)), pp. 7. irrlcllt'tlurrl.,. rrr llrr. tititi,rlr.1ttr11.17111 rtf ,sot,iolo.gt
31{
lr
15.
-56 (200-5).
t;

ftttttli
316 Debating Modernity and Postmodernity Debating Modernity and postmodernity
317
and French Revolutions tacitly excluded. among others, slaves, the poor, a commitment to universal rights, Chatterjee argues that ,what
and women.
is being
asserted in a collective cultural right is in fact
the right not to offer a reason
Postcolonial theory has been one common way in which in recent years for being dffirent'' He sees such an assertion as going 'against goverytmental-
the charge has been made that such implicit exclusions are inherent in the i/-v': in other words, a specific community,s insisience
on maintaining its own
Enlightenment project. Thus the group of Indian social historians and theorists traditions is a form of resistance to the forms of disciplirury
associated with the journal Subaltern Studies have increasingly come to argue,
po*.;;;;r;;;r;i;;
of the modern state.ra
under the influence of postmodernism, that even apparently radical ideologies The problem of how democratic societies can accommodate
the existence
such as anti-colonial nationalism and Marxism are in fact particular fbrms of of different groups with their distinctive conceptions
of the good has become
the 'colonial power-knowledge' which independent states in the Third World a major theme of contemporary liberal political philosophy. Addressing
have come to perpetuate. A characteristic t-eature of this power-knowledge is and resolving this problem is, however, unlikely
to be facilitated by, as
its claim to be of universal application. Partha Chatterjee writes: Chatterjee does, effectively conceiving communities
as self-enclosed entities.
For actually existing communities may contain highly
unequal power struc_
If there is one great moment that turns the provincial thought of Europe into tures which are legitimtzed by the dominant veisions
universal history, it is the moment of capital - capital that is global in its territo-
of their traditions.
Recognition of the right of communal leaders not
rial reach and universal in its conceptual dornain. It is the narrative of capital to have to justify these
structures and traditions thus leaves untouched the position
that can turn the violence of mercantilist trade, war, genocide, conquest and of those subordi-
nated within the community. chatterjee's version
colonialism into a story of universal progress, development, modernization, and of postcolonial theory seems
to condemn one form of oppression rhar representäd
freedom.ar - by rhe ;;";;trr.or_
cratic state - while immunizing those occurring within
particular communi-
ties frorn scrutiny. This is a position little rernoved
Counterposed to the narrative of capital is that of community. The accu- from a conservative
Romantic condemnation of the capitalist present in
mulation of capital presupposes the destruction of communities: the viabi- the name of tradition.
This exarnple illustrates the difliculties created by seeking
lity of the modern nation-state requires a 'sanitized, domesticated form' ol' simply to break
with the Enlightenment. Abjuring appeal to universal
community as 'a shared subjective feeling that protects and nurtures'. Yet. principles restricts the
scope of social criticism. The prevailing ideology
Chatterjee argues, within a speciflc community
or a larger society is Iikely largely to .ndo.r. its existing
institutions and
practices' Attempts to change these institutions
It is not so much the state/civil society opposition burt rather the capital/ and practices which seek to
legitimize themselves on the basis of beliefs having
community opposition that seems to me to be the great unsurpassed contra- wiclespread acceptance
diction in Western social philosophy . . . Community, which ideally should within that society or community are therefore likely
to confine thernselves
have been banished frorn the kingdom of capital, continues to lead a subterr- to relatively Iimited adjustments. More radical
criticism of the entirc structure
anean, potentially subversive, lif-e within it because it refuses to go away.a2 of the society or community will often be extrinsically
based in the sense of
appealing to belieft other than those prevailing there *
in the way trrat, for
Chatterjee insists that community 'is not an archaic idea buried in tlre example' opponents of apartheid in South Africa
tended to base themselves
recesses of history, nor is it part of a marginal subculture, nor can it be clis on liberal-democratic or socialist ideologies. Whether or
not extrinsically
missed as a pre-modern remnant that an absent-minded Enlightenment lrrrs based, such criticism characteristically appeals
to beliefs not merely on the
somehow forgotten to raise.'43 Yet his argument slides all too easily int() ;r grounds that they are different from the prevailing
ones but because they
involve universal principles thus racial segregat[rn
version of Romantic anti-capitalism. The rights and traditions of communiti,.'' - in South Africa was
are, of course, a burning issue in contemporary India, where a state whos,' condemned not primarily because things *"..
Aiff.rent elsewhere but because
doubtful and tarnished commitment to secularism is under challenge fronr llrt' it denied black people rights common to all human
beings. The 1955 Freedom
exclusivist nationalism of the Hindu right. Rejecting the liberal-left stance ol ('harter, the rnain programmatic
document of the African National Congress,
seeking to def'end and strengthen existing secularisttraditions on the blsis,,l is written in the language of universal rights.
'l'lrcrc ltrc. lltctl. lw«r
ways of responclin-8 to the tacit Iimitations to
the
l"rrliglrterrl)lclll's l)l()lltist'ol'urrivcrsul .n.,,,n.:ipr,tiop.
'' P. Chatteriee, The Notion and lt,s Fragments (Delhi, 1995). p.235. Onc is t. conclude that
', Ibid., p. 236.
'1r hid.. p.231. " l'. ('lr;rltrr;r.r. I l',,tttl,l, ltt,lt,r (l )t.llrr. l()() /). pp. l\,1. _)55

t-
Debating Modernity and Postmodernity 319
318 Debating Modernity and Postmodernity

a masked The dialogue between social theory and political philosophy, furthermore,
these limitations demonstrate that artl'universal theory is necessarily
goes in both directions, as is indicated by the exchange between Rawls and
particularism. that one can then do is decide which particularism one
All Habermas, the outstanding living representative of 'the legacy of Marx and
pr.f"r, to its rivals. Chatterjee's attempt to defend comtnunities from extrinsic Weber'.48 Dialogue, however, is not the same as complete convergence. The
criticism is, from this perspective, simply a logical consequence of
his rejec-
ithe main thrust of conternporary liberal political philosophy has been remarkably
tion of what he calls tired slogans about the universality of discursive
egalitarian: the principal disagreements among theorists such as Rawls, Barry,
reason'.os The other is to respond to the failures of the Entightenment project
Ronald Dworkin, Amartya Sen, and G. A. Cohen have concerned how to
by striving for the achievement of a genuine wiversality - of a social and
This is specify the content, and how to justify principles, of justice in which the
pätiticat oid". which has no 'others', from which no one is excluded.
as spe- concept of social equality plays a central role. The gulf, however, dividing
u p.og.u*me for the permanent radicalization of the Enlightenment:
Indeed' it abstract normative theory from social and political reality is enormous, and
cific exclusions u." or...ome, others are identified and addressed' has grown wider since Rawls's A Theory o.f Justice was originally published
may turn out that, as I believe, the bulk of these exclusions constitutes
an
which in 1971.
interdependent social whole, a complex of oppression and exploitation
process of revolution- Rawls's own later work is generally seen as representing a retreat from the
can only be addressed through a single, comprehensive
universalistic ambitions of his first book. Yet consider his description, written
ary transformation. in 1995, of the conditions under which the liberties guaranteed by a constitu-
Here the philosophical idea of modernity. embodying a certain
ethical
tional democracy cease to be merely fbrrnal:
conception of political and social life, which earlier I sought to
distinguish
from the analytical theory of capitalism as a distinctive social system'
comes
as an a. Ptrblic linancing o1'elections and ways of guaranteeing the availability of
into its own. From this standpoint, capitalism might be condemned
public infbrmation on matters of public policy . . .
out requires
inadequat e realization of the idea of modernity. Making this
idea
the formr.rlation of a satisfactory normative political theory. [t is interesting b. A certain fair equality of opportunity, especially in education and
which has typically training . . .
that the recent renaissance of liberal political philosophy,
justice' should
taken the tbrrn of a search for egalitarian principles of social c. A decent distribution of income and wealth . . . all citizens must be assured
I involve a certain opening up to social theory' the all-purpose means necessary for them to take intelligent and effective
social and
John Rawls's theory oi 3ustice as fairness - according to which advantage of their basic freedoms . . .
the worst off
economic inequalitie, u." u.""ptable only insofar as they benefit d. Society as employer of last resort thror"rgh general or local governnlent, or
lr
in society (the famous Difference Principle) - is a case in point. The subject
other social and economic policies . .
'understood as the way .
1

of justice is, he argues,'the basic Structure of society',


and how
,i1

in which the major social institutions fit together into one system, e. Basic health care assured all citizens.+"
of advantages
li'il] they assign fundamental rights and duties and shzrpe the division
that arises through social cooperation'. Therefore
'[t]he role of the institutions To anyone familiar with contemporary political condition.s in liberal capi-
just
I

that belong to the basic structure is to secure background conditions talist societies such as the United States and Britain these requirements will
rli
I

the actions of individuals and associations take place'''6 Brian seem wildly Utopian. Of course, as the Frankftrrt School well unclerstood,
against which
ltli
Barry comments: there are times when social reality is so derneaned and contemptible that to
tlrlit describe an idea as Utopian is to honour it. Nevertheless, some account is
tlirl
Rawls's incorporation of this notion of a social structure into his
theory repre- required of the relationship between abstract norms and the historical condi-
political philosophy' For the first time, a rnajor tions of their realization. Not the least of Marx's contributions was, from On
sents the coming of age of liberal
t,
I
tt
thinker in the bioadly individualistic tradition has taken account of the legacy the Jewish Questi.on onwards, to demand that the language of universal rights
lli
by recognizing explicitly that societies have patterns of be put to the test of social practice, without abandoning the Enlightenlnent
i,ll:
of Marx ancl Weber
ii inequality that persist over tirne and systematic ways of allocating pcople to
aspiration to what he called 'human emancipation'.
positions within their hierarchies of power, stattls, anfl money.aT

1,il
45 Ibid., p. 261. '' .1. Ilrrhenrr:rs. 'llccortciliatiorr Through the Public Use ol'Reason'. JoLtrnul o.l'Philoxtph,-,92
(l()()51; ;rrrrl I [i;rrllr. 'l(ePlv lo lllrbclnurs', ihirl.
i 16 J. Rawls, Political Liberttlisilt, expandecl ecln (New York' 1996). pp.2-58.266'
It '11 B. Barry, .lustica lrnpttrtioii l\' (Oxfi)rd' lt)95)' p' 214'
"' I{,rrr l:,. l','lttt, ,tl I tlt,'t,tlittrr. 1l lviii.
lli
t1
trs

ho,,li ,
Debating Modernity and Postmodernity Debating Modernity and Postmodernity 321
320

One area where the relationship between normative conceptions and socitrl that is. it provides greater pronrise of producing rising standards of living and
structures has become tl-re object of more direct discussion in recent years is continuous growth.'53 The nemesis these remarks invited came when the Wall
around the topic of global justice. The debate about globalization that devel- Street bubble that Greenspan had so tenaciously inflated burst in 2000. Nev-
ertheless, the belief that we have nothing better to hope for than liberal capi-
oped in the course of the 1990s served, among other things, to highlight the
enormous (and, on soltle interpretations of the evidence, growing) gap in talism has become one of the reigning dogmas. It has, in particular, allowed
wealth, income, and lif'e-chances between rich and poor on a global scale. centre-left politicians on both sides of the Atlantic to proclaim a Third Way
beyond traditional left and right in which the policies of the neo-liberal right
This ipvites the suggestion that the basic structure that is (according to Rawls)
the subiect of justice is not that of a national society but of the entire planet. are ill-concealed by talk of 'modernity' and 'community'. One consequence
The implication of taking up this suggestion and, say, proposing that the Dif- is that public policy increasingly redefines social problems as the outcome of
f'erence Principle be applied on a global scale would be a very large-scale defective individual behaviour. The inference is natural enough: if the struc-
redistribution of wealth and income. Rawls himself resisted moving in this ture of liberal capitalist societies is basically sound, then social dysfunctions
arre caused by maladjusted individuals. Contemporary social policy has effec-
direction.5t' But other liberal political philosophers have been less cautious,
arguing that the extent of global interdependence and the scale of the suffering tively reinvented, beneath a language of 'empowerment'. the Victorian concept
caused by poverty in the South require justice to be treated as a cosmopolitan
of the undeserving poor, whose plight is caused by their own failure to acquire
principle.5r This kind of move goes precisely in the opposite direction from the skills and modes of conduct required of those who wish to enter the world
that recommended by Chatterjee's Rornantic anti-capitalism. since it implies of wage-labour. Constructing social problems as the consequence of personal
a radical universalisrn.
faults legitimizes the coercion of recalcitrant individuals and sporadic sarn-
paigns to revive the 'values' whose loss is allegedly responsible for the moral
(6) Bel,ond capitolisnt.? Addressing the demands of justice as they are decline reflected in the misbehaviour of the 'underclass'.
frarned by egalitarian liberalism, however, is greatly complicated by the domi- One can imagine how caustically Marx or Nietzsche would have expressed
nant assumption that the form of liberal capitalism thnt prevails today defines himself about this debasenrenf of public discourse. But theoretical argument
the limits of social possibility. The most famous expression of this belief is was, inevitably, aff-ected. Thus political philosophy became increasingly
Francis Fukuyama's thesis thirt the collapse of the Soviet Union and its east polarized in the lopsided debate between egalitarian liberals and their com-
European dependencies nrarked the End of History: liberal capitalisnr had munitarian and postmodernist critics, who spurn the abstractions of normative
seen off its rnain ideological rival. and now constituted the inescapable horizon
theory in the name of a nrore or less nuanced rejection of modernity. Despite
the quality of writing produced by, for example, Weberiern historical sociolo-
of all future human achievement.s2 While few were willing to encumber
gists such as Mann and Runciman, social theory itself became, as I remarked
themselves with Fukuyama's Hegelian metaphysical baggage, or his neo-
conservative politics, his conclusion - that there is no longer any historically in the Introduction, sidelined by cultural studies. (Though Runciman himself
f'easible alternative to liberal capitalism - became very widely acceptecl. believes this development may in the long run strengthen sociology, declaring
A capitalist triumphalism has become deeply entrenched in public dis- that "'postmodernism" has come and largely gone, taking with it those aspects
course, most notably in the United States. After the East Asian ecouomies, of the study of hurnan behaviour which properly belong to literature rather
widely perceived after 1989 as the main challenge to the Anglo-American than science."o) Once again, this shift in focus is intelligible enough: if the
hope or threat of qualitative social transfbrmation no longer haunts capitali.srn,
moclel' of unregulated free-market capitalism. were shattered by the financial
crash of 1991, Alan Greenspan, the normally cautious chairman of the US would not time be better spent exploring the experiences and discourses
Federal Reserve Board, claimed victory: 'My sense is that one consequence through which individuals bearing various identities inlrabit an increasingly
of this Asian crisis is an increasing awareness in the region that market capi- commodified social world than analysing mechanisms of historical change
talism, as practised in the West, especially in the US, is the superior tnodel: unlikely to be operative in the future?
A necessary condition of the existence of this rather depressing intellectual
conjuncture was the marginalization of Marx. It is this development, entailed
s() ld., The Lav of Peoples (Cambridge, Mirss., 1999). by Fukuyama's proclamation of the End of History, which implies that our
,, Fc,r example. C. Beitz, P<tlitital Tltcory and Internatiortctl Rclatiorts. rev. etltr
(Cambriclge, Mass., 1999); T. W. Pogge, World Poverty ttntl Humon Right.s (Carnbriclge. 2002): s1 l;irrtrttt'itrl 'l'itttc.t, l9 April lt)t)tt
and B. Btrrry, Why Social Justice Matters (Cambridge' 200-5).
5r F. Fukuyanra.Tha End o.l-Histrtrt' ontl tlte Lasl Man (New York, 1992). '' W (i liurrr'irrur n.'l'ltc Sor'ittl ,,\trittttrl (l.orrrlorr. l()()i-i ). p. vii,
322 Debating Modernity and Postmodernity

social horizons are inescapably defined by the existing liberat capitalist socie-
ties, and that this modernity may be contested only by a postmodernism that
specifically eschews any project of comprehensive transformation. But Marx's
distinctive contribution to the debate on modernity cannot easily be effaced.
13
It is interesting that, when the dismissal of Marx was at its height in the 1990s,
even theorists the overall thrust of whose work had been hostile to the classical Changing the Subject:
Marxist tradition have in recent years paid more or less grudging tribute to it.
Runciman, for example, endorses the judgement that 'Weber is not merely the G lobalizalion, Capital ism,
greatest sociologist but the sociologist'. Yet, expounding his evolutionary
iocial theory, he declares that 'at any given level of population, technology and lmperialism
and resources, there are not that many different ways in which economic,
ideological and coercive power can be distributed', a statement which seems
suspiciously close to what Runciman calls a f'ew pages later 'outdated
"Histori-
cal Materialism"'.ss Much more strikingly, Jacques Derrida, whose version of
post-structuralism had an enormous influence in weaning the 1960s genera-
tion off Marxism, in his Spectres of Marx (1993), not merely affirms a gener-
ous (though characteristically ambiguous) commitment to the 'spirit of 13.1 Much ado about globalization
Marxism', but links this to a vehement critique of Fukuyama and of the 'new
world order' of triumphant liberal capitalism. This proved to be an anticipation It is generally hard precisely to locate the moment when the subject of intel-
of a remarkable shift in the debate over the following decade. lectual debate changes, let alone to explain why this should have happened.
Nevertheless, it is clear that, in the course of the 1990s, the subject of social
theory did change. Modernity, postmodernity, postcoloniality - these topics
didn't simply vanish, but they were pushed increasingly to the sidelines, or
reframed to accommodate the shift in the focus of intellectual controversy.
That shift was recorded at the end of the decade by David Held, Anthony
McGrew, David Goldblatt, and Jonathan Perraton, when they announced:
'Globalization is an idea whose time has come.'r The nature, extent, conse-
quences, and meaning of globalization - that is to say, the processes of cross-
border integration widely perceived to have accelerated in the last decades of
the twentieth century - came to overwhelm the other preoccupations of social
and cultural theorists. As Justin Rosenberg puts it, 'we live today in a veritable
"age of globalization studies", in which one academic discipline after another
is gaily expanding its remit into the "global" sphere and relocating its own
subject matter in a geographically extended, worldwide perspective.'2
The evolution of Anthony Giddens is symptomatic of this paradigm change.
As we have seen (§ll.l and ch. 12 above), he emerged to prominence in the
1970s and 1980s as a leading Weberian historical sociologist, seeking to find
a middle way in both substantive and methodological terms between, on the
one hand, Marxism and other versions of social theory that (in his view)

D. Held, A. McGrew et al., Global Transformations (Cambridge, 1999), p. l.


55 Ibid..
r' J. Rosenberg,The Follies of GlobolizationTheory (London,2000), p. ll.
pp. 49. ll8, l4o
324 Changing the Subject Changing the Subject 325

dissolved subjectivity into objective structures and, on the other, the phenom- constantly evoked by media outlets such as CNN and by adverts for Microsoft
t enological and hermeneutic traditions whose preoccupation with recovering and McDonald's:
l meanings tended to occlude any larger social context. In the 1990s, he became,
with Ulrich Beck, one of the main theorists of 'late modernity'. But, by dec- Because it is flattening and shrinking the world, Globalization 3.0 is going to
ade's end, Giddens's preoccupation had become much more directly focused be more and more driven not only by individuals but also by a much more
on the economic and political consequences of globalization (though Rosen- diverse - non-Western, non-white - group of individuals. Individuals fiom
berg argues that The Con.sequences of Moclernil_y was already 'the ur-text of every corner of the flat world are being empowered. Globalization 3.0 nrakes it
globalization as a social theory'.3 ) Stepping forward as one of the principal possible fbr so many more people to plug and play, and you are going to see
theorists of a Third Way between neo-liberalisrn and state socialism - a politi- every colour of the human rainbow take part.6
cal stance associated particularly with Bill Clinton, President of the United
States between 1993 and 2001, and Tony Blair, who became Labour Prime Boosters such as Friedrnan painted, to put it mildly, with a broad brush on a
Minister of Britain in 1997, Giddens portrayed a 'runaway world' in which big canvas.
dramatic processes of economic, political, and cultural globalization had radi- However, lnore careful arguments were also on off-er. Held, McGrew, and
cally changed (on the whole, for the better) the life-chances of individuals. their collaborators defined globalization as 'a process (or .set of' processes)
v+'ltic'h embodies a transformation in the spatial organiztttion oJ' ,social rela-
and were now demanding the wholesale recot.tfiguration of public policy.a
The genre of writing on globalization to which Giddens's work now belongs tirttrs and transoctiotls - ucldressed in ternß o.f their extansitt,, intensitt,,
has a tendency to verge on simple boosterism of what were represented to be velocitl, and impact - generating transcontinental or interregional. flows antl
the dominant socio-economic trends. An egregious example of this tendency network.s of activity, interaction, und the exercise of power'., They identified
is offered by the Nev, York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who not long 'three broad schools of thought' about globalization. First, there were 'hyper-
ago annoLlnced that the globalization process was experiencing a revolution globalizers' such as the management guru Ken ohmae, who proclaimed the
in the revolution: emergence of a 'borderless world' where the nation-state would cease to play
any significant role.8 Secondly, sceptics such as Paul Hirst ancl Grahame
around the year 2000 we entered a whole new era: Globalization 3.0 is shrink- Thornpson argued that 'globalization, as conceived by the more extreme glo-
ing the world from a size small to a size tiny and flattening the playing field at balizers, is largely a myth'.e Finally, according to Held, McGrew, ancl their
the same time. And while the dynamic force in Globalization 1.0 was countries collaborators,'transformationalist accounts emphasize globalization as a
globalizing and the dynamic force in Globalization 2.0 was companies globaliz- long-terrn historical process which is inscribed with contradictions and which
ing, the dynarnic fbrce in Globalization 3.0 - the thing that gives it its unique is significantly shaped by conjunctural factors'.10
character - is the newfound power for individuttls to collaborate and compete They cite Giddens as an exponent of this 'transformationalist' position -
globally. And the lever that is enabling individuals and groups to go global so rather surprisingly, given that his writings on globalization show little sense
easily and so seamlessly is not horsepower, and not hardware, but software - all of corttradiction or f-eel for the conjunctr-rral. More significantly, it is their own
sorts of new applications - in conjunction with a global fibre-optic network that
view. Held, McGrew, and their collaborators frame their argument on the basis
has made us all next-door neighbours. Individuals must, and can, now ask,
of what they describe as a 'difTerentiated ernd rnulti-causal approach'. They
Where do 1 flt into the global competition and opportunities of the day. and how
use the four variables of intensity, extensity, velocity, and impact to construct
can I on my own, collaborate with others globally'?5
a table of the kinds of globalization that have been present art diff'ering points

