Time, Labor and Social Domination
Time, Labor and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx's Critical Theory is a 1993 book by the scholar Moishe Postone released by Cambridge University Press. In the book Postone presents a reinterpretation of Marx's critical theory. The book provides a reexamination of the core categories in Marx's critique of political economy.[1][2][3]
Key themes
Postone states that Marx's later theories demonstrates that the core categories of modernity, such as commodity and capital, are temporally dynamic categories that are historically specific to modernity and its social form.[4] Postone interprets these categories as both generating and obstructing the possibility of a liberated way of life and community. The origin of this historical dynamic lies in the peculiar form of wealth that is specific to capitalist modernity, namely value, which is also a form of social mediation that Marx distinguishes clearly from material wealth.
Part of Marxian critique of political economy |
Furthermore, Postone states that the transformations undergone by the global capitalist order reveal a profound structural historical dynamic, which is what Marx analyzed. Postone asserts that, in contrast to the conventional view of the Soviet Union as a communist society, the differences between "West and East" are in fact part of a more complex whole, where the Soviet Union was a (failed) variant of the same capital accumulation regime rather than an alternative to capitalism. This is not only because the Soviet Union exploited the working class, but also because it was part of a global, temporal structuring and restructuring of capitalism.
Abstract labor and value: a new social form
Postone provides an in-depth analysis of
Marx's analysis of the
The abstract nature of this social relation is also expressed in the form of
Abstract and historical time
The temporal dynamic of value is at the root of the historical logic of capital, according to the argument put forth by Postone.[7] While Marx's theory of surplus value is often interpreted as a theory of exploitation, Postone rather examines the value in this temporal dynamic.[8] In other words, the problem is not the unfair distribution of surplus value, but also the continued existence of the modern category of value itself. Postone argues that Marx's distinction between the production of use values and the creation of surplus value in the valorization process is critical to understanding this dynamic. Marx distinguished between absolute and relative surplus value, with the latter characterized by temporal acceleration. The higher the level of social productivity, the higher productivity must continue to increase to generate an increase in surplus value. However, this increase in material wealth does not reduce the need for labor. The sale of labor remains a necessary means of subsistence and a basic necessity for the production process, regardless of the level of productivity. In short, Postone's argument suggests that the commodity form structures and subjugates society through a historically specific and abstract form of temporality.[9][10]
Capital and Labor
Postone argues that Marx's introduction of the category of capital is not meant to describe a mystified power that controls workers, but rather to describe a real form of existence that has been historically constituted in an alienated form. According to Postones reinterpretation, capital is both dimensions of social labor, i.e., abstract and concrete labor, in alienated form.
Marx initially introduced the category of capital as a dimension of value-creating labor, i.e., self-propagating value. However, as Marx continued his analysis, he argued that the concrete aspect of labor, i.e., use-value-creating labor, also becomes