Frenetic technological innovation, pursued amidst a hurricatre of economic


in history, before reaching the conclusion that 'contemporary globalization
has some of the attributes of . . . "thick globalizatinn" ', which is characterized
restructuring driven by relentless global competition, would, Friedman sug-
gested, finally realize the democratic and egalitarian potential of rnodernity,
by 'high ertensitlt, high inten.sity, high yelocit\,, high impacl'. One interesting
bringing into existence the polychromatic world of expanding opportunity
o lbid., p. tt.
r ' Hefd, McGrew et al., Global Trunsformations, pp. 16,2.
tuict.. p. sa. ' K. Ohmae, The Encl of rhc Nctrittn Srare (New York, I9961 and T-he Borderless Workl (New
1 ,
A. Gidde ns, The Third Way (Cambridge. 1998). Runaw'al World (London. 1999), antl T-ht York. 1999).
Thirtl Wctv and lts Critic.s (Carnbridge, 2000). '' l'. llirsl ;rrtrl (i -flrorrrps<tn,
Glttbuli:,tttiort Qttestion,2nd edn (Cambridge. 1999). p.2.
s T. Friedrnan, The World is Flat ([.ondon, 2005), p. 10. "' ll.'1,1. I\lt ( ilr'r.r cl
irt
i., (ilrtltttl 'l'nrttsfitrttttttiott.s. 1-t.7.
326 Changing the Subject Changing the Subject 327

aspect of this way of conceptualizing globalization is that it portrays globali- economic globalization and its effects on the state system. Hirst and Thomp-
zation as a transhistorical process rather than as a phenomenon specific to son, for example, challenge the idea that the liberalization and cross-border
capitalist modernity, let alone to the past generation - though He1d, McGrew, integration of markets that has indisputably occurred since the 1960s is quali-
and their collaborators insist that 'globalization as a historical process cannot tatively new or greater than it was before the First World War:
be treated by an evolutionary logic or an emergent telos'.r' Some historians
have been willing to take up this cue - for example studying the processes of the international economy was in many ways more open in the pre-1914 period
'archaic globalization' generated by the pre-modern agrarian empires.r2 There thurn at any time since, including from the late 1970s onwards. International

is no clearer sign that a particular theoretical scheme has become intellectually trade and capital flows, both between the rapidly industrializing economies
themselves and between these and their various colonial territories were more
entrenched than when historians begin to use it to reinterpret the past.
important relative to GDP levels befbre the First World War than they probably
One consequence of the rapid emergence and diffusion of what Rosenberg
are today.r6
calls 'Globalization Theory' was that totalization was back with a bang. Post-
modernity was, as Lyotard famously argued, the collapse of 'grand narratives'
Hirst and Thompson acknowledge that a significant internationalization of
such as the philosophies of history of the Enlightenment, Hegel, and Marx
production has taken place, thanks to the growth of fbreign direct invest-
and the triumph of the fragment over any kind of totality.rr But whatever
ment, largely by multinational corporations. But they provide plentiful evi-
nuances of argument or formulation might separate Friedman, Giddens, and
dence that
Held, they were all busy constructing grand narratives on a planetary scale.
Moreover, William H. Sewell notes, 'the shift tiom a term ["postmodernism"]
the internationalization of production and trading activity remains extremely
with basically epistemological meanings to one ["globalization"] with suh- unequally distributed, with a domination of the Triad countries [i.e. tl're US,
stantial historical meanings seems to me another manifestation of a latent European Union, and Japanl and a few favoured rapidly expanding less devel-
desire for a return to more social or socio-economic interpretations of the oped economies. The vast bulk of the world's population is heavily disadvan-
contemporary predicament'.ra This didn't meAn that postmodernism simply ta_9ed, and almost ignored by these developments. Income distribution is also
vanished as an intellectual genre - it was too well entrenched institutionally severely unequal, with little sign that this is changing.rT
for that, but it was forced to redeploy itself against the background provided
by the claims made about globalization. Its postcolonial variant was better The main respect in which Hirst and Thompson concede that the case for
equipped to conduct the necessary regroupment given that it was concerned globalization has sorne merit concerns the state, whose capacity to manage
with the specific forms and effects of the eltcounter between North and South the national economy has, they accept, declined by comparison with the era
that necessarily fbrmed one of the main themes of any serious discussion of of state planning and Keynesian demand management in the mid-twentieth
globalization. century. But even this concession is rejected by other sceptics. Linda Weiss,
But how should such a discussion be conducted? Held, McGrew, and their fbr example, argues that
collaborators offered further evidence of their totalizing ambitions when they
argued that globalization should not be thought of in specifically economic or national economies are in some ways highly integrated with one another.
cultural terms, but 'might be better conceived as a highly differentiated process However, with the partial exception of money markets, the result is not so much
which finds expression in all the key domains of social activity (including the a globalized world (where national dif-ferences eventually disappear) as a more
political, military, the legal, the ecological, the criminal, etc.)'.rs In fact, the internationalized one, where national and regional interaction networks remain
debate they portray occurring among hyperglobalizers. sceptics, and transfor- vibrant and continue to highlight the inrportance of institutions and place.r*
mationalists tended to focus on two much more speci{ic issues - the extent of
More specifically, Weiss argues that states continue to possess 'transformative
rr Ibid., pp. 26, 431, 25 (fre. 1.4). 414. capacity', which she understands along the lines of Michael Mann's historical
,2 See C. A. Bayly, "'Archaic" an<I "Modern" Globalization in the Eurasian and African Arena.
c. 1750-ltj50', in A. D. Hopkins, ed., GLohalizotion in World Histury (London, 2002), and The
16 Hirst and Thompson, Globalization, p.32. These assertions are strongly contested in Helcl,
Birth ofthe Modern World 1780-1911(Oxfbrd, 2004), ch- l.
't J.-F. Lyotarcl, Tl"te P()sttttoclern Conditiorr (Manchester. 1984). McGrew et al., Globul Transfornrutions. chs 3 and 4.
r7 Hilsl rrrrrl Th«lnrpsort, Globuliz.tttion, p.95.
'r W. H. Sewell. Logics of Historv (Chicago, 2005), p.79.
'5 Held. McGrew et al.. Global Tran,s.frtrmtiions. p- 12. 't L. W,'itt.'l ltr Mt'/lr of tltc l'rtu'crlt.s.t .\ttttt,(('lrrtrbrirlgc. l99tt). p. lll7.
328 Changing the Subject Changing the Subject 329

sociology. On the basis of the experience of the East Asian 'developmental r"rndeniably altered. if not to the extent claimed by the boosters - might have
state', which perrnitted the rapid industrialization of societies such as Japan, for social theory itself. A common response is that comprehensive reconstruc-
South Korea, and Taiwan, she contends that state capacities are most fully tion is required. But Rosenberg argues that this typically leads to a vicious
developed where the state and capital are integrated on the basis of 'governed circularity:
interdependence' - 'a negotiated relationship, in which public and private
participants maintain their autonomy, yet which is nevertheless governed by Now, since no-one denies that 'worldwide social relations' do indeed exist today
broader goals set and maintained by the state', and where 'leadership is either in ways and to a degree that they never did befbre. there can be n<l objection to
I
calls tbr a theory of globalization, if that rleans an explanation of how and why
exercised directly by the state or dele-eated to the private sector where a robust
these have come about. But such an explanation, if it is to avoid ernpty circular-
organizational infrastructure has been nurtured by state policies'. Even if
ity, must fäll back on some more basic social theory which could explain why
specilic policy instruments - for example, fiscal and monetary policy as a the phenomena denoted by the term have become such a distinctive and salient
means of steering national economies - may have been rendered obsolete feature of the contemporary world. (Globalization as an outcome cannot be
thanks to greater international integration, states that maintain this kind of explained simply by invoking globalization as a process tending towards that
relationship can act as 'catalysts for the "internationalization" strategies of outconte.) . . . [But] the globalization theorists clearly intend something more
corporate actors'.re than this. By asserting that the emergence of a single global space as the arena
It is certainly not clitficult to think of cases where states in recent times of social action increasingly outweighs in its consequences other kinds of cau-
have made a real economic difference. On the one hand, as Peter Gowan has sality which have traditionally been invoked to explain social phenomena, by
forcefully argued, the liberalization and deregulation of the global economy extrapolating the geographical dimension of this process into an alternative,
spatio-temporal problematic fbr social science; and finally, by pitting this new
since the late 1970s has to a significant degree been a consequence of policies
problematic not simply against competing perspectives in the contemporary
pursued by the United States - and generalized by international financial
social sciences but also against the classical foundations of modern social
institutions on which it has a decisive influence, notably the lnternational
thought as a whole - in all these ways, they have raised their sights beyond any
Monetary Fund and the World Bank - whose efl'ects, in opening up national purely descriptive role for the concept. In the logical structure of their argu-
economies to international capital flows, have been largely favourable to mentation, what presents itself initially as the explanandum - globalization as
American corporations and investment banks.2O On the other, the most spec- the developing outcome of some historical process - is progressively trans-
tacular single economic development of the past quarter century - the ascent formed into the explanons: it is globalization which now explains the changing
of China as a major producer and exporter of manufactured goods - has character of the modern world - and even generates 'retrospective discoveries'
depended critically on the strategies pursued by the Chinese state. notably in about past epochs.2a
progressively opening up the economy to the world market from 1978 onwards
and in, through the state banks, linancing the enormous and continuing This equivocation, Rosenberg argued, rendered the very idea of globaliza-
increase in the country's productive capacity'21 tion 'a Zeitgeist, not a proto-scientiflc concept. And the attempt to turn it into
In many respects, then, the sceptics seem to have been proved right.22 All the the latter, however understandable, could only generate confusion and equivo-
same, even if, in relative terms, the flows of capital and commodities across cation.' It was not that the empirical trends cited by globalization theorists
borders in the 1990s were comparable to those before the liberal world economy didn't (to some extent) exist, but accounting for them did not require the kind
of the nineteenth century was broken up, international trade and investment of radical rethink of social theory that they claimed was necessary. These
today are the visible signs of production processes that are, fär more than trends could be perfectly well explained by Marx, who 'identified an ever-
in the past, organized on a transnational basis.23 The interesting question for rising scope and volume of transnational relations, along with a technologi-
our purposes concerns what implications this socio-economic reality - cally orchestrated process of deepening spatio-temporal integration, as central
to the very "laws of motion" of capitalist development'. Moreover, Rosenberg,
'' Ihid.. pp. .18. 204. like sceptics such as Hirst, Thompson, and Weiss, denied that the acceleration
20 P. Gowan. The GLobal Gamble (London, 1999). of these processes in the late twentieth century amounted to the end of the
,, example, D. Harvey, A Short History of Neo-Liberttlism (oxfbrd, 200-5). ch. 5.
F..,1
22 See the very judicious assessment of thc dcbate by Colin Hay: 'Globalization's Itnpitct on state system. On the contrary, the separation of the economic and political

States'. in J. Ravenhill. ed., Glohal Political Econonr\'(Oxfbrd' 200-5).


2r C. Harman, 'Globalization: Critique of a Nerv Orth«tdoxy', Intcrnulitttrrrl ,\ttt'ittli'tttt.2lJ-\
.'I l{rrsr'nlrt'r y. Iitllit'.s',
( t996). 1t. 3.
330 Changing the Subject Changing the Subject 331

inherent in capitalist relations of production necessitated 'the emergence of capitalism off'ered a prime example of the significance now accorded to the
two parallel, internally related. dimensions of social space: a public space of concept of the network. On the basis of a close study of management literature,
territorially delirnited jurisdictions, and a private space of contractual, mate- Boltanski and Chiapello detected the replacement of a society focused on the
rial relations of production and exchange'.2s bureaucratically centralized big corporation by a 'connexionist worlcl' domi-
Rosenberg therefore offered a deflationary explanation of 'Globalization nated by 'lean enterprises, working in networkr with a multitude of partici-
Theory' as a misreading of the specific and now surpassed historical conjunc- pants, team working, or work organization on the busis of
ltrojects. oriented
ture of the 1990s, when the end of the Cold War marked the collapse of all towards the satisfaction of a client, and a general mobilizettion of workers
the barriers, hitherto erected, not simply in the Soviet bloc but in the often thanks to the visions of their leaders'.]7
highly state-directed societies of the South, to the integration of the entire The network also provided the lens through which social change at the end
world into this dual space of a capitalist world economy and a political system of the twentieth century was viewecl in another major sociological stgdy, this
of sovereign states: time by the Catalan urban theorist Manuel Castells. Like Boltanski and Chia-
pello, he argued that corporate structures were being transformed as a result
The Soviet collapse in the East and the deregulating thrust of neo- of the emergence of what he called 'the network enterpn.re': 'as the proces.s
liberalism in the West were indeed central to the events of the decade. But what of globalization progresses, organizational fbrms evolve from ntultinationul
their combination, in fact, produced was a distinct and in some ways self'- enterprises to international netv:orks'. The significance of this transformatiorr
contained historical conjuncture, in which the filling of a socio-political va- thus lay less in the extension of these different forms of enterprises (since both
cuum (generated by the Soviet collapse and its effects) created an enormous
rnultinationals and networks transcended national borders) but in the redistri-
sense of temporal acceleration and spatial compression - but one which could
bution of power that it represented:
by delinition only be temporary. When this process of filling the vacuur.n
came to an end, the salience of the spatio-temporal phenomena which produced
Globalization Theory would start to fäde - because it was the nrctvement of the The corporation itself has changecl its organizational rnoclel to adapt to the
process which generated that salience. Like a misleading statistical projection, conditions of unpreclictability ushered in by rapicl economic ancl technological
based on an uncorrected extrapolation from the peak of a cycle, Globalization change. The ntain shif't can he t:harat'teriz.ed as the ,shi.f't
front verticcrl hurectnt._
Theory was thus doomed to misread both the direction and the momentum of racies to the hrtriaonlul corporution. The horizontal corporation seems to be
the historical process. The future, it turns out, is not 'global' in the sense that characterized by seven tnain trends: organization around process, not task; a
they [sic] meant it. In fäct, the actual, historical movement which was called flat hierarchy; team management; measuring performance by customer strategy;
'globalization' is already in the past.2n rewarcls based on team perfbnnance; maximization of contacts with suppliers
and customers; infbrrnation, training, and retraining of ernployees at all
levels.rs

13.2 The social as networks . . . or as nothing


This transformation affectecl more than corporate structures; what wzrs
unfbldin-u was nothing ntore than the emergence of the network society, pro-
Rosenberg's historicizing account impiied that the various atternpts to theorize
ducing a bifurcation between specific identities through which people make
globalization had produced nothing of lasting intellectual value. But was the
sense of their lives and the instrumental rationality served by networks:
record of Globalization Theory quite so null? Perhaps the most important
instance of conceptual innovation was cited by the French sociologists Luc
People increasingly organize their meaning not arouncl what they do but on
Boltanski and Eve Chiapello: 'Different indices suggest . . . that the metaphor
the basis of what they are. or believe they are. Meanwhile, on the other hand,
of the network has progressively taken responsibility fbr a new general repre- global networks of instrumental exchnnges selectively switch on and ofT indi-
sentation of societies.' Their own major study of the shift that, they claimed, viduals, groups, regions, and even countries, according to their relevance in
had occurred between the 1960s and the 1990s from managerial to globalized fulfilling the goals processed in the networks in a relentless flow of instrumental
decisions. There follows a fundamental split between abstract, universal

25 J. Rosenberg.'Globalization Theory: A Post Mortem', Internutiortttl Politit.t,42 (200.5). )7 L. Boltanski and E. Chiapello, Le Notrt,t,l E,s.prit tlrt t'ultituli.tuta (Paris. l(.X)9). pp. 207
pp.15,22. ll-5-16.
16 Ibid.. p. 6. rx M. (':rslclls. -l'ltr Risa ol tltt, Nr,lrrrtrk .\rtt.ir,tt,.lrrtl
t.tllr )xlirrrl. .)(XX)). pp lli7. .)Oli. lTti
((
332 Changing the Subject Changing the Subject 333

instrumentalism and historically rooted, particularistic identities. Ottr soc'ieties ingly announce the emergence of the multitude, a new revolutionary subject,
are increasingl;- struc'tured arouncl a bipolar opposition between the Net and in which the singularities that come together to form it do not submerge their
the ,self.ze identities, thanks to the network forms of organization through which they
coordinate their actions.
An even rrore ambitious employment of the network rnetaphor was to be Though the globalization debate offered the moment of takeoff fbr the
found in the most widely read book of social theory to appear at the beginning network as the dominant metaphor of the social, its origins could be traced
of the third rnillennium AD, Empire. The American cultural theorist Michael back earlier. Boltanski and Chiapello point to the analogies between connec-
Hardt and the Italian Marxist philosopher Toni Negri argued that the contem- tionist conceptions of society, on the one hand, and structuralism and post-
porary wave of globalization marked the emergence of a new form of trans- structuralism, on the other:
national network capitalism that they named Empire:
With structuralism, they share the l'eature of emphasizing relational properties
Our point of departure [in Empire) was the recognition that contemporary and not substances . . . But, unlike structuralisni, which gives itself the project
global order can no longer be understood in terms of imperialism as it was of identifying the original structures forming the starting point of transfbrma-
practised by the modern powers, based primarily on the sovereignty of the tions and which therefbre devotes itself to 'the study of the logical structure
of
nation-state extended over foreign territory. Instead a 'network power', a new the world' . . . the network approach embraces a raclical empiiicism.3,,
fonn of sovereignty is emerging, and it includes as its primary elements, or
modes, the dominant nation-states along with supranational institutions, major This is precisely the philosophical strategy espoused by Gilles Deleuze, ir
capitalist corporations, and other powers. This network power we claim is key figure i, post-structuralist thought (§11.3 above). In the opening pages of
'imperial' not 'imperialist'. Not all the powers in Empire's network, of course,
one of his best-known book s, Mitte plateuux, Deleuze and his co-author
are equal - on the contrary, some nation-states have enormous power and some F6lix
Guattari counterpose the metaphor of the tree and its roots hierarchical,
almost none at all, and the same is true for the various other corporations and -
structured, and authoritetrian, irnplying a social world that is necessarily strati-
-
institutions that make up the network but despite ineqLralities, they must
fied - to that of the rhizome whose roots ramify laterally, escaping confine-
cooperate to create and maintain the current global order, with all of its internal -
divisions and rivalries.so ment in any specific territory, an anarchic and uncontainable multiplicity.ra
For Boltanski and Chiapello, the network form of contemporary capitalism
is
The significance of Ernpire as a fürm of political sovereignty is that it aclmits a Deleuzian 'plane of immanence' that expancls and deterritorializes
beyoncl
no boundaries: 'Empire's rule has no limits.' One symptom of its emergence good and evil: 'The network extends and modifies itself ceaselessly to
such
is the increasing resort to humanitarian interventions that override national an extent that there is no pertinent principle on the basis of which to halt
ert a
sovereignty and assert rather 'a right ofpolice' that is 'legitimated by universal given moment the struggle of those between whom a balance of justice
could
values'.3r But Hardt and Negri contend that the 'distributed, or full-matrix, be established.' They sttess the resemblances between econornic an4 philo-
network in which there is no centre and all nodes can communicate directly sophical innovation in the late twentieth century:
with all others' on which the dominant fbrms of economic, political, and
military power are increasingly reliant provides the organizational fbrm - Without conceding to the murxisant simplilication of the infiastmcture.
one
decentralized, plural, horizontal, self-organized - for new kinds of resistance cannot however ignore the eviclent analogy between these two forms of dualism:
to emerge in the shape, fbr example. of theZapatista guerrillas in Mexico and the critique' in management, of hierarchical and plannecl organizatigns in
f-avourof the fluidity of networks, and the critique, in the realnr of epistenrology,
the altermondiali.ste movenlent: 'The distributed network structure provides
of system in fävour of n-u.rltiplicity ancl chaos.r5
the model for an absolutely democratic organization that corresponds to the
dominant forms of economic and social production and is also the most pow-
Hardt and Negri cite Mille plateaux along with Marx's Capitalas 'models,
erful weapon against the ruling power structure.'32 Hardt and Negri accord-
in writing Enqtire.tb But other social theorists have also conceptualized the

Ibid., p. 3. 'r Boltanski and Chiapello, Le Nouvel Esprit, p. 2113.


M. Hardt and A. Negri, MuLtitude (New York, 2004). p. xii.
t' G. Deleuze and F. Guattari. Mille pluteau-r (Paris, 1980), 'lntroductisn: Rhizome
M. Hardt ancl A. Negri. EmJtire (Carlbridge. Mass..2000). pp. xiv, 17. lli. " Brlrrrrrski rrncl Chiapeil<t, Le NoLtt,er Esprit,pp. r60, r59,6gg n.39.
Hardt ancl Ncgri. Multitude. pp. -57, 813. "' llrrr',lt :rrrtl Ncll.i. Iinrpirc. p. 4l-5 n. ,1.
Changing the Subject Changing the Subject 335
334
stable; that is, it is relatively dense and stable compared with interaction that
social as networks for less metaphysical reasons. In the opening chapter of his
crosses its boundaries.3e
great, and as yet unfinished, work of historical sociolog y The Sources of Social
power,Michael Mann criticizes what he calls 'the systemic or unitarv concep-
The crucial point here is that the density and stability of a set of networks
tion of society' common to Marx, Comte, Spencer, and Durkheim, 'the clas-
that allow us to identify a discrete society are only relative: to the extent that
sical anthropologists, and most of their disciples and critics', according to
these networks become institutionalized, they are liable to subversion through
which society must be conceptuahzed as a discrete, bounded, and coherent
the crystallization of new networks at their marrgins. The affinities between
whole. Mann concedes that there is a tendency fbr social relations to become
Mann's concept of societies as organized power networks and, on the one
institution alized, which may lead to the formation of 'one unitary society'.
hand, Deleuze's conception of nomadic, deterritorializing multiplicities and,
Nevertheless:
on the other, network conceptions of contenrporary capitalism should be
evident. There are, however, two very significant diffbrences that separate
The driving force of human society is not institutionalization. History derives
from restless drives that generate various networks of extensive and intensive
Mann frorn the latter. First of all, implicit in his historical sociology is a

power relations. These networks have a more direct relation to goal attainment humanism quite alien to the post-structuralist critique of the subject: 'Human
than institutionalization has. In pursuit of their goals hur.nans further develop beings are restless, purposive, and rational, striving to increase their enjoy-
these networks, outrunning the existing level of institutionalization. This may ment of the good things of lil'e and capable of choosing appropriate means fbr
happen as a direct challenge to existing institutions, or it may happen uninten- doing so.' Power relations figure among these means: fbr example, military
tionatty and 'interstitially' - between their interstices and around their edges - fbrce 'is probably not an original human drive or need . . . but it is an efficient
creating new institutions that have unanticipated consequences fbr the old.17 organizational means of fulfilling other drives'. There is thus no will to power
or the impersonal drive to outflank power relations posited by Deleuze; power
Mann argues that the rise of European capitalism is an instance of the latter functions merely as what Parsons called 'a "generalized rneans" for attaining
phenonrenon, which he calls 'interstitial emergence': the bourgeoisie did not whatever goals one wants to achieve'.4')
clirectly overthrow the structures of feudal power but outflanked them by cre- Secondly, Mann does not propose the network rnetaphor in order to under-
ating two new power networks - the modern state system and the capitalist stand contemporary processes of globalization. It is rather, fbr him. a trans-
world econon'ly. But this is one instance of a nruch broader tendency: historically applicable concept. Thus he argues that there is nothing new about
/ the multiplicity of identities typically borne by individuals today (and ol'ten
Sgcieties have nevel' been sufficiently institutionalizeti to prevent interstitial held to be a defining f'eature of the postmodern or postcolonial corrdition):
emergence. Human beings do not create unitary societies but a divel'sity of
intersecting networks of social interactiotl. The most important of these net- Overlapping interaction networks are the historical nonll ...lrt nrost ancierrl
works form relatively stably arouncl the fbur power sources [ideological, eco- empires, the r-nass of the people participated overwhelrlingly in srnall-scale
nomic, military, antl politicall in any given social space- Rut underneath. human local interaction networks yet were also involvccl in twrl other netwrlrks. pro-
beings are tunnelling ahead to achieve their goals, fbrttling new networks' vided by the erratic powers o1'a distant statc, and the rather rnore consistent.
extending old ones, and emerging most clearly into our view with rival configu- but still shallow, power of senri-autonornous notablcs...lncreasingly. therc
rati<ltts of one or more of the principal power networks'r8 arose within, outside, and across the boundaries of such errpires nrore r-xtensivt-
cosrnopolitan, trading-and-cultural networks, which spawned various 'world
Mann accordingly adopts a network conception of society (in f'act, a modi{ied r f
relrglons . '
I

version of one given bY Parsons):


One signilicant feature of Mann's conceptualization of societies as organ-
A society is u netw,rtrk o.f socicil inter«c'tiot't (tt tlrc bottntlaries of whit'lt i's ct
ized power networks is thus that it denronstrates the logical independence of
certqin level of interaction cleavuge betw,een it uncl its environtnent. A society the network metaphor from what Rosenberg calls Globalization Theory. The
is a unit with boundaries, and it contains interaction that is relatively dense and

"' Ibid., p. 13.


t' r" Ihid.. pp.4,6.
M. Mann, The Sources of Social Povrer, I (Cambridge, 1986), PP. 13, 15.
t* Ibicl.. p. l6; see, on tlte rise of Ettropean capitllisrn.ehs l2 15. " lbicl.. p. 16.
Changing the Subject Changing the Subject 337
336
'confederal, Despite this qualiflcation, the emphasis that Hardt and Negri place on the
reasoning that leads Mann to argue we should think of societies as
simple t6talities' has nothing tendency to the 'general equalization or smoothing of social space' aligns
overlapping, intersecting rretworks rather than as
of contemporary global economic them with Friedman's evocation of the 'flat world' produced by globalization
to do with any claims about the extent
integration or its implications for the state system.a2 Indeed, he has taken
a - and, accordingly, renders them vulnerable to empirical criticism of the kind
debate quite closely aligned to that has, as we have seen, also been directed at the boosters of globalization.
UroaOty sceptical porition in the globalization
Weiss, particulariy in rejecting the idea that the nation-state is in radical
Thus Giovanni Arrighi has pointed. against Hardt and Negri, to 'an extraor-
decline.i3 Consequently one is free to consider the (not insignificant)
merits dinary persistence of the North-South income gap as measured by GNP per
of employing the network metaphor in order to conceptualize the social capita' and to the fact that 'by far the largest share of capital flows is between
of wealthy countries . . . with relatively little capital flowing from wealthy to poor
without the worry that embracing it implies acceptance the extravagant
countries'.** Other analysts have argued that, while production processes are
c-laims of the hyperglobalizers.
increasingly organized on a cross-border basis, they tend to be concentrated
There is in any case a considerable diff-erence in how networks are con-
ceived by different social theorists. As we have seen, Mann allows
fbr a dense in one of the three regions of the Triad - North America, Western Europe,
institutionalization of the power rela- and East Asia, so that what is commonly described as economic 'globaliza-
clustering of networks that permits the
tions prevailing in them. But one of the main uses of the network metaphor tion' is best described as 'regionalization'. Alan Rugman, for example, argues
that 'in the manufacturing sector there is no spread of production on a unitbrm,
in the globalization debate has been to portray the increasing dispersal of
global basis. Rather, each set of triad-based MNEs [multinational enterprises]
power in the contemporary world. From this perspective one of the attractions
develops and expands international production rrlainly within their horne
of thinking of socieiy or a net is that the different nodes are rougl-tly equal.
region of the triad. Extremely f-ew MNEs operate globally; nearly all are
Thus Castells contentls: 'Overall, the networks are asymmetrical, but
each

single network can hardly survive by itself or impose its diktat. The logic of regionally based.'4"
the powers in the network'' Accordingly' More broadly Mann has suggested
the network is more powerful than
'[p]ower still exists, but it is randomly exercised''aa
Similarly, Hardt and Negri write: 'In this smooth space of Empire, there is The most important divide is created by the contradictory relations of what I
the influ- shall call 'ostracizing imperialism'. This term indicates that one part of the
no place of power - it is everywhere and nowhere.'a' One can detect
in citpitalism a powerful tendency world both avoids and dominates the economy of the other, the precise mixture
ence here of Deleuze and Gu4ttari, who see
torrnation of the modern of these relationships varying by region and through time. On the other hand,
towards deterritorialization, so that, as a result of the
most of the world's poorest countries are not being signilicantly integrated into
world economy, '[t]he world again becomes a smooth space (sea, air, atmos-
transnational capitalism, but are being 'ostracized' by a capitalism that regards
phere)'.a6 Hardt and Negri take this idea to the point of arguing that contem-
thenr as too risky fbr investment and trade . . . So economic 'globalization' is
porary capitalism has produced a 'geueral equalization or srnoothing of social rnostly Northernization, integrating the advancecl countries but excluding rluch
.rpo".;, *h.." 'it is no longer possible to demarcate large geographical
zones
of the world's poor; and thus widening inequerlities in growth and between
They are, however, careful to deny
a^s centre and periphery, North and South'. North and South.5o
have disappeared' in this 'Smooth
thlt 'social inequalities and segmentation
World': 'Erlpire is characterized by the close proximity of extremely unequal An alternative way of conceptualizing the social that seeks to take into
populations, which creartes a situittion of perllanent social danger attd requires account some of these realities is offered by George Ritzer. His central thesis
itt" po,r".ful apparatuses of the society of contr-ol to ensure separation and is: 'The social world, particularly in the realm of consumption, is character-
gLraiantee the new management o1'social space''47 ized increasingly by nothing. In this case. "nothing" refers to u social .fbrm
that is generalll'conceived, controllecl. and comparatively devoid o.f substan-
tive content.'st Ritzer initially gives the example of the credit card, but more
11 Ibid., p. 19.
-1, M. Mann, 'As the Twentieth Century Ages', New Le.fi Ra'iot" Il2l4
(.1995). and Weiss.
See 4rr G. Arrighi, 'Lineages of Ernpire', Histot'it'ol Materiulisnr. l0 (2002).pp. 7-8.
M)'th, P. xvi. re A. Rugman, 'Globalization and Regional Production', in Ravenhill. ed., Global. Politicol
rJ Castells, Ri,se, PP. 208, 210.
'r5 Ecortornv, p.270.
Hardt ancl Negri, Empir<'. p. 190. 50 M. 'Okrhllization anrl Scpterrher
'16 Deleuze and Guattari, Mille pluteoux, p' 583' IVI:rnrr. ll'. Nol Lcf1 ll<,ricw'.lll12 (2001). pp. -53-4.
11 Harclt antl Negri. Empirc. pp. 336. 335. 336' 'l (;. lirlzt'r. l'ltr' (ilttlttrli..ttliotr tt.l'Ntttlritt,q ('l lrorrs;urtl ()trks. 2(X)-l), p. .1.
338 Changing the Subject Changing the Subject 339

broadly 'nothing' for him primarily means mass-produced goods and services comparative term and therefore contrast.s it with something, 'cr social fornt
that are consumed in standardized environments. McDonald's offers a para- that is generally indigenously conceived, controlled, and comparatively rich
cligm case: here people consume non-things (a Big Mac is the same all over in distinctiv,e substantive content; a form that is to a large degree substantively
the world), in non-places (once again, one McDonald's restaurant is the same unique'. But, as the linal clause just quoted signals and is confirmed by Ritzer's
as another), staff-ed by non-people, staff who are trained to interact with cus- detailed account of the 'sub-continua' subtending the something/nothing dis-
tomers in a standardized way, and who in tact provide a non-service, since in tinction, the key contrast involved in this distinction is that between specificity
such non-places customers largely serve thernselves. and generality: 'the view here is that unique phenomena almost always either
Ritzer seeks to relate the spread of nothing to globalization by arguing that have far nlore distinctive substance than generic phenomena or at least possess
the latter covers two distinct processes - 'glolocalization', that is. 'the inter- a number of distinctive substantive characteristics that set them apart from
penetration of the global arrd the local resulting in unique outcomes in diffbr- that which has few, if any, such characteristics.' Or again: 'centrally conceivecl
ent geographical areas', and 'grobalization'. which 'tbcuses on the imperialistic and controlled social forrns can be. and increasingly are, (largely) lacking in
arnbitions of nations. corporations, and the like and their desire, indeed, need (distinctive) content.' Involved here is an equivocation between generality and
to irnpose thenrselves on variolls geographic areas. Their main interest is in lack of content. Take the case of credit cards, of which there were projectecl
seeing their power, influence, and in some cases profits grov) (hence the term to be over 500 million in the US by 2005. Undoubtedly these are highly
grobalization) throughout the world.' Glolocalization thus ret-ers to the proc- standardized, and also centrally controlled, since they are issued ultimately
esses of hybridization of difterent cultural practices tbregrounded by post- by two companies, Visa and MasterCard. But do they therefore lack content?
colonial theorists. By contrast, 'grobalization tends to be associated with the Not if by that we mean that they have no definite social function. On the con-
ti prolif-eration of nothing', thanks to the interaction of three analytically distinct trary, the use of a credit card allows its owner to make payments and (unless
li 'sub-processes' - capitalisrn, since the competitive pursuit ot' profit selects she pays her entire monthly bill) to borrow, thereby creating new credit money.
fbr commodities that can be procluced and consumed in standardized formats,
ttri Given the role of credit in sustaining the US and therefbre the world economy
!+ r

,].l this is no mean role. Ritzer tacitly acknowledges this by describing credit
ET .u McD_onalclization.,by which Ritzer rrleans an organizational model based on
il; particu-
ll, -T6tn?ilcrples of 'effi<'ienc)', calcul.ibilitv, predit'to.hilitv. and c:ontrrtl, cards as a case of 'positive nothing' - a highly dialectical formulation despite
the substitution non-ltumoil.for huntun techrutlrtg.v', that has his disavowal of Hegel and Marx. Similarly, Big Macs and Gap trousers are
i,i larly through o.f
been exported to social ancl geographical domains far beyond its origins in highly standardized prodr-rcts. but they still have what Marx would call a use-
the US fast food industry, including, for example, the hi-tech weapons systems value, since they allow us to feed and dress ourselves (how well is another
'i
i

l
of the contemporary Pentagon: and Americanizittion, that is, 'the propagation matter).s3
of American ideas, customs, social patterns, industry, and capital throughout Though he repeatedly insists that his analysis has no necessary normative
the world'. since the global omnipresence of US prodttcts encourages their implications - for example, 'no overall value judgement needs to be made here
detachment from their naticlnal context.'tr - fbrms laden with content (something) are not inherently better than those
Ritzer is clearly on to something when he sarys that the contetnporary social devoid of content (nothing), or vice versa' - there is a strong case for saying
world is characterized by the prolif'eration of nothing: the global traveller has that Ritzer's insistence on calling highly standardized cornmodities 'nothing'
the drearily familiar experience of encountering the same stores - Gap, in fact reflects an underlying preference fbr the local, the indigenous, and the
Borclers, Body Shop - wherever she alights. Moreover. his diff-erentiated specific. He gives pogroms as a case of something that is undesirable, but the
account of the various processes and sub-processes that he clairns are at work overwhelming thrust of his comparisons between something and nothing
in globalization makes a welcome contrast to the deterministic evocations of favour the fbrmer - a specially cooked gourmet rneal versus a microwave
a flattening world of-fbred by the likes of Friedman. Ritzer moreover empha- pre-packaged meal, handmade pottery fiom Oaxaca in Mexico versus mass-
sizes that large portions of hurnankind are tot> poor to be able to collsume manufactured pottery, a liberal arts college versus an Internet university, a
nothing. All the same, there is a lack of lit between his definition of nothing 'great good place' such as a pub or a neighbourhood diner versus a fast-fbocl
lncl the phenomena he seeks to include under it. He emphasizes that it is a

5r Ritzer. Globqli:.rttion. pp.7. 21, lgl. 4. l4l (and index. p. 248). See the appendix, 'Nothing
5r lbid., pp. '13,82.85. See also G. Ritz.er, The McDotrtrldi:atiort ts.l'Socitt.t'. rt:v. ctltt {'l'hottsrttttl 'l'hcorr'l it';rl ;rrttl Mr-'thotlologiclrl Issrrt's', Iirr Ritzcr's discrrssi«rn ol'thr: u,ritirrg ol'vlrriorrs
plti-
Oaks, 200.1.1. IosoPlrt'r.. orr Ilrr' ( ()n('(.ltl rll' rtolltirtrl(rrr.ss). llroullr lrt'tlcnies its r'clt'r,trncc lo lris owrr wor-k.
Changing the Subject 341
340 Changing the Subject
offer a broadly cyclical view of the history of capitalism in which the limita-
the final chapter' Ritzer
restaurant. a culatella ham versus a Big Mac . . . In tions of each specific version of capitalism gives rise to a critique elements of
arguing that, while 'gro-
makes his own value commitments more explicit, which are incorporated in a new 'spirit of capitalism' that legitimizes its
be halted' 'there must
balization' and 'glolocalization' neither can nor should restructuring: their rnost original suggestion is that the spirit of contemporary
is left of the local'
be a coordinated and sustained effort to support what 'connectionist' capitalism draws on the 'aesthetic critique' of n-ranagerial
of something" and givin-e
especially those aspects of it involved in the creation capitalism ofl'ered by the 1960s avant-garde:
thä exaniple of the Slow Food movement that,
in opposition to the transna-
growing and cooking food'sa
tional corporations, promotes traditional ways of The clualities that, in this new spirit, are the mark of sLrccess - aLrtonomy,
'grobzrlization of nothing'
Thus, though unutyti.utly confused, the idea of the spontaneity, mobility, capacity tbr networking[t'apat:itd rhiz.otttcrticlue]. multi-
shoulcl be seen as one instance of what we
shall see in the next section is a skilling (as opposed to the strict specialization of the old division of labour),
whose thrust is to a
developing literature on contemporary globalization conviviality, openness to others and to novelties, adaptability, creativity, vision-
greater or lesser degree critical' ary intuition, sensitivity to diff-erences, responsiveness to the given and the
search fbr multiple experiences. attraction to the intbrmzrl and the search fbr
personal contacts - are directly drawn fronr the repertoire of May l96tl.su
l3.3Backtocapitalism-andimperialism?
lf Boltanski and Chiapello hark back to Weber - not simply by revivifying
is the larger issue
Implicit in the empirical limitations of Globalization Theory the concept of the spirit of capitalism, but also in their preoccupation with the
whether or not current changes require the modes of legitimation of different variants of capitalism, Hardt and Negri, in
- thematized by Rosenberg - of theory in general' Thus Ritzer worries about an admittedly idiosyncratic way, seek to continue the Marxist critique of
transcendence of classical social
the proliferation of
having constructed a 'modernist' giand narrative of political economy. Indeed, one important dimension of the debate about glo-
nothing. castells,s ar-nbivalence is evident in the
fbllowing passage: balization concerned less its nature and extent than its impact on values such
as wellbeing, justice, and democracy. This particular argument gathered force
ä
ffit this evolution towards networking forms of management
and production does towards the millenniurn, particularly after the econornic and financial crisis
.?: society, in its various institu- that afllicted much of East Asia in 1997-8 and the protests at the Seattle
not imply the demise of capitalism. The network
a capitalist society' Furthermore' fbr summit of the World Trade Organization in November 1999, which marked
tional expressions, is, fbr the tin-re being,
the first time in history, the capitalist mode
of production shapes social relation- the rise to visibility of the movement fbr another globalization. What was at
shipsovertheentireptun".'Butthisbrandofcapitalismisprofoundlydiff'erent stake here was the neo-liberal model of capitalism pioneered by Ronald
fromitspredecesso.,.Ithu,twofundamentaldistinctivet-eatures.[tisglobal. Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s and generalized, especially afier
network of financial flows's5
and it is structured to a large extent arounci a the end of the Cold War, by international financial institutions such as the
IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO. This globalization debate was really
. . a capitalist society'' But'
so, on the one hand, the'network society . . . is . about whether neo-liberalism was (as 1066 and All Thut would have put it) a
being', the extent to which capitalism
on the other hand, this is so 'for the time Good Thing.
network society is presumably indicated
is a possibly disposable vehicle for the The argument could be framed in various ways. It could be pursued on the
is profoundly different from its pre-
by the facr that 'this brand of capitalism basis that capitalism as a socio-economic system was superior to its actual or
the year 2000 arguments about the extent
decessors'. Increasingly, however, by possible rivals - an assumption shared by moderate critics of neo-liberalism
had radically changed were increasingly
to which the global political economy such as Joseph Stiglitz, formerly Chairrnan of President Clinton's Council of
terrain of the much olcler theoretical debate
resituating themselves within the Economic Advisers and chief economist of the World Bank, and intelligent
principal proponents we have already encoun-
about capitalism some of whose defenders of the status quo such as the Financial Time.s colurnnist Martin
tered - Marx and Weber, Keynes unä Huy.k'
In this respect' the subject of
Wolf.sT Even more radical critics such as George Monbiot still proposed
can be detected in some
social theory changed again. This intellectual shift
considered. Thus Boltanski and chiapello
of the theorists we have already
i(r Brrltlrrtskiirntl ('hiirpellct, La Nortyal E,rprit. p. l-50.
" .1. Slir:lilr.(il,,ltrrli:tttitttt tttrtl Ils I)i.tt'()ttlcll,r (l.ot.ttlott.2002); M. Wol1, Wht,Olobuli:.ulion
s'+ Ibid.. pp. 140, l84. ll'rll,.r ( Nt'tr I l;rvr'tt.'(X),1 ).
55 Castells, rQi,sc' P. -502'
342 Changing the Subject Changing the Subject 343

of capital- respectively Italian and British. It was widely acknowledged that the most
institutional reforms that would achieve a more benevolent model
way the subject dynamic and innovative versions of Marxism were now largely to be found in
ism rather than get rid of it altogether.5s Bttt one thread to the
political the Anglophone world.6(';
changed again circa 2000 was a renaissance of Marxist
economy
this The astonishing success of Empire as a publishing phenomenon was another
that,lmplicitly or explicitly, targeted capitalism itself. To a large extent
to the genera- sign of a hunger for harder-edged critical analysis of contemporary economic
reflected the coming io fruition of works by theorists belonging
Arrighi' and political processes. Hardt's and Negri's book was signilicant in another
tion of the 1960s una t9Z0t. This was true, for example, of Giovanni
in the course of respect. They situated their account of Empire relative to the classical Marxist
Robert Brenner, and David Harvey, all of whom published
works theory of imperialism developed by the Second and Third Internationals (see
the 1990s highly influential works of critical political economy't'These
was the most §§8 3 and 9.1 above). This theory, particularly in the version developed by
emerged from very different intellectual traditions - Arrighi
by the great his- Lenin and Bukharin, sought to explain geopolitical conflicts among the Great
creative exponent of world systenls theory, which, inspired
as one of long Powers by tracing their roots to the confrontation of highly organized capital-
torian Fernand Braudel, conclptualizes the history of capitalism
from one centre isms in each of which nation-state and private {inns had merged into a single
cycles each rnarking the transfer of global capitalist hegernony
on the origins entity: accordingly, imperialisms were necessarily plural. This was, however,
to another; Brenne|, already responsible tbr one major debate
Marxist interpretation a phase of capitalist development that, as we have seen, Hardt and Negri argue
of capitalism, provoked a new one with his heterodox
of profitabil- is now over: 'In contrast to imperialism, Empire establishes no territorial
of the 'long downturn' that began in the 1970s as a chronic crisis
urban geogra- centre of power and does not rely on fixed boundaries or barriers. [t is a
ity; and Harvey was more or less the inventor of contemporary
that decentred and deterritorialized apparatus of rule that progressively incorpo-
piry, in the process developing a 'historical-geographical ntaterialism'
to the implications of rates the entire global rcalm within its open, expanding fiontiers.' Conse-
seeks to open out Marxism as a theoretical tradition
quently, '[t]he Uni.ted States does not, and incleed no ncttion-stote can todu\t,
taking space seriouslY.
of peo-liberal- .t'brru the centre of an imperialist project. hnperialism is over.'61
Nevertheless, in the environment created by the contestation
and campaigns associ- As many critics of Empire were quick to note, the detailed account that
ism, not nrerely intellectually but also by the protests
Marxist political economy Hardt and Negri gave of how 'imperial sovereignty' was exercised through a
ated with the movement for another globalization,
to some extent complex array of 'national and supranational organisms' was remarkably
of these and other kinds fbund a much wider audience' This was
of international political similar to the accounts of political globalization offered by more rnainstream
a consequence of the salience of the new discipline
that, against the backdrop theorists, for example, Helcl, McGrew, and their collaborators, who discern 'a
economy, whose emergence reflected the perception
deterritorialization of political authority' and argue that 'the conternporary
of increasing globalization (however interpreted), the traditional approaches
did not world order is best understood as a highly complex. contested and intercon-
of subjects such as international relations and neo-classical economics
interactions between eco- nected order in which the interstate system is increasingly embedded within
offer the intellectual tools required to analyse the
world at least' more evolving regional and global political networts'.6r Even during the 1990s,
nomic and political processes. In the English-speaking
group thern- when these theories were fbrmulated. the underlying conception of a partial
critical appioaches tö international political economy tended to
however irnprobably, transcendence of the nation-state with the development of fornrs of 'global
selves under one or other version of Marxism - although,
in the unpromising domain governance' centred around institutions such as the United Natiorrs, the G8,
the banner of postmodernism was also raisecl
the WTO, and NATO was contested by critics who argued that these institu-
of international relations. (It is, incidentally' syrnptomatic of the broader tions remained largely arenas for the assertion of national interests and the
redistribution of cultural capital an{ financial mttscle within
the academy
means of legitimation of the projects of the leading capitalist powers: the
that all the three leading Marxist theorists cited in the previous
paragraph
Arrighi and Harvey were 1999 NATO campaign against Yugoslavia conducted when governments
should work in the united States, even though

60 A. Callinicos.'Oü va le marxisme anglo-saxon'/', in J. Bidet and E. Kouvelakis, ecls,


5s G. Monbiot, The Age of CLtns'ent (Lorrdon' 2003)'
5e For exarnple, C. Riigtri, Tlte Long Tvventieilt Centurv (Lorrdon, 1994); G' Arrighi' B' Silver Dicliortnoire Marx conterrtpnrain (Paris, 200I).
1999); R' Brelttrer'
o' Hardt and Negri, Entpire, pp. xii, xiii-xiv; see also ibid., ch. 3.1. 'The Limits of
et al.. Chctos artd Governcttlce üt the Motlertt worltl s)'stertt (Minneapolis. Imperialism'.
.Uneven Development and the Lorrg Downturn', Neru Lef't Review', 11229 (1998), id','l'ht lltttttn
6r lhitl.. 1r rii. urtd see clr. l.-5: Hcld. McGrcw cl al., (]lolxtl T'ntrt.sfitrrtrtttiott.t, pp. lii l,l,i-5. lncl
trrul the Bulthle (Lor«lru, 20OZ), D. Harvey, The Condition
tl Pttstttrttdartrit.t'(OxlirRl' lt)lit)1;
sct' t lt. L
itl., 7'he l.itnirs ltt ('ttltiltrl, ?ncl cdrl ( l 'tlnclorr' l9t)9)'
344 Changing the Subject Changing the Subject 345

in all the major Western capitals quite the political will to perform.66 Analytically more dernanding and politi-
svmoatherig to the Third Way held otfice
cally more critical theorizations of imperialism were debated on the Marxist
;ä;r*3se of these rival interpretations'63 offered by the transforma- left. Harvey and I independently developed conceptualizations of capitalist
är, u *urh harsher experimerttum crucis was
attacks on New York and imperialism as constituted by the intersection of economic competition
ü;;i*;rtd politics that followed the terrorist
proclamation of a global'war on between capitals and geopolitical rivalries among states; these arguments
W.*irgt"p on 11 September 2001. The
presideni G"o.g. w. Bush and his adminisrration's assumptio, represented at once refinements of the classical Marxist theory of inrperialism
;;;;;ffi, uy
to be associated particularly with Lenin and Bukharin and means of interpreting
unilaterally and pre-ernptively to attack those they deenled
"lin..l*rr1 4 right used ro justify rhe invasion and occuparion of Iraq in the strategy of the Bush adrninistration as an attempt to pre-empt, not nrerely
;;;;;;-_ ki,d of imperialist project that further terrorist attacks, but also challenges to American global hegemony by
ü"..nlOpril ZöO: - looked pretty like the
had declared 'over'. They have sought to explain this apparent potential 'peer competitors' such as the European Union and China against
il;;"rjNegri
;;;";;-r,rpl" u*oy by treating it as a kind of throwback to the imperialist the background of a long-term crisis of overaccuntulation and profitability.6T
'the "global aristocracies", that is' Others, for exarnple, Leo Panitch arrd Sarl Gindin, were sceptical about the
nlgr.ring that it is in the interest of
"rri "rO
[r. ,"_rirruiionrt corporations, the supranational institutions, the other power- persistence of the economic crisis of the 1970s and 1980s and about the incli-
nation or capacity of other leading capitalist states or indeed the rising power
fulnon-stateactors',tonegotiatea'newMagnaCarta'thatwouldlimitthe
,-,.,*.. of tho 'tnonarch' - the US - and concede at
least some of the reforms of China to challenge the 'informal empire' the US had constructed since
'the globalization protest movements', whom they propose to 194-5.6ri In sharp contrilst, Arrighi interpreted the quagmire in which the Bush
ä"*"rA.a by ,most promising, available partner in 'a projecr of administration found itself in Iraq as marking the beginning of the 'terminal
;;; ;;i*;s1acies, as the to Kztutsky's theory of ultra- crisis' of US global hegernony, as economic and financial power drained away
,.n"*or..+ fhe resemblance of this argument
was in
of national conflict across the Pacific to China antl India.t"'Conrnon to all these differing theoreti-
irloerialism, äccording to which the transcenclence
(see above)' should be evident' cal perspectives on imperialism was a rejection of the idea that the nation-state
in" 1n,...r15 of capital §5.2
respopse to the geoptllitical wus in radical decline: like Rosenberg (see §13.1 above), Ellen Wood argued
It is tair 1o say, however, that a more common
the onset of the thircl millennium was to acknowl- tirrcefully that global capitalisnr recprires the existence of a plurality of sover-
dramas 1fint accompanied
far from 'over'. This was true am.ng mainstrearn eign states.70
;;;;;r; ilpperialism was Thomas Friedman was
,.?"it 25 radical writers. Even that arch-booster
image expressing the dependence of economic
,"rpo1,.iUf. for a celebrated
globalization on the military might of the
Pentagon: 13.4 The debate resumed
These changes in the subject of sociitl theory - away from postlnodernity.
Marketsfunctionandflourishontywhenpropertyrightsaresecuredettldcan
towarcls globalization. capititlisrn. and irnperialism - were registered also at
U""rt"..rO,which'inturn,requiresapoliticalframeworkprotectedandbacketl
cannot flourish without McDonnell the level ol'high theory. Ernblernatic ol'the shift was the pLrblication in 2000
by militarY power . . . [ncleed, McDonald's
And the hidden fist that keeps
{
;d;, ttr" d"rign"r of the US Air Force F-15.
to flt>urislr is called the us
of a dehate between threc lcading cultural theorists: Judith Butler, Ernesto
,r," *".ra safe f'or silicon valley's technologies Litclitu, ancl Slav<lj Zii,e*. The starting point was provicted by Hcgt,ntont untl
Or*r, O,, Force, Navy ancl Marine Corps'h5
So<:iulist Strutegv (l9ti5), written by Laclau and Chantal Moutfe. Heavily
inflr"renced by post-structuralisrn, this book was both a deconstruction of
avowed essentially the same
Other 6efenders of neo-liberal globalization
I

i
Marxism irnd a sketch of how to rcplace it with a 'post-Marxisl"rl' whose aim
.n.*"r,t'l6ehistorianNiallFergusonwasespeciallyeloquentinarguingfbr
and financial power
;;;;.;ity of a 'liberal empire' to wielcl the nrilitary
historically Britain had
in o.a., 1p keep global markets open - a role that (1':
N. Ferguson, Entpira (London. 2(X)3) and ('<tlossus (London, 20(14).
Ferguson, has the capabilities if not 61 A. Callinicos,Tha
,n0..,ur."1 and that the US, according to New M«ntlurins rl'Aruerir:ttn Powcr (Cambridge,2003) ancl D. Harvey,
The Nan' Intpcriulis'ttr (Oxford, 200-l).
63 L. Panitch and S. Cinciin. 'Global Capitalism and Arrrerican Empire', in L. Panitch and C.
6.i T. Ali, Mtrster.s of the Uttiverue? (Londtln' 2000)' Leys, eds, The Nen, lmperiul Challenge, Sociali.yt Register 2004 (London, 2003).
"r1..Negri. Multittrtle, pp. 320-l' 322'
(,.r Ha^lr ancl
6e G. Arrighi, 'Hegenrony Unravelling', Nen' Lefr Review,lI/i2 and I1133 (2005).
10 F.. M. Wood . Entpire of Capitot(Lonclon, 2003;.
,,i f'-'itioir,,,,.,,'l'ltr l,-rtr's trtrtl tltt glit't'Trte (l-otldrln' 2000)' p' 46-l'

h,,,
346 Changing the Subject Changing the Subject 347

would be a 'radical democracy' in which the irreducible plurality of different subject is formed through prohibitions the founding constitution of the social
-
struggles would receive their proper recognition. Perhaps the most interesting field for which Butler borrows the psychoanalytic term 'foreclosure',
as well
aspect of Laclau's and Mouffe's argument was their attempt to reconstruct as the repression of desires that give rise to the neuroses.
These prohibitions
Gramsci, stripped of his 'classism', as the theorist of a hegemony that now have to be maintained - repeated
- by the subject itself, u p.o..r, that is
had no necessary social content, but served as a means of welding together inherently problernatic: 'If conditions of power are to persist,
they must be
inherently discrete struggles into a collective political subject. Crucial to the reiterated; the subject is precisely a site of such reiteration, a
repetition that is
hegemonic operation thus conceived is that it involves the representation of never merely mechanical.,Ta
the particular as universal. Like L6vi-Strauss's 'floating signifiers' (see §l1.2 Repetition opens the door to variation and hence to resistance.
-
exists insofar as it is continuously performed, trnd performance
ldentity
above), hegemonic representations are empty, lacking any specific content, is an inher-
and therefbre are able to act as the vehicle of an indefinite variety of concrete ently creative process constantly liable to break the rules that govern
it - or
political projects. As Laclau put it in the debate with Butler and Zü.ek,'[t]he better, to apply those rules in a new way:
universal is an empt.v place, a void which can be filletl only by the particulur,
but which, through its very emptiness, produces et series r1f crut:ial eJfects in The subject is compelled to repeat the nornrs by which it is procluced.
but that
the structuration /restru('turotion of social relatiorts'.1 repetition establishes a clomain of risk, for if one täils to reinstate
the norm .in
|

The problem, then. that Butler, Laclau. andZii,ek seek to acldress is how to the right way" one becomcs subjcct to further sanction,
one t-eels the prevailing
purslre the radical democratic project defined by HeS4emony ond Socialist conditions of existettce thrcatened. Ancl yet, without repetition
that risks lif'e - in
its current organization - how rnight we begin to imagine the
Strategy. The exchanges between them tend to fbcus on the theoretical presup- contingency of
that organization, artd perfbrmatively reconfigure the conditions
positions of this project, r'evealing significant philosophical divergences rooted of lif'e,/?5
in part in differing allegiances - to Hegel (Butler and Ziiek), Freucl ancl
Thus: 'This repetition, or better, iterability thus becomes the non_place
Foucault (Butler), Barthes and Derrida (Laclau), and Lacan (LaclaLr and of
subversirln, the possibility «rf a re-embodying of the subjectivating
ZtZeY). Much more striking, however, is the political polarization eviclent norm that
can redirect its reflexivity.' Labels intended to demean .queer,,
between Butler ancl Laclau. on the one hancl. anct LiLek «rn the other. Butler - fbr exanrple
is, of course. one of the leading conternporary f'erninist theorists. Her work is - can be turned against themselves ancl become means «rf resistance by paro-
dying the norrns they ernbocly:
undeniably post-Marxist in that she has sought both to continue and to tran-
scend orthodox Marxism: thus. in challenging attenrpts to counterpose the
If , then. we undersland certi.rir-t kinds of interpellations to conf.er
material and the cultural, she appeals to the tradition of Marxist and Marxist- i<Jentity, thsse
iniuriotts interpellations will constitute identity through iniury.
f-erninist writing that seeks to demonstrate that kinship, gender, and sexuality This is n.t the
sitllle as saying lhat such an identity will remairr always and fbrever
belong to the mode of pro<iuction.72 rootecl in
its injury as long as it rcnlains an iclentity, but does irnply that
the possibility
Yet Butler's own theoretico-political fbcus seems fatr removed frixn any ttl'rcsignificittion will rcwtlrk ancl unscttle the passionate atterchn)ent
to sub.iec-
conventional historical materialism. Following Hegel and Foucnult (and also lion without which strb.jcct lirrtnation ancl re-lornrartit)n cannot succeed./(,
- -
Althusser on ideological interpellation: see §11.2 above), she explores the
ambivalence of subjectivity, inherent in the very word 'sub.ject', at once a Butler's argumcnt is best seen asi a development of the theory
of power-
source of initiative and the object of power. The subject presupposes power, knowledge that Fottcault was developing in the rnid-l97Os. holding
that sub-
but this relationship of dependence cuts both ways - power is sustained by -iects are indeed forrne«J within relations of clomination. but that the depenclence
how it is enacted by the subject. Power to beconre eff'ective must root itself in of this fbrnration on the creative perforrnance of subjects makes rlsistance
the psyche: 'no norm can operate on a subject without the activation of fäntasy and change possible. Subtly argued ancl wiclely influential,
it is, however, rep-
and, more specifically, the phantasmatic attachment to ideals that are at once resentative of the Western acaclemy in the postmoclernist
era in that it at once
social and psychic.'7i Hence Foucault must be supplemented by Freud: the provides a theoretical justification fbr the strategic importance
of certain
forms of cultural transgression for example, queer struggles
- that challen-ue
7r E. Laclau, 'ldentity ancl Hegemony', in J. Butler, E. Laclau, S. ZlZet, Contirtg,ent'y, Hege:m-
ony,, Universalir.v (London, 2000), p. 58. ]l J. Butler, The pst.chit. Lite ot' povler (Sranfbr d. 1997), pp. 67. 16.
72 J. Butler, 'Merely Cultural', New'Left Revien,,l/22"1 (1998). " Ibid.. pp. 2g-9.
7t .1. Butlcr. 'Corripctirrg [-lniv'crsulitics', in Butler et al., Contingencl, p. l5l. "' Ihiil.. pP. ()t). l0-1--5.
348 Changing the Subject Changing the Subject 349

'the foreclosure of homosexuality lthat] appears to be foundational to a certain come robust atfirmations such as the following: 'the socio-economic logic of
heterosexual version of the subject' - and leaves the broader system of social Capital provides the global framework which (over)cletermines the totality of
relations intact.1l So Butler writes: 'My understanding of hegemony is that its cultural processes'. ZlZet< also counterposes the 'post-politics' of contempo-
normative and optimistic moment consists precisely in the possibilities for rary liberal democracy - summed up by Blair's slogan 'What works', politics
expanding the democratic possibilities for the key terms of liberalism, render- as the management of fiee market capitalism - to 'authentic politics . . . the
ing them more inclusive, more dynamic and more concrete.'78 The limits of art of the impossible - it changes the parameters of what is considered possible
liberal capitalism are thus the limits of the social world, according to Butler. in the existing constellation'. Central to pursuing the latter would be
No wonder then that she should be so insistent that the 'resignifications' she
commends are more than 'merely cultural' - and that she has been ferociously the radical repoliticization of the econom,y. That is to say: if the problem with
attacked by the philosopher Martha Nussbaum for 'hip quietism'.7!) today's post-politics ('administration of social affairs') is that it undermines the
It is precisely Butler's equation of liberal capitalism with the horizon of possibility of an authentically political act, this underniining is directly due ro
possibility on which ZrZ"Vconcentrates his fire. He points out that the 'stand- the depoliticization of economics, to the common acceptance of Capital and
rnarket mechanisms as mutual tools/procedures to be exploited.nr
ard postmodern Leftist narrative of the passage fiom "essentialist" Marx-
isnr . . . to the postmodern irreducible plurality of stru-egles' shared by Butler
For Laclau all this amounts to a regression to infäntile leftism -'his way
and Laclau conceals 'resignation at its heart - the acceptance of capitalism as
"the only game in town", the renunciation of any real attempt to overcome the of dealing with Marxist categories consists in inscribing them in a semi-
metaphysical horizon which, if it were accepted - a rather unlikely event -
existing capitalist liberal regime'.8[ ZiZel,. highlights the self-denying ordi-
would put the agenda of the Left back fifiy years'.84 It isn't, however, quite so
nance to which Butler's strategy of resignification is subject: 'And nry point
easy to disnriss ZiZef.like this. Thus he writes: 'I am pleading for a "return
is that insofär as we conceive of the politico-ideological resignification in
terms of the struggle fbr hegemony, today's Real which sets limits to resigni-
to the primacy of the economy" not to the detriment of the issues raised by
postnrodern fbrms of politicization, but precisely in order to create the condi-
fication is Capital: the smooth functioning of Capital is that which remains
tions fbr the most eft-ective realization of f'eminist, ecological, ancl so on,
the same, that which "always returns to its place", in the unconstrained strug-
demands.'85 The thought seems to be that, if the post-Marxist theorists of the
gle for hegemony.'8r And he suggests that, contrary to Butler's argument fbr
1960s and afier succeeded in denaturalizing and therefbre politicizing domains
the strategic centrality of queer struggle, 'in the course of the on-going trans-
previously taken fbr granted by social theory - gender relations, sexuality,
formation into the "post-political" tolerant multi-culturalist regime, today's
huntans' relation to nature, and so on - this tended to be at the price of renatu-
capitalist system is able to neutralize queer demands, to absorb them as a
specific "way of life".'82
ralizing the economy by treating liberal capitalism as inescapable. A return
to clitssicitl Marxism would, by providing the conceptual means to repoliticize
This was a remarkable shift in tone fbr a theorist hitherto best known fbr
the economy, both allow social theory to recover its full critical charge and
the extraordinary brio, intelligence, and wit with which he used subtle reread-
help identify more accurately the conditions of possibility fbr overcorning
in_qs of Hegel and Lacan to interpret a bewildering variety of contemporary
non-econonlic lbrms t>f oppression based. fbr example, on gender. sexuality.
cultural phenomena (or perhaps better: he used a bervildering variety of con-
and race.
temporary cultural phenomena to explicate the subtleties of Hegel and Lacan).
But Zliek's reaffirmation of classical Marxism is emphatic, notably in his Zii.ek't'return to Marx' subsequently went as fhr as to embrace Lenin as
well.s6 But, as the cases of Lukircs (§9.1 above) ancl Althusser (§11.2 above)
most sustained philosophical book, The Tic'kli.sh Subjeu (1999). Alongside
show, no attempt to recover a rnajor thinker is theoretically innocent, free of
criticisrn of the theory of risk society (see ch. l2 above) and of the Third Way
distinct theoretical and political presuppositions. In Zlr,ek's case, these
reflected, in particular, the peculiar fusion of an idiosyncratic reading of Hegel
11
Ibid., p. 23.
with the teaching of the lal.er Lacan, and in particular with the iclea of the
J. Butler, 'Restaging the Universal', in Butler et al., Contingent'y, p. 13.
1A

1t)
M. Nussbaum. 'The Prof-essor of Parody', The New Republic,22 February 1999.
xt)
ZiZet. 'Class Struggle or Po-stnrodernisrn? Yes. please!', in Butler et al.. Contiil,genc\,. p
rJr lbid.. pp. 243 n.46. 199. i-53.
S.
,i 95.
Er E. Laclau. 'Constructing Universality'. in Butler et al., Cotttingent:v, p. 290.
t' S. Zizek,'Da Copo Fine', in Butler et al., Contingenc)), p.223.
sena.cr
xi z.iicX. Tit.kti.slt Sullject, p. 3-56.
i
nr S. ZiZet. The Ticktistr ,sullcct (l.ondon. l()91)). p.225.
srr V. I. l.t.rrirr, lit,r'rlrtti.tr trt !ht,Gtttt,.s.
ecl. S. Ziitk(L<tndon,2002).

hr,;
350 Changing the Subject Changing the Subject 351

order But it is hard to see how this thought can be developed without a much more
Real as the hidden flaw that constitutes the breakdown of the Syrnbolic
robust conception of normative universality than Lüek currently possesses.
of language and society, which both presupposes and is rendered incoherent
All the same, the bifurcation that his debate with Butler and Laclau repre-
by it.t7 The theoretical issues are too technical to explore here; suflice it to
them, and sented within contemporary cultural theory seerrs to me symptomatic of the
säy that ZiZe1clevelops, starting from Hegel and Lacan as he reads
(§9.2) on the contemporary French philosopher broader way the subject of social theory changed by the end of the 1990s. The
drawing on carl schmitt and
logjam created by the onset of postmodernism and the triumph of liberal
Alain Badiou, a conception of political action radically diff-erent from Butler's
capitalisrn has been broken - intellectually at least. The stance of more or less
concept of resignification: An act does not sirnply occur within the
given
of resigned acceptance of modernity in its current fornr - represented in their
horizon of what appears to be "possible" - it redefines the very contours
point different ways by Habermas, p.rrticularly in his later, more conservative writ-
whart is possible', und do.t so by intervening 'in the constitutive
void. the
ings, and by Butler with her strategy of culturally transgressive resignifications
of failure - or what Alain Badiou has called the "symptomal torsion" of a

given constellation'.88 This certainly offers a radically anti-determinist reading - has been challenged by figures of the stature of Bourdieu and ZiZeU. Ot
course, there is rnuch that is theoretically problematic in the latter thinkers'
of Marxism, but also one that verges on a decisionism in which acting involves
work. And the alternative offered by them and indeed by other critics of neo-
making 'an abyssal decision, not grounded in a universal ontological struc-
liberalisrn remains shatlowy. In this respect, Zi>."X. is representative:
ture', a leap into the void, without any theoretical or normative orientation'8e
The protlem is compounded by the fact that ZiLek, while acknowledging
totlay, after tlre breakdown of tlre Marxist notion that capitalism itself generates
that the critique of capitalist globalization requires universal groundin-9, the firrce thal will destroy it in the guise of the proletariat, none of the critics
signi-
renrains committed to Laclau's conception of the universal as an empty of capitalism, none of those who describe so convincingly the deadly vortex
fier. In a recent essay he argues along lines similar to my suggestion
in chapter
into which the so-called process of globalization is drawing us, has any well-
12 that the philosophical idea of modernity should be seen not simply as a defined noti<ln of how to get ricl of capitalism. In short, I am not preaching a
masked particularism, but as a pernlanent incitentent to political and
social
sirlple retLrrn to the old notions of class struggle and socialist revolution: the
transf-ornration: question of how it is really possible to undernrine the global capitalist system
is not a rhetorical one - maybe it is not really possible, at least not in the fbre-
The appearance of ögttliberry' [a portnlanteau-word coined by Etienne Balibar seeable future.el
great
to ref'er to the interdepen<lence of the equality and liberty prortlised by the
bourgeois revolutions] is a synlbolic fiction which' its such, possesses actLlal
Nevertheless, the debate about rnodernity that has intbrmed social theory
efficiency of its ownl the properly cynical telttptatiott tlf redtrcing i( ttt a mere lirr the past two centuries has been resumed. Rejection of modernity dcles not
illusion that conceals a difterent actuality shoulcl be rcsisted. It is tttlt enough of course simply tzrke the cosy fbrm of postmodernism, which tbr all its trans-
to posit an authentic articulation of a lif'e experiettce which is then reappropri- gressive rhetoric tacitly assumes that the structures of the capitalist world
ate4 by those in power to serve their particutar interests or to render
their sr-rh-
econorny and the bureaucratic state will remain in place to organize everyday
jects «locile cogs in the social machine. Much ntore interesting is the oppositc
ilnptlscd lif'e: 9/ll brought centre stage it fbrm of Romantic anti-capitalisrn that, in
process, in which something that was originally un ideological edifice
by colonizers is all of a suclclen taken over by their subjects its a llleans to violently challenging American global hegemony, dreams of restoring the
articulate their 'authentic' grievances. A classic case would be the Virgin of Caliphate. Though this developnrent demands fbcused intellectual attention
Guadalupe in newly colgnized Mexico: with her appearance to a hunlble on the specilic fbrms of Islamic society. on the history and political economy
Indian, Christianity - which until then servecl as the ilnposed ideology of
the of the Middle East, and on the condition of migrant populations in the North,
Spanish colonizers - was appropriate«l by the ipdigengus populittion as a
frorn the standpoint of social theory it must be seen as the latest, and at present
rneans to symbolize their terrible plight'eo the most politically conseqlrent, lbrm taken by a long-standing option in the
face of capitalist modernity - narnely to reject it in the name of a return to
some pre-modern social form. The et'forts of nineteenth-century Russian intel-
lectuals to come to terms with a West that they both feared and desired and
s7 Forexample,S.ZiZeV-.TlrcStrblime Ohjet.tg.f'ljeolog,t, (London, 1989)and Interrogatirtg,
on whose intellectr-ral resources even their most vehement repudiaticlns heavily
the Rertl (Lonclon. 2005).
uti liZrl. 'Class Struggle or Postmodernist-n'? Yes. pleasel', pp. l2l. 12-5.

rJe Zir.eu. Ticklish Suhject, p. 20.


"t '/.ti,tk. ti, l,litlt ,\11ltjt'r.t. j-52.
,)0 s.zizeu, 'Against Human Rights" New'Leli Review,lll-14 (2005). p. 130. P.
I

ftlriti
352 Changing the Subject

drew are particularly suggestive for those trying to understand the perspective
of those who seek in Islam the answer to the global developments that con-
temporary social theory analyses (see §8.2 above). Projects of regression to
an iäealized past are, of course, by no means the monopoly of radical Islam-
ists. The administration of the younger Bush seems unlikely to succeed in its
aim of returning the United States to the level of state intervention in the
economy that prevailed during the presi«lency of William McKinley at the
Further Reading
beginning of the twentieth century, but tl-re political victories it won in its
neyaay are a tribure to the mobilizing power of the Republican right and its
fundamentalist Christian base, a capability that will surely survive Bush's
terms in the White House. There have rarely been times when the intellectual
resources of critical social theory were nlore needed'
Introductory works are marked with an asterisk

General

H. Barth, Truth and ldaoktg,- (Berkeley, 1976)


S. Collini et al., Thut Noble Science o.f' Politics (Cambridge, 1983)
r'1. Craib, Clu,s,sicul Sot'ial Theory (Oxfbrd, 1997)
N. Dodd, So<'iul Thtrtrr und Moclenritr'(Cambridge. 1999)
T. Eagleton, Idcologv (l-ondon, l99l )
'l',A. Giddens, Cupitali,;rn rtncl Mrtdern ,9ociuI Thcor\t (Cambridge, l97l)
J. Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse o.f Modcrnity (Cambridge, 1987)
r'J. A. Hr"rghes et al., Unlcr,stuntling Clussic'al Sociolog,y (London, 2003)
'kD. Layder', Underskrnding Sociul Thcory (London. 1994)
A. Maclntyre, A.fter Virtuc (London, l98l)
'rC. W. Mills, The Sockiogir:ul Imag,irtution (Harmondsworth. 1970)
T. Parsons. The Stru<'trrre o.f'Sot'ial A<'tion (2 vols, New York, l96tl)
J. Rees, Tfu AIgcbru of'Revolution (L<tndon, l99tl)
J. Roberts, (iermurt Pltilosopln' (Canrbridge, l9tl8)
M. Rosen, O.l'Voluntur.t' Scryitutic (Carnbridge, 1996)
L I. Rubin, A Histrtry o.f Econorttic Tlrouglt (London, 1979)
"W. G. Runciman, Thc Sociul Animul(London, 1988)
D. Sayer, Cupituli,snt und Morlerurrr.y (Lorrdon, 1990)
J. A. Schrrmpeter, H i,y l rt r.,- o.l' Econun i t' A n ul ys i.t ( London, 1994)
J. Scott, Sot'ial Thertr\, (London. 200-5;
G. Therborn, Sciance, Clu,s,s antl Society (London, I976)
B. S. Turner, ed., The Blackwell Compttrtion to Sociul Theory- (Oxford,2000)

Introduction

W. G. Runciman, A Treatise on Soc'ial Theory,l (Cambridge, 1983)


I W. H. Sewell, Logic:s o.f Hi.story (Chicago, 2005)
.1. Trrlly, c-r|.. Mcrtning uttd Contexr (Cambridge, 1988)

hjl
354 Further Reading Further Reading 3S5

H. Marcuse, Hegel's ontology and tlte Theory o.f'Historiciry (cambridge, Mass.,


I The Enlightenment
1987)
F. G. Nauen, Revolution, Idealism and Human Freedom (The Hague, r97r)
L. Althusser, Politics ttnd History (London, 1972)
T. Pinkard, Hegel'.s Phenornenologl' (Cambridge, 1994)
I. Berlin, 'The Originality of Machiavelli', in id., Against the Currenr (Oxfbrd, l98l)
T. Pinkard, Hegel: A Biography (Cambridge, 2000)
H. Blumenberg, The Legitimacy o.f the Moclern Age (Cambridge, Mass., 1983)
R. Pippin, Modernism as a Philosophic:al Problem (Oxfbrd, l99l)
N. Bobbio, 'Gramsci and the Concept of Civil Society', in id., Which Socialism?
M. Rosen, Hegel'.s Dialectic and it,s Critic.ism (Cambridge, 1982)
(Cambridge, 1986)
C. Taylor, Hegel(Cambridge, 1975)
J. B. Bury, The ldea of Progress (London, 1920)
A. W Wood, Hegel's Ethicctl Thought (Cambridge, 1990)
E. Cassirer, The Philosoph.,- o.f the Enlightenruenr (Boston, 1962)
P. Gay, Tlte Enlightenment: Art Interpretulion (2 vols, London, l9l3)
E. Hal6vy, The Grow'th of Philosophical Rctdicalisnr (London. 1949)
P. Hazard, European Tltought in the Eiglteenth Century (Harmondsworth. 1965) 3 Liberals and Reqctioruaries
J. Heilbron,The Rise o.f Social Theory (Cambridge, I99-5)
A. O. Hirschmann. The Pctssiort.s and the Intere,sts (Princeton, 1977) L Berlin, 'Joseph de Maistre and the origins of Fascism', in id., The Crookerl
I. Hont and M. [gnatiefT. eds, Wealth artd Virtue (Cambridge, 1984) Timher o.l' Humuniry (London, l99l )
J. Israel, Radical Enlightenmerrr (Oxford, 1997) R. C. Boesche, 'The strange Liberalism of Alexis de Tocqueville', History of'
R. Koselleck, Futures Past (Cambridge, Mass., 198-5) Political Tfutught, ll (1981)
R. Koselleck, Crititlue oncl Crisi,s (Oxford, l98fl) P. Bourdieu, Tha Rules o.f Art (Carnbridge, 1996), pt I
Y. Lacoste,lbn Klrctldan (London, 1984) J. Burrow, Evolution und So<.iety (Carnbridge, 1966)
R. L. Meek, Ec'onornics and ldeologv- and Other E^lsal,s (London, 1967) J. Godechrfi, The Counter-RevolLttion (London, 1972)
R. L. Meek, Smith, Marx and Af'ter (Lonclon, 1971) J. Heilbron, The Ri.se o.l'Sociul Thaory (Cambridge. 199-5)
R. Pascal, 'Property and Society', Mrtdern Quarterly (1938) F. Jacob, The Lo,qic of Living,S),.r/mr.r, (London, 197.1)
J. G. A. Pocock, The Mac'hiavelLian Moment (Princeton, 1975) A. Jardin, Ttx'tlueville (New York, lgtttt)
M. A. Screech, Montaigne ctnd Melancholy (Harmondsworth, l99l) D. J<rhnson, Guiz.ot (London, 1963)
A. S. Skinner, 'Economics and History - the Scottish Enlightenrlent', Scottish A. Majeed, Ungoverned Imugininc,r (Oxfbrd, lgg})
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r 978) 'r'L. Siedentop, Tocquevillc (Oxfbrd, l9()4)
Q. Skinner, Muchiavel/i (Oxfbrd, l98l) W. T'lromas, The Phiktsophitul Ratlit.uls (Oxfbrd, 1979)
Q. Skinner, Liberty before Liheralism (Cambridge, 1998) R. williams, Culture untl sot'ietv 1780_ 1950 (Harmondsworth, l96ti)
E. Stokes, The Engli.sh Utilitarians and Indiu (Delhi. l9U9)
C. Taylor, Source.s of the Se# (Cambridge, 1989)
K. Tribe, Land, Luhrtur arttl Economic Disc'oursa ([-ondon, 1978; 4 Marx
G. Wills, Inventing Americ:n (New York, 1978)
L. Althusser, Frtr Murx (London, 1969)
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*I. Berlin, Karl Marx (Oxfbrd, 1978)
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A. Cornu, Karl Marx et Friedrich Engels (4 vols, Paris, 1958*70) M. Salvadori, Korl Kautsky and the Socialist Revolution, 1880-1938 (London,
H. Draper, Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution (4 vols, New York, 1911-90) 1919)
*T. Eagleton, Marx and Freedom (London, 1991) R. Schacht, Nietzsche (London, 1983)
J. Elster, Making Sense of Marx (Cambridge, 1985) R. Schacht, ed., Nietz.sche, Genealogy, Morality (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1994)
*J. Elster, An Introduction to Karl Marx (Cambridge, 1986) E. Sober, The Nature of Selectiorz (Chicago, 1993)
B. Fine and L. Harris, Rereading Capital (London, 1919) G. P. Steenson, Karl Kautsky, 1854-1938 (Pittsburgh,1991)
B. Fine and A. Saad-Filho, Marx's Capital (London, 2003)
N. Geras, Marx and Human Nature (London, 1983)
A. Gilbert, Marx's Politics (Oxford, 1981)
6 Durkheim
S. Hook, From Hegel to Marx (Ann Arbor, l97I')
S. Hook, Towards an Understanding of Karl Marx (Amherst, 2002)
J. A. Alexander and P. Smith, eds, The Cambridge Companion to Durkheim
S. Kouvelakis, Philosophy and Revolution (London, 2003)
(Cambridge, 2005)
K. Löwith, From Hegel to Nietzsche (London, 1965)
G. Canguilhem, The Nrtrmal and the Pathoktgical (New York, 1991)
M. Löwy, The Thectry o.f Revolution in the Young Marx (Leiden, 2003)
'kA. Giddens, Durkheirz (London, 1918)
D. Mclellan, Karl Marx (London, 1973)
J. Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action,II (Cambridge, 1988)
R. Rosdolsky, The Making of Marx'.s 'Cctpital' (London, 1977)
L Hacking, The Taming of Chance (Cambridge, 1990)
I. I. Rubin, Essctys on Marx's Theory o.f Value (Detroit, 1972)
P. Q. Hirst, Durkheim, Bernard and Epistemologt (London, 1975)
P. M. Sweezy, The Theory of Capitalist Development (New York, 1968)
D. Lockwood, Solidarity and Schism (Oxford, 1992)
M. Wartofsky, Feuerbctch (Cambridge, 1911)
S. Lukes, Emile Durkheim (Harmondsworth, 1975)
J. Weeks, Capital and Exploitation (London, l98l)
R. K. Merton. 'Manif-est and Latent Functions', in Social Theory and Social
Struc:ture (New York, 1968)
5 Ltfe and Power F. Pearce, The Rudical Durkheim (London, 1989)
S. Stedman Jones, Durkheim Reconsidered (Cambridge, 2001)
*K. Ansell-Pearson, An Introduction to Nietzsche a.s o Political Thinker
(Cambridge, 1994)
*K. Ansell-Pearson, How to Read Nietzsche (London, 2005) 7 Weher
J. Burrow, Evolution ond Society (Cambridge, 1966)
R. Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (London, l99l) *K. Allen, Mox Webcr: A Critit:ctl Intntduction (London, 2004)
G. Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philo,sophv (London, 1983) R. Bendix, Max Weber (New York, 1960)
D. Dennett, Darwin's Dang,erous ldea (London, 1995) D. Blackbourn and G. Eley, The Peculiarities of German History (Oxford, 1984)
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M. Foucault, 'Nietzsche, Genealogy, History', in P. Rabinow, ed., Tha Foucault A. Giddens, Politit:s and Socioktgv in the Thought of Max Weber (London, 1972)
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V. Gerratana, 'Marx and Darwin', New Lef't Review,llS2 (1973) C. G. Hempel, A,;pects o.l'Scienti.fic: Explanalion (New York, 1965)
S. J. Gould, The Mismeasure oJ' Man (Harmondsworth, 1984) W. Hennis, Mar Weber (London, 1988)
M. Heidegger, NietTsche (4 vols, San Francisco, l99l) S. Kalberg, ed., Max Weber: The Confrontation with Modernity (Oxford, 2004)
R. Hofstadter, Sociol Darwinism in American Thought (Boston, 1955) K. Löwith, Mctx Weber ond Karl Marx (London, 1993)
F. Jacob, The Logic of Living Systems (London, 1974) M. Löwy, 'Weber against Marx?', in On Changing the World (Atlantic Highlands,
R. Jacoby and N. Glauberman, eds, The Bell Curve Debate (New York, 1995) le93)
W Kaufmann, Nietz.sche (Princeton, 1974) G. Marshall, ln Seorch of the Spirit of Cupitalism (London, 1982)
A. Kelly, The Descent o.f Darwin (Chapel Hill, l98l) W. J. Mommsen, The Age of Bureaucracy (Oxford, 1914)
R. Levins and R. Lewontin, The Dialectical Biologisr (Cambridge, Mass., 1985) W. J. Mommsen, Max Weber and German Politics 1890-1920 (Chicago, 1984)
B. Magnus and K. Higgens, eds, The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche W. J. Mommsen, The Political ctnd Social Thenry of Max Weber (Cambridge, 1989)
(Cambridge, 1996) W. J. Mommsen and J. Osterhammel, eds, Max Weber and His Contemporaries
A. Nehemas, Nietz,sche: Life as Literature (Cambridge, Mass., 1985) (London, 1988)
358 Further Reading Further Reading 359

M. Marcuse, 'Industrialization and Capitalism in the Work of Max Weber', in id., H. L. Dreyfus and H. Hall, eds, Heidegger: Critical Perspectives
Negations (Harmondsworth, 1972) (Oxford, 1992)
F. Parkin, Marxism and Class Theory (London, 1979) V. Farias, Heidegger et le nazisme (Paris, 1987)
xF. Parkin, Max Weber (London, 1982) J. Femia, Gramsci's Political Thought (Oxford, l98l)
R. Pipes, 'Max Weber and Russia',World Politics,T (1954-5) L. Ferry and A. Renaut, Heidegger and Modernity (Chicago, 1990)
W. G. Runciman, A Critique of Max Weber's Philosophl, of Social Science D. Forgacs, 'Gramsci and Marxism in Britain', New Left Review,I/116 (1989)
(Cambridge, l9l2) *C. Harman, Gramsci versus Reformism (London, 1983)
C. Taylor, 'Interpretation and the Sciences of Man', Review oJ Metophysics,25 E,. Laclau and C. Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (London, 1985)
(1e71) M. Löwy, Georg Lukdcs: From Romanticism to Bolshevism (London, 1979)
S. T[rner, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Weber (Cambridge, 1998) M. Mazower, Dark Continent (London, 1998)
K. Tribe, ed., Reading Weber (London, 1989) H. Ott, Martin Heidegger: A Political Life (London, 1993)
M. Weber, Max Weber (New York, 1975) R. O. Paxton, The Anatom!- of Fascism (London, 2004)
G. Stedman Jones, 'The Marxism of the Early Lukäcs', New Left Review,
r/10 (197r)
R. Wolin, The Politics of Being (New York, 1990)
8 The lllusions of Progress R. Wolin, ed., The Heidegger Controvers-v (Cambridge, Mass., 1993)

I. Berlin, Russian Thinkers (Harmondsworth, 1919)


J. Forrester, Dispatches.from the Freud Wars (Cambridge, Mass., 1991)
D. Frisby, Fragments o.f Moderniry (Cambridge, 1985) 10 The Golden Age
E. Gellner, The Psychoctnalytic Movement (London, 1983)
E. J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire 1875-1914 (London, 1987) S. Brittan, How to End the 'Monetarist' Controversy (London, 1982)
J. Mitchell, Psychoanalysis and Feminism (Harmondsworth, 1975) S. Buck-Morss, The Origins of Negative Dialectics (Hassocks, 1917)
C. Schorske, Fin-de-Siäcle Vienna (New York, 1980) S. Buck-Morss, The Dialectics of Seeing (Cambridge, Mass., 1989)
J.H. Seddon, The Petrashevts-y (Manchester, 1985) P. Clarke, The Keynesian Revolution in the Making, 1924-1936
T. Shanin, The Roots o.f'Otherness (2 vols, Houndmills, 1985) (Oxford, 1988)
N. Stone, Europe Transfurmed 1878-1919 (London, 1983) A. Gamble, Hctyek (Cambridge, 1996)
V. N. Volosinov, Freudianism (Bloomington, 1987) A. Gouldner, The Coming Crisis o.f Western Sociology (London, l97l)
A. Walicki, The Controvers),- over Capitalism (Oxfbrd, 1969) J. Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action,lI (Cambridge, 1987)
A. Walicki, The Slavophile Controuersy (Oxford, 1975) C. Harman, 'The Crisis in Bourgeois Economics',lnternational Socialism,2lTl
A. Walicki, A History of Russian Thought.from the Enlightenment to Marxism (ree6)
(Stanford, 1919) D. Held, Introduction to Criticctl Theory (London, 1980)
R. Webster, Why Freud Was Wrong (London, 1996) F. Jameson, Late Marxisnt (London, 1990)
*R. Wolheim, Freud (London, l97l)
M. Jay, The Dictlectical lmagination (London, 1973)
M. Jay, Adorno (London, 1984)
Lord Kaldor, 'Memorandum of Evidence', Treasury and Civil Service Committee:
9 Revolation and Counter-Revolution Memoranda on Monetary Policy (London, 1980)
D. Lockwood, 'Some Remarks on The Social System', British Journal of Sociologlt,
+P. Anderson, Considercttion,son Western Marxism (London, 1976) 1 (t9s6)
P. Anderson, 'The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci', New Left Review, D. Lockwood, 'Social Integration and System Integration', in G. K. Zollschan and
t/100 (1916J) W. Hirsch, eds, Explorations in Social Change (London, 1964)
A. Arato and P. Breines, The Young Lukdcs and the Origins of Western Marxism A. Maclntyre, Marcuse (London, 1970)
(London, 1919) P. Mattick, Marx and Keynes (London, 1969)
Mnrtin Heidegger (Cambridge, 1991)
P. Bourdieu , The Political Ontology of R. Pippin et al., Marcuse: Critical Theory and the Promise of Utopia (South
A. Callinicos, Marxism and Philosophv (Oxford, 1983) Hadley, 1988)
A. Davidson, Antonio Gramsci (London, l9l1) S. P. S:tvrtgc.'l'lr<''fhcorie,s o.f Tulcott Purson.s (London, l98l)
J. Derrida, O.f Spirir (Chicago, 1989) It. Sk irlr'lsk y. .lolrtt hlttrrttrrul Kcyttt,,t (3 vols. I-ondon, 1983. 1992, 2000)
360 Further Reading Further Reading 861

J. Tomlinson, 'Why Was There Never a "Keynesian Revolution" in Economic


12 Debating Modernity and Postmodernity
Policy'?', Econont,- and Sctciety, 10 (1981)
J. Tomlinson, Problents of British Economic Policy 1870-1945 (London, 1981)
A. Ahmad, In Theory (London, 1992)
J. Tomlinson, Hayek and the Market (London, 1990)
P. Anderson, The Origirts rf Postmodernity (London, 1998)
R. Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt Schctol (Cambridge, Mass., 1994)
B. Barry, Culture and Equaliry (Cambridge, 2001)
R. Wolin, Wnlter Benjamin: An Aesthetic oJ'Redemprion (New York. 1982)
A. Callinicos, Again.st Postmodernism (Cambridge, 1989)
A. callinicos, 'Postmodernism: A critical Diagnosis', in J. van Doren, ed., The
1l Crack ap? Grectt ldeas Today 1997 (Chicago, 1997)
A. Callinicos, 'Social rheory Put to the Test of Practice: pierre Bourdieu and
P. Abrams, Historical Sociology (West Compton House, 1982)
Anthony Giddens', New Left Review,l/236 (1999)
L. Althtrsser, The Future Lasts a Long Time (London, 1993) A. Callinicos, Equality (Cambridge, 2000)
N. Fraser and A. Honneth, Redistribution or Recognition ? (London, 2003)
P. Anderson, In the Tracks of Historical Materialism (London, 1983)
R. Gnha and G. C. spivak. eds, selected subalrern studies (New york, 1988)
P. Anderson, A Zone of Engagement (London. 1992)
C. Harman,'France's Hot Autumn', Internationcrl Socialism, 2170 (1996)
P. Anderson, 'A Culture in Contra-Flow', in id., Ertglish Questions (London, 1992)
*A. Badiou,'The Adventure of French Philosophy'. Nev, Le.ft Review, lI/35 (2005) T. W. Pogge, ed.. Global Justice (Oxford, 2001)

R. Bernstein, ed., Habermas and Moderurir_r, (Cambridge, 1985)


S. Sarkar, 'The Decline of the Subaltern in Subaltern Studies', in id., Writing Social
J. Bidet et al., Autour de Pierre Bourdieu', special issue of Actuel Morx,20 (1996)
History (Delhi, 1991)
C. Calhoun et a[., eds, Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives (Cambridge, 1993)
I. Shapiro and L. Brilhnayer, eds, GLobal Justice: Nomos XLI
(New York, 1999)
'FA. Callinicos, Althus,ser's Marxlsm (London. 1916)
A. Callinicos, Is There a Future.for Marxisnt? (London, 1982) R. Young, White Mythologies (London, 1990)
A. Callinicos, 'Foucault's Third Theoretical Displacement', Theory Culture & E. O. Wright, Class Counts (Cambridge, 1997)
Soc'iety', 3 (1986)
A. Callinicos, Against Postmodernism (Carnbridge, 1989)
'kV. Descombes, Modern French Philosophv (Cambridge, 1980) 13 Changing the Subject
P. Dews, Logics of Disintegration (London, 1987)
H. Dreyfus and P. Rabinow, Michel Foucault (Brighton, 1982) P. Anderson, Spectrum (London, 2005)
G. Elliott, The Detour o.f Theory (London, 1987) G. Balakrishnan, ed., Debating Empire (London, 2003)
G. Elliott, ed., Althus,ser: A Critical Reuder (Oxfbrd, 1994) S. Brcrmley, 'Space Flows and Timeless Time: Manuel Castells's The In.formation
D. Eribon, Michel FoLrcault (Cambridge, Mass., l99l) Age', Rodical Philosophy, 9J (1999)
G. Gutting, ed., The Cambridge Companiort to Fout:aulr (Cambridge, 2005) S. Budgen, A New "Spirit of Capitalism"', New Lef't Reviev,, IIll (2000)

C. Harman, The Fire Last Time (London, 1988) A. Callinicos, Against the Third Way (Carnbridge, 2001)
A. Honneth, 'The Fragmented World of Symbolic Forms', Theorv Culture & A. Callinicos, 'Review of J. Butler et al., Contingent:y, Hegemony, Universality, and
Society,3 (1986) S. Ziü.ek, The Ticklish Subject', Historical Materialism, 8 (2001)
D. C. Hoy, ed., Foucault: Criticnl Perspectiles (Oxfbrd, 1986) A. Callinicos, An Anti-Capitalist Manifesto (Cambridge, 2003)
E. A. Kaplan and M. Sprinker, eds, The Altltusserian Legacy (London. 1993) A. Callinicos, The Resoru'ces o.f Critique (Cambridge, 2006)
A. Kuper, Anthropologists nnd Anthropolog_r, (London, 1973) A. Callinicos et al., 'Debate: Rosenberg on Globali'zation', Internatiottul Politics.42
(2005), 352-99
"J. F. Lane, Pierre Bourdieu: A Critical Introduction (London, 2000)
D. Macey, The Lives of Michel Foucault (London, 1994) N. castree and D. Gregory, eds, David Harvey: A CriticaL Reatler (oxfbrd,2006)
J. G. Merquior, From Prague to Paris (London, 1986) G. Daly, Conversations with Ziiek (Cambridge, 2003)
Y. Motrlier Boutang, Louis Althusser: Une Biographie,l (Paris, 1992) G. Dumdnil and D. L6vy, Capitalism Resurgent (Cambridge, Mass., 2OO4)
M. Roberts, Analytical Marxism (London, 1996) T. Eagleton, Holy Terror (Oxford, 2006)
B. Srnart, Michel Foucoult (London, 2002) B. Fine, 'Examining the Ideas of Globalization and Development Critically', New
J. B. Thompson and D. Held. eds, Habermas: Critical Debate,s Pol itical E conomy, 9 (2004)
(London, 1982) A. Glyn, Capitalisnt Unleashed (Oxford, 2006)
*J. Wolfreys, 'In Perspective: Pierre Bourdieu', International Socialism, .1. Crahl, 'Globalized Finance', New Left Ret,iew,IIl8 (2001)

2t8t (2000) I). Ilcltl ;ttttl A. McCrc'w. Globuli:.trtion/Anti-globali:.ntion (Cambriclge,2002)


362 Further Reading

D. Held et al., Debating Globalization (Cambridge, 2005)


H. James, The End o.f Globaliztttion (Cambridge, Mass., 2001)
[. Parker, Slat'oj Ziiek: A Critical lntrocluctirtn (London,2OO4)
R. Pollin, Contours o.f Descent (London, 2003)
J. Ravenhill, ed., Gtobal Political Economy (Oxford, 2005)
J. Rosenberg, The Empire of Cit,il Societt'(London, 1994)
M. Rupert, Ideoktgie,s of Globalizcrtion (London, 2000) lndex
M. Rupert and H. Smith, eds. Hi.storical Materialisttt and Globalization
(London, 2002)
A. Saad-Filho and D. Johnston, eds, Neo-Liberalism: A Critical Reader
(London, 2005)
J. A. ScholIe, Globalization: A Critical Introduc'tion (Basingstoke, 2005)
T. Smith, 'Globalization and Capitalist Property Relations: A Critique of David
Held's Cosmopolitan Theory'. Historic'al Mttterialism, lll2 (2003)
T. Smith, Globctlization: A Sv,stematic Marxiun Account (Leiden, 2006)
R. H. Wade, 'On the Causes of Increasing World Poverty and Inequality, or, Why
Numbers in bold indicate a biographical orutmie, 726, 127, 136J, 145
the Matthew Effect Prevails', New' Political Economy,9 (2004)
R. H. Wade an«I F. Veneroso, 'The Asian Crisis: The High-Debt Model versus the note. anthropology, 5-6, I I l-13, 139-43.
Wall StreetlTreasury-IMF Complex', New Left Review,11228 (1998) 268-:71,291,334
K. N. Waltz, 'Globalization and American Power', The National Interest,59 (2000) absolute idealism, 49-58, 79-82, l8l. anti-humanism, 225. 261, 270-2, 21 5-6.
E. Wright and E. Wright, eds, The Zilek Reader (Oxford, 1999) 201,225,252,254 280, 3l l
absolutism . 15, 22, 27, 148, 166-1, 174. anti-naturalism, I 15. 153-4, 179, 205.
171. 194.264.28t) 243.309-t0
accunrulation of capital, 89-92, 16l-2, antiquity, l0-13, 21.33, 41, 44-5.75,
2361 283-4
Accum ulation of Cttpitul, The anti-Semitism, 180, 182, 214
(Luxernbur-g), 94, 203 Aquinas. St Thor»as. 244-5
Acton, John, Lord.l, lO aristocracy, 10, 22. 68, I 16, I l7-lti
Adorncr, Theodor 'W., 9, 246-57,248, Aristotle, l0
282, 285-6. 284. 309. 31 3 Arrighi, Giovanni, 331, 342-3, 345
aestheticism, -57. l17, l8l, 183, 293-5 art,57.117,120, 122, l4l-2, l8l, 182-3,
African National Congress. 317 I 85-6, 229, 256, 266, 293-5, 301-2,

agonistic I iberalism. 67-:72, 170-8 3 r3-t5


Agrariatt Qttestiort. Ihc (Kautsky), 203 Attlee, Cllement, 306
Alexander II, 196 Augustine, St, 17, 53,74, 165
Algeria, 291 Austin. l. L'286
alienation, 80-4, 220, 31 1-12 Austria. 19, 148.248
ndialis te movement, 298, 307,
ctlte rnut Austria-Hungary, 149, 182, 235
314, 332, 311-2, 344
Althusser, Louis, 7 , 21, 22, 261, 271-6. Bachelard, Gaston, 7, 214, 309
278, 280. 295, 298, 309, 3 12, 313, Badiou. Alain, 350
346,349 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 267
American Declaration of Independence Balibar. Etienne, 350
(Jefferson) , 31, 316-17 Balzac, Honor6 de, 59
Ancien Rögime and the Revolution, The Barry, Brian, 318, 319
(Tocqueville), 68 Barth. Hans. 117
A nclerson, Perry, 247, 261, 290 Barthes. Roland. 216. 346
364 lndex lndex 365

Baudelaire, Charles, 57, 181 Bourdieu, Pierre, 9, 218, 222, 23J, 285, charismatic domination, 157-8, 161-8, Condorcet, Marquis de, 24. 25, 34-5,
Baudrillard, Jean, 285 290-8,300, 312, 313-15, 351 776-:7,294 65, 66
Bauer, Bruno, 80 bourgeoisie, 90, 150-1, 167, 174, 195, Chateaubriand, F. R. de, 57-8 conscience collective, l2l-8, 133, 138,
Bauer, Otto, 203 198, 208, 2ll, 228-9, 293-4, 334 Chatterjee, Partha, 316-18 143-5
Bäumler, Alfred,266 Boutroux, Emile, 143 Chiapello, Eve, 330-2, 333, 340-l Consequences of Modernity, The
Beck, Ulrich, 303-10, 324 Boyle, Robert, 13 China, 69,2'74,278, 308, 328,345 (Giddens), 324
Beck-Gernsheim, Elizabeth, 306 Braudel, Fernand,342 christianity, 17, 27, 28-9, 40, 41, 50, Considerations on France (Maistre), 74
Beckett, Samuel, 256 Brenner, Robert, 264, 342-3 53,72-4,80-4, 93-4, 102, ll7-18, Constant, Benjamin, 28-9, 35, 57, 59,
Be ing and Time (Heidegger), 218-22, Breton, 4ndr6,,247 161-2, 164-5, 168, 195, 244-5, 283, 7l
223 Breuer, Joseph, 188 350, 352 Constitution of Society, The (Giddens),
Belinsky, V. G., l8-9, 195 Brinton, Crane,244 Cicero, 12,231 3r1
Benjamin, Walter, 203-4, 249, 250*3 Britain, 15,2J, 61, J2,96,9J, 105-6, civil society, 4-5,36-8, 40, 45-6, 48-9, contradiction, 41, 47-9, J8,92-4, 100,
Bentham, Jeremy, 20, 2J, 32, 3J, 61, 6J, 148, 149, 180, 199, 215, 221, 235, 239, _56, 81, 96, 213-14, 315, 316 103, I 23, 178, 241-2, 251, 212-3
152,229 258, 260, 306, 319, 344 Civiliz.ing P rocess, The (Elias), 262 Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's
Bergson, Henri, 179 Büchner, Ludwig, 107 class and classes, 36-8, 45-6,58, 86, Philosophy of Right (Marx), 81, 83
Berlin, 182-3 Buck-Morss, Susan, 251 81,94, 109, I 12-13, 145, 163-4, Copernicus, Ni<;olas, 188
Berlin, Sir Isaiah, 67,74 Bukharin, N. L, 200, 203,343,345 205-14, 226, 266, 2'/9, 283, 290-8, Coriolanus (Shakespeare), 109
Berman, Marshall, 3OI-2 Burawoy, Michael, 315 301-4,305-6, 307-8 corporations, 46-!7, 137, 138
Bernard, Claude, 132 bureaucracy, 46J, J2, 97-8, 1 57, 160-1, class consciousness, 205-14, 249-50 Coser, Lewis, 134
Bernstein, Eduard, 113 163, 166J, 170-8, 234-5,244,262, class struggle, 37, 60-1, 72, 84. 92-4, Course in Generctl Linguistics
Between Fact and Norm (Habermas), 288-9,303, 305, 311, 331, 351 96,98, 100, 106, 135, l4-5, 198,208, (Saussure), 268-9,216
290 Burke, Edmund, 62-3 229-9, 242, 254, 280, 289, 294-5, Cousin, Victor, 60
Beyond the Pleasure Pri.nciple (Freud), Burrow, John, 62, 109 302-4,317,351 critique, 15, 27, 4l-3, 79-84, 205-lO,
191-2 Bush, George W., 344, 345, 352 classical republicanism, 27-8, 33--5, -59, 249*57. 282-4, 285-1, 3l 5, 3 l6*18,
biological evolution, 100-8, 108-9, Butler, Judith, 266, 345-51 J1,98, llo, 175 345-5 l
ll2,115, l2l,123,129, 153, 188, Byron, George, Lord, 63 climate change, 303, 310 Critique of Dialecticol Reason (Sartre),
263 Clinton, William J., 324, 341 211
biology, 6, 66,76, 100-8, 108-9, 120-1, Calhoun, Craig,292 Cohen, G. A., 264,319 Critique ot' Pure Reason (Kant), 30
123, 129-33, I54, 192, 244, 266, 2J3, Callinicos, Alex, 345 Cold War, 22J, 261, 273, 341 Critique r1f the Gotha Prog,ramme
310-l I Calvinism, 16l-2, 165, 169 Collingwood, R. G.,7 (Marx), 98
Biran, Maine de, 60 Cambodia, 278 colonialism and imperialism, 14-15, Croce, Benedetto, 205, 210
Bismarck, Prince Otto von, lO7, 124, Candide (Voltaire), 25, 78 101, 106, 174, ll4-5, 194,200,264, Crosland, C. A. R., 228
148, 150-1, 174 Canguilhem, Georges, 132-3, 143*4, 3l 5-18, 332-3, 336J, 340-5 Cuvier, Georges, 66
Blackbourn, David, 182 214,309 commodity fetishism, 88-9, 95, 206, cyclical theories of history, ll-12, J5-:7,
Blackburn, Robin, 33 capital, 87 -92, 166J, 292-5, 295, 249, 251, 252, 254, 274-5, 305 215, 340-1, 342
Blair, Tony, 324,349 310-t l, 348 Communist (or Third) International, Czechoslov akia, 217
Blanqui, Auguste, 95, 196 Capital (Marx),4, 85, 87-92,95, 186-7, 205,210,249,343
Blumberg, Hans, 14 196, 203, 204, 23J, 214-5, 333 Communist Party of Germany (KPD), Dangerfield, George, 180
Bodin, Jean, 10,2J capitalism, 7, 4-5, 14-15, 16-20, 36-8, 246,247,252 Darwin, Charles, J6, JJ,l00, 102J,
Boesche, Roger C.,Jl 45-6,58-9, 63-4, J2, 8l-2, 87-92, Communist Party of Italy (PCdl), ll2, 119, l2l, 129, 153, 188, 263
Bolingbroke, Viscount, 27 106, 113-14, 146, 149, l5l, 160-3, 212-13 Dasein, 2ll, 218-22
Bölsche, Wilhelm, 107 166-:7, lll-2, 17J, lJ8, 194, 195-201, competition, 89-92, I 09-l l, 129-30, Davidson, Donald,267
Bolsheviks, ll4, 174, 198-200, 203, 205-1 0, 21 l-12,
-31, 253-:7, 258-
221 166-:7, l69J 0, l7 2, 233-6, 263, 290- Davis, Mike, 253
204*5,213,241 60, 264, 274-5, 281, 282, 287-9, 290, 5,34s Dawkins, Richard, 6
Boltanski, Luc, 330-2, 333, 340-l 301 -9, 3 16-1 8, 320-2, 326-45, Comte, Auguste, 3,4,65-6, J3, 725, Debray, Rdgis, 259
Bordiga, Amadeo,2l2 348--5 r 127. 128, 133, 739, 144,262,265, decadence, ll, 33-4, l5-:1, 115-16. 149,
Bossuet, J. 8., -53, 73 Cirstells, Manuel, 331-2.336, 340 30I.334 215
366 lndex lndex 367

Decline of the West, The (Spengler), East Asia. 258, 259, 320-1, 328, 337, Evans-Pritchard, E. 8., 145 Freud, Sigmund, 182, l8l-93, 188,247,
2ts 341 exploitation. 86, 87-8, 172, 208. 254, 256, 270-1. 2J2, 283, 346-8
Deleuze. Gilles, 193,211,300, 333, 335, Ecole Normale Supörieure, 312 256,281 Friedrnan. Milton. 233
336 Econontic and PhiIo,sophic Manuscripts Friedman, Thomas, 324, 326, 337, 338,
democracy, 10, 6l-2, 68-:72. 81. 96-8, of 1844 (Marx), 82, 98, 209,261,213 falling rate of profit, 3J, 61, 9O-2, 94. 344
It3-14, ll5, 138, 11l, lJ5J,22l, economic crisis, 45,90-2,94, 135, 136, 342 Friedmann, Georges, 126
227. 262,305. 309. 311, 319, 332. 145, 227-33. 235-1, 254, 320-1, 341, family, 45, 47, 48-9, 10, l9I, 193, 303-5 Frisby, David, 187
345-6.348 345 Farias, Victor, 211-18 Fukuyama, Francis, 320-2
D e moc r«cy in Am e ric'a (Tocqueville), economics, sec capitalism; marginalist fascisnr, 74. 77, ll4. 202, 214, 248, 252. ftrnctional explanation, 123, l4l, I79-80,
68-:/2 economics; political econotny 254 245
Derrida, Jacques, 223. 21 6-:7. 300, 322, Economy and Society (Parsons),242 Ferguson, Adam, 26, 34, 35 functionalism, 135, 145, 178, 239, 241-2.
346 Edi nburgh Review, 58, 62 Ferguson, Niall, 344-5 262,2J6, 276, 293,288-90, 296-8
Descartes, Ren6, 13, 19, 30,51, 144, Ehrenreich, Barbara, 315 Ferry. Luc,223
t87, 218, 225^ 269,286 Elementory Forrus o.f the Religious Life. Fest, Joachim, 180, 214 G8. 3,13
desire, 35, 136-1, 189-93,256 I/ze (Durkheim), I39-43 Feuerbach, Ludwig, 80-3, 93-4, l18 Gadamer, Hans-Geor g, 267 -8
despotism, 20-3,68-70 Elernentctr)' Structures of Kin.ship. The Finance Copital (Hilferding). 180-1, Galileo Galilei, 13. 18, l9
Development of Capitalism in Russia, (L6vi-Strauss), 269 203 Galton, Francis, 107
The (Lenin), 198, 203 Elias, Norbert, 262, 273 First World War, I14, I15, 145. 149. G e i.y t e s v, is se n s cha.f't e n, 53-4, I 55-9,
1

dialectic, 41, 47-56,78-83, 106, I 12, Eliot, T. S., 78 152-3, ll4-5, 180, 192, 202, 213, 214, 162-3, 178, 305-6
205-10. 249-51, 252-6, 212-3 Elster, Jon,295 215-16,221,229 Gellner, Ernest, 235. 263
Di alecti c of Enlight enment (Horkheimer Empire (Hardt and Negri),332-3, Flaubert, Gustave, 57, 59,260,294 G e nte in s c haft and G e s e lls chaft. 128-9,
and Adorno), 253--5, 251, 285. 287 343-4 Flynn. Thomas R.. 283-4 215
Dilthey, Wilhelm, 154, 155 Engels, Friedrich, 79,93, 106, I12,266. Fontenelle, Bernard de, l3 gender. 32, l9l, 258-9, 265-6,304-6,
Discipline and Punish (Foucault), 212 For Marx (Althusser), 273 349
219-81 Enlightennrent. 2, 3, 4, 10-38, 39, 40, Foucault, Michel, 9, lll, 121, 264-265, General Theory o.f Empk»'ment Interest
D isc o trrs e o n lne qu allry (Rousse att), 26, 41, 43, 41, 50. 56, 62-3,72.75, J6. 267. 276, 275, 278-94, 284, 298. 300, and Money. The (Keynes), 22t1,
-1 -'l
gl. 83. 100, I ll, 122. 140, 142. 152. 309, 308. 346-8 229-32
Dist'ourse on Univ,ersal Histort' 178, ll9, 187. 193,221,253-5,25J, FoLrndations of Christianity, The general will, 28. 29,43-4,48, 98
(Bossuet), 73 212, 282. 284, 300, 301, 30-5, 309, (Kautsky), 203 George. Stefan, 183
Distinction (Bourclieu) , 293-4, 297 316-18, 319,326 Fourier, Charles, 58-9, 63, 95, 195 German ldeolog\,. The (Marx and
division of labour, l7-18, 34. 98, 109, equality, 69-72, 1 5, 318-20, 350-l France. 15, 22, 27, 57-9, 60. 91. 126-7. Engels), 82-3, 84. 95, 273
127-30, 134. 185, 243,299 equilibrium. 16-18, 36.37, 45-6, 139, 149, 199, 215,227,249.259, 260, German Revolution (1918), 174.202
Dit,i,sion rlf Labour, The (Durkheim), 123, 229 -32, 233-4, 235 *6, 26t. 267, 268, 214-5, 2'78, 31t, 312 Germany, 4l-2,79-80, 106-1, l13, l14,
125, 121-33, 133-4, 135, 1 3J, 239, 241-2 Frankfurt School, 178, 193, 246-51, l4g-54, 174-:7, 180-1, 202, 214-15,
243 Eros and Civili;.ation (Marcuse), 256 261, 263, 284, 285-90, 300, 305. 319 216, 221, 223, 232. 231, 24'7, 249,
domination, ll9, l20. 122, 154, 157-8, E.ssrn' on Government (lames Mill), 32, Fraser, Nancy, 266 306. 307-8
t7s, 218, 281, 282. 292-3. 297-8, 61-2 freedom, 27 -9, 42, 46, 53, 59, 69-:7 l, Gibbon, Edward, 33
309. 346-8:' see ctlso power E.r.rav on the Inequality of tlte Human 87-8, 97-9, 136-1, l7 l, 282, 284, Ciddens, Anthony, 126, 263-4, 302-j.
Dostoevsky, F. M., 195 Races (Gobineau),75-1 286,311-12, 318, 3lg, 350-l 310, 3l t-12, 323-4, 326
Dreyfus. Alfied, 126. 182 E,s,ra,y on the Prirtciple o.f Population, Freeman. E. A., 105-6 Gift. The (Mauss), 268,292
Du Bois, W. E. B., 315 An (Malthus). 34-5 Freibury Address (Weber), 141,149 Gindin, Sam, 345
Durkheim, Emile. l, 2, 3, 4, 6. 8_9. 47, Europe, 14-15, 21-2, 32, 33, 39-40, 58, French Communist Party (PCF).273, (iladstone, W. E., 176
56, 66, 123-45. l4l,152,158, 159, 69,75-1,78-80, l0l, 114, 115-16. 214,278 globalization, 300-1, 304, 305, 320,
179-80, 182. 191, 231, 238, 239, 243, 124, 179-82, 193-4, 195, 196,202-3, French Revolution, 14, 20. 25, 28-9, 323-30, 33 l-3, 33,5*45, 350
265-6, 268-9, 270. 285.288, 298, 221-2, 221, 256. 258. 259 -60, 261, 39-40. 41-2, 46, 54, 56, 57-9, 62-3, Gobineau, J. A. de. 68,75-:7,215
3At,3t2,334 307-8, 334,337 66. 67-8. 71, 72-4, 79, 96, 115, l5l, Godwin, William, 34-5
Dworkin. Ronald. 3lc) Etrropean Union, 327. 345 le-I. l16.2t t. 2til. 316 Gogol. N. V.. l9-5
368 lndex lndex 369

Goldblatt, David, 323, 325-6, 343 Herzen, A.1.,19, 195 Ibn Khaldün, 11, 14,113 Jaurös, Jean,3lJ
Gould, Steven Jay, 6 Hilt'erding, Rudolf-, 180-1, 203 ideal types, 757-9,21O Jay, Martin, 246-:7, 250, 255
Gouldner, Alvin, 231, 244, 245, 315 Hindenburg, Paul von, 777 ideology, 83-4,88-9, 95, 164, 166, Jefferson, Thomas, 3l-2, l5
Gowan, Peter, 328 Hinduism, 164, 165,316 205-14, 250-2, 214-6, 2J8, 280, 31J, Jeffrey, Francis, 58
Gramsci, Antonio, 204, 205, 210-14, Hirst, Paul Q., 325,321-8,329 346 Jolas, Eugene,267
241.346 Histoire de la folie (Foucault), 264-5 ldeology and Utopia (Mannheim), 208 Jones, Sir William, 76
Gray, Iohn,67, 7ll historical materialism, 82-3, 84-:7, Imperialism and World Economy Jünger, Ernst, 214, 215-16, 221-2
Great Depression (1929-39), 114, 202, 92-4,96, 100, 103, lll-15,134, (Bukharin), 203 justice, 265, 318-20, 333
22'7, 229,232-3,231 162-3, 186, 193, 196-:1, 203-4, 207, India, 32-3, 62, 316, 345
Greece, 10,75,259 226, 247, 250-2, 261, 263*4, 2J l-6, 'Individual and Collective Kaldor, Nicholas, Lord, 233
Greenspan, Alan, 320-l 281.322 Representations' (Durkheim), 135 Kant, Immanuel, 17, 30-1, 41, 43, 44,
Grice, H. P.,286 historical progress, 14, 17, 23-4, 25, individualism and individualization, 4J, 49, 51, 52, llJ, l8J, 244, 2J0,
Grossman, Henryk, 90, 246 33-5, 53, 59-61, 66, 75. 84, 92-4, 10-2, ll0, 125, 128, 136-1,303-4, 284
Grünberg, Carl,246 102, 108-15, 122, 129, 739, 193-7, 305-:7, 311-12, 318, 324-5 Karl Marx's Theory of History (Cohen),
Guattari, F6lix, 193, 333, 336 221-2, 244-5, 252-6, 320 Industrial Revolution, 14, 46, 58, J2, 264
Guizot, F.-P.-G., 59-61, 60 Historical School, 63, 64, l3l, l4l-8, 243 Kautsky, Karl, 94, 111-15, 122, 162,
149, 152, l-53, l-58 industrial society, 59, 109-11, ll3, 124, 197, 203, 204, 208, 209, 246, 247,
Habermas, Jürgen, 4, 7, 9, 13, 40, 54, History ctnd Class Consciousness 126, 127, 128, 135-7,243,244,301, 344
55-6, 6J, 126, 145, 169, 244, 249, (Lukäcs), 205-10, 214, 218, 249-50, 303-9 Kellicott, William E., 107-8
251, 255, 256, 25J, 285-90, 300, 301, 251,255,273 industrialization, l4-15, 148, 180-1, Kelly, Alfred, 107
309, 310,319,351 History ot'British India (James Mill), 194, r95, 198, 258-9 Keynes, J. M., 5,9, 46,228-33,234-5,
hnbitus,295-1 62 inequality, 16-ll, 28, 34-5, 36, 104, 236, 237, 260, 289, 308, 31 2-13, 327,
Hacking, lan,l25 History of Civiliz.ution in Eurutpe 137, 244, 265, 303, 305-6, 307, 340
Haeckel, Ernst, 107 (Guizot), -59-61 319-20,336J,338 Kirchheimer, Otto, 263
Hamann, Richard, 182 Histnry of Sexualitlt (Foucault), 283-4 Institute fbr Social Research, 246-57 Knies, Karl, l4l, 148
Hardt, Michael, 331-2, 336-:7, 341, History rf the Decline and Fnll of'the instrumental rationality, 158-9, 160-1, Knox, Robert, 76
343-4 Roman Empire, The (Gibbon), 33 169, lJ4, lJ7, 778, 180, 185, 205-6, Kolakowski, Leszek, 210
Harvey, David, 304, 342-3, 345 Hitler, Adolf', 177, 180, 2l4,2ll-18, 238-9, 254-5, 264, 286-8, 3 l0-l l, Koselleck. Reinhart. l4
Hayek, F. A. von, 5,233-6,237,340 252 331-2 Kripke, Saul, 267
Hegel, G. W. F.,2, 4,9,36,39-56,40, Hobbes, Thomas, 19-20, 27,61, 128, intellectuals, 79-80, 165-6, 169, 194-:7,
64,J2,78-83,98,99, l12, ll7, ll8, 235,238,249 208, 2r2, 229, 246, 260, 312-15, labour, 82, 85, 98-9, 209,255,286
138, 146, 177, lJ8, l9J, 194, 197,207, Hobsbawm, E. J., 14, ll-5, 227,258,260, 351-2 labour theory of value, 36-8, 64,8J,
224-5, 251-2, 256, 266, 212-3, 289, 302 International Monetary Fund, 328, 341 158, rn3
299, 312, 315, 318, 326, 339. 346, Holbach, Baron d', 83 Interpretation of Drearns, The (Freud), Labriola, Antonio, 134
348-50 Hölderlin, Friedrich, 4l 189, l9l Lacan, Jacques, 2l l-2, 276, 280, 346,
hegemony, 213-14, 342, 345-51 Holfstadter, Richard, 105 Iraq,344,345 348-50
Hegentony ctnd Socialist Strateg\t Holocaust, 6, 108, 203 Islamism, 351-2 Laclau, Ernesto, 345-51
(Laclau and Moufl'e), 345-6 Honneth, Axel, 291 Italy,2l3,259 Laissez,faire, 18,46, 105, 106, [09-ll,
Heidegger, Martin, 3,4,56, ll9, 120, Horkheimer, Max, 9, 246-57, 282, 124, 125, l2l-30, 149, lll, 181,228,
l2l-2, 216-26, 256, 261-8, 274, 28J, 285*6, 284, 309, 313 Jacob, Frangois, 102, 103 231-2,233-6,261
295,298,300,312 human nature, 12-13, l8-20, 24,25-6, Jacobins, 20, 25, 28-9, 34, 40, 42, 43, Lakatos, Imre, 7, 309-10
Heilbron, Johan, 10, 57, 65 33, 80-2, 85, 98-9, 235, 283, 3lO, 46, 59, 68,14, l5l Lamarck, Chevalier de, 101-2, 103, 104,
Held, David, 323, 325-6, 343 335 Jacoby, Russell, 313 108, 112, 121,263
Helv6tius, C. A., 16,26,32 Hume, David, 16,28,30, 31, 75,230, James, Henry, 181 language, 7, 225, 267 -1 l, 276-8, 279.
Hempel, Carl, 157 233 James, William 144-5,181, 185 282, 285 -:7, 296-J, 345 -6
Hennis, Wilhelm, 154, 170 Husserl, Edmund, 2L8, 287 .lameson. Fredric, 269, 302, 304 Latin America,26l
Herf, Jeffrey,215,216 Hutton, Will, 230-l .lrr1'r:rrr, 227. \)7. 328 Leibniz, G. W., 25,296
370 lndex lndex 371

Lenin, V. L. 198-200, 203, 209. 212, Mann, Michael, 14. 166,263-4,302, Mill, James, 32-3, 3J, 61-2, 64, 61, nations and nationalism, 99, 175, 129,
247.343.345 3tl, 321, 327-8. 334-6 194 t5t, 152-3, 214-16. 223, 302, 310,
Leviathurt (Hobbes), 19, 249 Mannheim, Karl. [08 Millar. John, 23-4, 25, 33, 84 316,332,343-4
Ldvi-Stratrss, Claude, 142, 268-:7 l, 216, Mao Zedong. 261, 21 4, 281 Mille platearr.r (Deleuze and Guattari). natural selection. 71, 107-6, l19, 188.
280, 291, 295, 298, 312, 346 Marcuse, Herbert. 117, Zll, 246-57, -1 -1-1 263
liberalism, 5,28-9, 56, 59-62. 6l-72, 248,263 Mills, C. Wright, 242,245-6 naturalism, I15, 218, 310-11
108-l r, 126,170-8, 180-l ,22J-3J, marginalist economics, 64-5, 124, Mises, Ludwig von,234 nature, 18, 82. 100-8, Il2, ll5, 118-21,
253, 281, 317-22, 344-5, 348-9, 351 130-1, 147-8,158-9, 160, 180, 183, mode of production, 84-7, 92-4,264, 209,254,309-10
Liebknecht, Karl, 174 229, 232, 233,238,291 272-5 Negcttive Dialectics (Adorno), 25 I
Lisbon earthquake (1755), 25 market, 16-20, 36-8, 45-6, 87-9, 95, Modernism, l8l, 182, l8-5*6, 251,256, Negri, Antonio, 331-2. 3361, 341,
List, Friedrich, 152 109-11, 158-9, 112, 183, 205*6, 209. 260.267.293-5 343-4
Locke, John, 16, 30 229 -36, 249, 288-9, 306J modernity. 2.1.9, l3-15, 39, 40-3. Nehemas. Alexander. I 17
Lockwood, David, 135, 139, 145,239 Marshall, Alfred, 238 46-:7, 50. 53. 54*6, 63-4. 66. 61, 12. neo-Kantianisrn. 134-5, 143. 153-4.
Lonel r- Crowd, Iäe (Riesman). 315 Marx, Karl, I . 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8-9, I l. 51, II5-t6, 122. 126, 128-9. 136-7. 138, 179.239.251
Long Boom (1948-73), 227 -8, 233, 246, 54, 55-6. 60, 65, 72, 18-99, 79, 103. 145, 146. t78, 187, 201, 203, 205. neo-liberalisni. 260, 306, 3l 3-14,
258-9 105, 106, 112. | 13, l17, l18, 123, 126, 214-t6. 222-5, 244-5, 267. 284-5, 320*2, 324. 328. 341
Louis XVI,67 128, 134, 136, 137, 146, 147, 149, 58, 1 281 9, 299-309, 315-18, 320-2. networks, 331-7,340
Louis Philippe, 57 161, 162, 110, 171-2, 177, 183, 184, 323-5,3-50, 35r-2 New Statesman,3l3
Löwy, Michael, 63, 163 186-7, 196, 2(\3, 204, 206, 230, Moleschott, Jakob, 107 Newton, Sir Isaac, 13. 16, 18
Ludendorff, Erich, ll7 236-:7, 238, 242. 24J, 254, 255, 256, Momrnsen. Wolfgang, ll0, ll2. 17,1-5. Nickel und Dimed (Ehrenreich), 315
Lueger, Karl. 180, 182 260-1, 2l l-3, 273. 279, 281, 283, 171. 178 Nietzsche, Friedrich. 3. 4. 9. 5-5-6,
Lukäcs, Georg, 9, 63,94, 178, 182. 285, 292, 301. 298, 305, 307, 30U, monarchy. 10.22. 46. 171 ll5-22. 126. t47. t5r, r54, 164. 170.
205- r0, 2t8, 220, 226. 241, 249 -51, 31 l, 312. 315, 318-22, 326, 329. 333. Monbiot. Ceorge, 311*2 171-8. r79. r83. r87, r92, 193.214,
255. 256, 272-3, 305, 31 2, 349 334,339.340,349 rnoney. ltl3-7, 230-1, 233. 236, 242-3, 223-5. 266. 211-84, 300, 309, 3 I 2,
Lukes. Steven, 129,130,139, l4l Marxism, 24.78-99, I ll-15, 126, 266.286--1, 308, 313, 339 3l-5.321
Luxemburg, Rosa, 94, 113, 114,203, 134, 162-3, 164, 196-201, 203-14, Montaigne, Michel de, 12-13, l5 'Nietzsche, Genealogy, History'
241 215, 218, 228-9, 236, 23'1, 246-51, Montesquieu, Baron de La Bröde et de, (Foucault), 279
Lyell, Sir Charles, 101, 103 260-4, 266, 2l l-6, 2J8, 281, 285, 19, 20-3, 25, 68, 70, 7 1,'72 Nolte, Ernst, 214
Lyotard, J.-F., 2, ll8, 260, 326 286, 300, 304, 3l-3. 316, 323-4, Morrre. Barrington, 262-3, 264 normal and pathological, ll4-15, l3l-3,
Lysenko, T. D.,273 341-51 mrrralistes. 12-13, 15, 21, 69-70, 72. 143-4. 190-l
Mauss, Marcel, 142-3. 268-9, 292 124 6 North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Macaulay, T.8.,62 Mayer. Arno J., 200 nrorirliry. 20, 30, 44-5. I l7-18, 125-6. (NATO), 343-4
McCulloch, J. R., 38 Meek, R. L..24 13.4. r3-5, 235, 237-45 Notes ott tltc Stutc r4f Virginict
McDcrrraldization, 337 -40 Mein Kampf (Hitler),76 Moscir, Caetano. 6 (Jeff'erson), 3l
McGrew, Tony, 323, 325-6, 343 Mendel, Gregor, l0l, 213 Morrft'e, Chantal, 345-6 nouveaux philosopltes, 261, 281
Machiavelli, Niccolö, 12, 30, 1 l. ll0 Menger, Carl, l3l, l4ti, 158,235 Mouzelis, Nicos, 8 Nussbaum, Martha, 348
McKinley, William,352 Mensheviks, 198, 199 Muqaddimaft (Ibn Khaldün), II
Maine, Sir Henry, 76, l0l, 124, 128, Merquior, J. Q., 270 Mussolini. Benito, I14, 214 Ohmae, Ken, 32-5
t29 Merton, Robert K..245 'On Habit' (Montaigne), l3
Maistre. Joseph de, 3, 9,58, 59,72-4. methodological individualism, 130-1, I960s. 256J. 2-58-61, 213, 218, 281. On Liberty (J. S. Mill), 69
77, n6 t5g, 235, 210. 295, 296 300. 349 On the Genealogt' o.l'Mor«ls
Malesherbes. C. G. de Larrroignon de,6J 'Metropolis and Modern Lif'e, The' Napoleon I, 3-5, 39, 40,12.57 (Nietzsche), ll7. ll9
Malthus, T. R., 34-5, 36.37.90.96. (Simmel), 183 Napoleon lll.97 On the Jev'islt Qttestion (Marx), 319
104, 163.229 Mexico, 332,350 Natiorral Socialism, 108, l14, l2l-2. On the Principles o.l'Politicctl Econonn'
Marüfesto o.f the Communist Porty Michels, Robert, 6, 173,24J 128-9, 153, 202-3, 214. 216, 217-19, ond Ta.rtttir.,n (Ricardo), 36-8
(Marx and Engels), 60, 90, 93,94, Mill, J. s., 56, 64-5, 66,67, 68, 69,72, 222-3.225.232. )48'. .;ct' ulso ion a I M u n (Marcuse),
O n a - D i nr c rt,r

n2. 136. 301 147,153, l7l lltst'isttt 1.5(r


372 lndex lndex 373

Ontology oJ'Social Being, The (Ltkdcs), Plato, J, 10, 118, 136J,223 Qu6telet, Adolphe, 124, 132 Rodbertus, J. K., 149
209 Plekhanov, G. V., 196-1, 203, 204, 208 Quine, W. Y.,267 Röhm, Ernst, 217-18
Order of Things, The (Foucault),276 Poland, 150, 175, 194,211,261 Rolph, C. H., 313
organized capitalism, 180-1, 200, 203, political economy, 4-5, 16-20, 34-8, race and racism, 6, 3l-3, 75-1, 105-6, Romantic anti-capitalism, 63-4, 116,
232-3, 305, 326-8, 343 45*6, 64-5, 67, 8l-2, 87, 103-4, 123, 107-8, 115, 121, 181,214,215,259, 129, 195, 206, 215, 316-17, 351-2
Orientalism (Said), 265, 266 124, 125,130-1, l4l-8, 152, 158-9, 311,349 Romanticism, 43, 47-8,57-8, 63-4, 6J,
Origin oJ'German Tragic Drama, Th,e 221-31, 308, 340-5 Raisons d'agir,3l4 82, ll8,3ll
(Benjamin) , 250-l 'Politics as a Vocation' (Weber), 113 Ramonet, Ignacio, 307 Rome, 2J, 44,'75-6, 149, 195
Origin of Species, The (Darwin),76, Polybius, 10, ll Ranke, Leopold von, 64 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 232
100, 104, 106, 108 Popper, K. R., J,235,218,309 rationalization, I 59J0, 172-3, 118, Rorty, Richard, 55, l4-5, 218,268,271
Origin of the Family", Private Property population, theory of , 34-5, 31, 90, 96. 205-6, 244, 255, 262, 28t-9 Rosenberg, Justin, 323, 324, 326,
and the State, The (Engels), 112,266 104. 153 Rawls, John, -5, 28, 3lti-20 329-30, 335, 340, 345
Ott, Hugo,217 Populism, 196J,198 Raynal, Abb6, 26 Rousseau, J.-J., 10, 16, 26, 2l-9. 30, 33,
Portugal, 259 Reuding Cupital (Althusser et al.),273 34,35, 40, 42, 43, 48, 59,71, 98, I17,
Panitch, Leo, 345 positivism, 6-5-6, 238-9 Reagan, Ronald, 341 l3ti, 170, 283
Pareto, Vilficdo, 6, 180, 237,238 post-colonialism, 265, 316-18, 323, 326, reason, 42-4,47-56, 132-5, 164, 169, Royer-Collard, P. P., 68
Parker, David, 8-9 335 246, 254-6. 268, 28t-2.285-90, Rugman, Alan, 337
parliamentary government, 6, 96-:7, post-Marxism, 345-51 309-10,316-lu Rules rlf' A rt, The (Bourdieu), 294-5
ll3-14, 126, 138, lJ5-6, 171.220, postmodernism, 2, 3, 5, 8, 260, 271, Re_flectiorts on the Rawtlution in Frunc'e Rules o.f Sociologic'al Method, The
289-90, 305 284-5, 291)-300, 304, 3 10, 321. 322, (Burke),62-3 (Durkheim), 129, 130, 134
Parsons, Talcott, 3, 8, 56, 129, 145, 323, 326, 335, 342, 347-tt, 35 r reflexive rn«rdernization, 302-10. Runciman, W. G., 263-4, 306, 31 5, 321,
237-45, 262, 276, 286, 287, 288-9, post-structural ism, 139, 266, 27 6-84, 34tt-9 322
300, 334, 335 290, 300, 322, 333, 345-t3 Refrrrrnation, 40. 16l*2 Russia, 78-9. 149, l7 1. 194-201, 203,
Pasinetti, Luigl232 PottertT' o.l' Ph.ilosophv, The (Marx), t37 Reich, Wilhclrn, 247 213.222-3,351-2: see also Soviet
Pas sagen-We rk, D as ( Benjamin), power, 243-4. 265. 211-84. 286J. 3OL), reilicirtion, 205-10, 22O. 249-56, 3 l I Union
251-2 307, 3 l0-l 2. 334-6, 346-8 'Reilication and the Consciousness ol' Russian Revolutions (l9Cl5 and l9l7),
Perraton, Jonathan, 323, 325-6, 343 Power Elire. The (Mills), 242,246 the Proletariat' ( Lukdcs), 206. 249 99, n4, llt,174, 192-3. l9u, 199,
Persian Letters (Montesquieu), 2l pragmatisrn . 144-5, 179, 210 relations of production, 84, U5-6, t37, 200-1, 202, 204-5, 211, 272
Pestel, Pavel, 194 Priccs und Production (Hayek). 236 92-4. l(X), 198, 264, 296
Peter the Great. 194 Prirnitive Clas,sifi<'atir.,l (Durkheim and rcligion, tt0-4, ll8, l3-5, 139-45. 160-3, Said, Edward.265.266
Petrashevsky circle, l9-5 Mauss), 142,268 164',0, t79-80, 268, 351-2 Saint-JLrst. Louis de. 20
Peukert, Detlev, 216 Print'e, The (Machiavelli), l2 Renaut, Alain, 223 Saint-Sirnon, Henri Cornte de, -5tt-9,
Pherutmenology d Spi rir, Ift e (Hegcl), P rinc'iples o.l' Geologv (Lyell). l0l representations, tl3-4, 133-5, 137-t3. 126. 3(X)
40, 4J, 50, 51, 52, 54-5, 299 Principles o.f'Politit'ul Econony (J. S. 142*5. t -58, 266-9. 21 4*9 Stc Croix, G. E. M. de. 86
Philosophical Discourse o.f Modernity, Mill),67 rcpression (psychoanalytic), I t3t3-93, Sartre, J. P., 271, 295
The (Habermas), 300 Pri.son Notebooks (Gramsci), 213*14 256.283 Saussure, Ferdinand de, 268-7 l, 216J.
Philosophicul Letters (Voltaire), l-5-16 productive forces. 84*-5. 87, 90, 91, Restoration, 40, 57-66. (r7*t't 291, 2L)2,29-5, 300
Philosophie z.oobgiq ue (Lamarck), l0l 92-4, r00, 198 revolutionirry party. 199" 2lO, 212-13 Savage, Stephen P.,245
philosophy, 4, 42-3, 51, 53, 206, 218, Pruttestunt Ethic und the Spirit o.f Ricardo, David, 4.32,36-t{, 45, 64,12. Suvug,e M irul.'l'he (L€.vi-Strauss), 27 I
223-5,246,273-4 Cttpitulism, The (Weber), 16l-3 87, 90, L)1, 121, 158, 229 Savigny, F. K. von, 63
Philosophl- of History, The (Hegel), 47 Providence, lJ, 53, l2-4, 71 Rickert, Heinrich, l-54. l-57 Say's Law, 31,229-30
PhiLosophy of Money, 7/ze (Simmel), Prussia, 43. 46,79, 148, 149-50, 180 Ricoeur, Par-rl, 270 Sayre, Robert, 63
182. r83-7 psychoanalysis, I 87-93, 247, 27 1-2, Riesman, David, 3l-5 Schacht, Richard, ll9, l2O
Philosophy o.f Right, The (Hegel),431, 283.346-8 Ritzer, George, 331-40 Schelling, F. W. J., 27-8, 41,49-50
t77 Robbins, Lionel, 159, 160 Schmitt, Carl, lJ7, 214, 220, 221, 350
Pinkard, Terry, 40, 50, 51, 54*-5 queer theory, 341-8 Robertson, William, 23 Schmoller, Gustav von, 148, 149
Pippin, Rohert. -51 Quesnay, Franqois, I8 Robespierre, Maximilien, 34, 59 Schoenherg, Arnoltl. ?.56
374 lndex lndex 375

Schopenhauer. Arthur, I l7 Social Democ:rttcy and the National Spencer, Herbert, 3, 6,66, 100-101, Suit'ide (Durkheirn), 135-7. 265-6
Schröder, Gerhard, 307-8 Questiort (Otto Bauer). 203 102, 105, 108-11, ll2, ll3, I 15, r22, Sumner, W. G.. 105
Schumpeter, J. 4., 236-:7 Social Democratic Party of Germany 124, 125, 126, 121, t2g. 129,130, Sysrem of Logic (J. S. Mill), 153
science, 13, 14,15-16, l9-30, 57,65-6, (sPD), 107, 1ll, 113, 124, 149, 151, 139, 153, 194, 243-4, 262, 334
101, lt9-20, 125, 130-3, 153-9, 179, l8l, 203, 246, 252,307-8 Spengler, Oswald, 215, 221 Taiwan, 328
184, l93, 240, 254-5, 268. 273-5, social evolution. 6,65-6, 100-1, 103, Spirit o.fConcluest and Usurpation, The Talleyrand, C. M. de. 58
27 9 -80. 27 9 -80, 300, :109- 10, 104-5. 109-15. t23, tzl, t29, 133, (Constant), 35 Taylor, Charles, 30, 187
313-15 139, 243-4, 262, 263, 287 -90, 322 Spirit oJ'the Laws, Z/ze (Montesquieu), Tenbruck, F. H., 164
'Science ars a Vocation' (Weber), 154-5, social integration, 83-4, 95, 123-45, 20-3 Thatcher, Margaret, Lady, l, 4,229,
l -59 238-44,288-90 sralin, J. v., 200, 202-3,204,252,219, 306,341
Scotland. l-5 social laws, 6-5-6, 90-2, 124-5. 156J, 281 Theory o.f' Comntuniccttive Ac'tit»t, The
Scottish Enlightenment, ll , 15. 16-20, r63 Stalinism, 14, 202-3, 2A4. 210, 226, (Habermas). 286
23-4. 21, 33-4, 39, 40, 6l-2, 64, 68, Soc ial O ri girt^s ot' Dictntor'.sh ip and 232, 247. 261. 273, 278, 281, 300, 3t7 Tlteory rl'Ju.stice, A (Rawls), -5, 319
72.84 Democ'rac'y, The (Moore), 262-3 state and state system, 18,27-9, 43J, Theory of the Moral Sentintent.r, The
Searle, J. R., 286 Soc iaL Syste m, The (Parsons). 240-2, 49, 81, 96-tt, ll0-ll , 124-5, 137-8, (Smith), 20
Seattle protests (1999), 341 243.244 166-:7, t1 5. 213-14. 232-3. 234-5. Theorv of the Novcl, Thc (Lukics), 206
Second International, I I l . 191. 203-4, scrcial theory, l-9, 10, 24,76. 123,240, 262. 263, 264. 286J, 316, 3 r7. Therborn, Göran, 124, 159,761.262
343 284-5, 32t-2, 323, 345-52 321-8. 329-30, 334, 336. 345, 3-51 'Theses on Feuerbach' (Marx), 273
Second World War, 202. 203, 221, 239, socialism, 58-9, 63, 93-5, 96-9, lll-12, state of nature, 19-20,25-6, 44, 85,283 'Theses on the Philosophy of History'
252,265,313 n3-14, lt5, 137, ltz, 195, 196-201, Stltes and Sociul Rewtlution,s (Benjamin),251,252
Sen, A. K., 319 232, 234, 235, 282. 324 (Skocpol). 263 Thierry, Augustirt, 39-40
Sentimentttl Educatiorz (Flauberr), 260 socialist revolution, 56,82, U3-4. 93-4, status, l)l, 124, 128, 163*4.210,265. Third Way, 321. 324. 343-4, 348-9
September I I 2001 . 344. 351-2 97-8, t13-4. r96-200. 201 -8. 298, 304. 306, 3rn Thompson. Grahame. 325, 327 -8, 321)
Seven Years War. 14. 2-5 212-14, 252-3, 256J, 31 r-1 3, 318, Steuart, Sir Jarnes, ltl Three Er.ra,v.r rtn the Theory o.t'' ,9eruulitv
Sewell, William H.,326 35r Stewart, Dugald, 6l (Freud), 189
Shakespeare, William, 109 society, l0-l I, 18, 24, 26, 44 -7, 52, Stiglitz. Joseph, 341 Thucydides, l0
Shelley, P. 8., 63 123, 124-5. t26, 130, 133, 134, Stirner, Max, tl2 Tit'ktish Suhjat'r. fhe (ZiLek), 348-9
Siedentop, Larry. 59, 68 r 37-8, 139-45. 159, 237-4,5. 334-6 Stolypin. P. A., 199 Times, Thc.229
Simnrel. Georg, 9, 182-7. 193.207,208 SociologicuI Intagination, The (Mills), Stone, Nonnan, ItlO Tkachev, Piotr. 196
Sketch lbr u Histrtricul Picture o.f'the 245 Strachey, John, 236 Tocqueville, Alexis de,2,3, -5, 9, -56,
Prugress ofthe Humun Mintl, A sociology, l-2,66, 109-ll, 124-5, Strunge Deuth rlf'l,ibcrul Englund, The 67-12,11.97. il7, l3U. 110. 11 l.305
(Condorcet), 24, 25 126J,129-33, 146, 1-52, 158-9, 170, (Dangerfielcl), I80 Tirlstoy, L. N., 113. 195
Skidelsky, Robert, 229, 230 240, 245-6. 261-3, 26tt, 3l-5, 321 Strong, Revcl J«rsiah, l(Xr Tiirrnies. Ferdinand. 128 9
Skinner, Quentin, 6-7 Sombart, Werner, 237 structuralisnr, 139, l4-5, 267-71. 276, 'Traditional and Critical Theory'
Sklar, Judith, 7l Sorel, Georges, 139 290, 291-2, 292, 295-1. 333 (Horkheinrer),250
Skocpol, Theda, 263 Souls o.l'Black Folk, The (du Bois), 315 Structure of'Sociul Action, The tretnsnational corporations, 327, 32U,
slavery, 23.31-3, 117-18. 149 Sources ofSot'ictl Power, The (Mann), (Parsons), 8. 237. 238-9. 244 330-2.337
Slavophiles. 195, 196 263,334 'Structure, Sign and Play in the Trcutise on So<'iul Theor\,, A
Smith. Adanr,4, 5, 15. 16-20,23,25. South Africa, 259, 260, 317 Discoulse of the Hurralr Sciences' (Runciman).263
28, 36, 3J, 45, 58, 64. 72, 84, 89, 91, South Korea, 259, 260, 328 (Derrida), 216-7 Treitschke. Henrich von, l-56
103, 105, 124, r30, 152, l'71, 184,229, sovereignty, 27 -8, lJJ, 221, 280, 332, Struve, Petr, 197 Tribe, Keith. 3, 147
235.312 -12+-, S ubulte rn Stuclies, 316-l 8 Trotsky, L. D., 15. 199*200, 20,1. 241
Sober, Elliott, 103, 104 Soviet Union, 200, 202-3, 217. 232, 247. subject and sLrbjectivity, 29-31. 49-53, truth, 5, 8, l19-20. 144-5, 183,206-:7,
Soc iaL C on t ra c t. Z/ze (Roussear"r), 252, 261, 273. 214. 27U. 320. 3-10 94, 115, I 18, I 19, 187-93.203, 210.254-6. 281-2. 314
21-8 Spain, 248. ?59 205-14. 2t8-19, 224-6, 253-4, Türgenev, I. S.. l9-5
Social Darwinism. l0-5-6. ll5, l-51, l-53, Sparta, 34--5 270-2, 215-6. 280, 282*1, 286-:7, Turgot, A. R. J. de. 13-14, 23,24, 65
2t4.3ll ,S1tt<'t rc.:' of' Mu t'.t' ( [)cn'itll1. ]JJ 292.346-8 'fyler, |tr. W.. 139
376 lndex

Ukraine, 175 Weismann, August, 107


unconscious, 188-93, 270-2, 295 Weiss. Linda, 327 -8, 329, 336
United Nations, 343 welfare state, 1 13-14, 121, 235, 288-9,
United States of America, 31, 68-70, 305-8
12, 105-6, 17l, 180-1, 222-3, 221, Wiggershaus, Rolf, 248, 249-50
232,237, 242, 244, 245-6, 248, 256, Wilhelm I. 107
260, 217. 313, 315, 319, 320-1, 32J, Wilhelm ll, 114
326, 337, 338, 339, 342-5, 351-2 will tcr power, 55-6, ll5, I 19-22, 154,
Use of Pleasure, The (Foucault), 284 192, 224-5. 266, 28t-2, 281, 335
r"rtilitarianism, 20, 32-3, 31. 6l-2, lll, Will to Power, The (Niet'zsche), 154,
152, 229, 238, 244, 291 300
hafisethik de r We lt re li gione n,
W i rtsc D ie
value-pluralism, 154-5, 156, 169, 287-9 (Weber), 164
Vienna, 180. 182, 235 Wittfogel, Karl, 246, 241
Vietnam War, 259 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 182, 26'7, 283,
Vogt, Carl, 107 296
Voltaire. l5-16, 25, 32, J8 Wolf, Martin, 341
Wolin, Richard,22l
Walicki, Andrzy, 195, 197, 198 Wood, Ellen M., 345
Wallas, Graham, 180 working class, 36-8, 58, 87-8, 94-5,
war and military competition, ll0, ll3. 9l-8. ll3-14, 124. 15t. t7l, 196,
| 14, 166-1. zl 5-16, 221, 224. 263. 197. 198. 199-200. 203-4. 207*lO,
343.345 2r l-13, 218, 228-9, 246, 249-50,
Wectlth o.l'Nations, I/re (Smith), -5, l7- 252. 253*4, 256-1. 2-58-60, 261 . 265.
19.64.84 213, 214, 293-4, 296. 298, 30-5-ll,
Weber, Max, I .2,3-4,5, 6, 8-9, 41, 56, 3l l, 316-18, 35r
67,72,99, l7l, 126, 133, I 31, 146-18, World Bank, 328, 341
179-80. r8-5. r87, 193, 20s. 208, 2r0, Worlcl Trade Organization. 341, 343
221. 229. ?35. 237. 238. 239, 243, Wright. E. O., 104-5
244, 255. 262, 263-4. 266, 282, 285,
286, 2gg, 2gg, 291, 294, 2gg, 300, Yourtg Hegcl. Thc (Llkics), 209
302, 309, 3l l, 318-19, 321. 322, 323, Ycrung Hegelians, 55-6. U0-2
340. 341 Yugoslavia, 343
Weight oJ' tlte Wo rltl, I/re (Bourdieu
et al.), 314 Zapatistas. 332
Weil. Felix,246.248 Zinoviev, G. E., 210
Weirnar Republic, l1l, 2O2. 214, 221, Züeu. Slavoj.345-51
246.250 Z()r()ustrilnisrn. 165

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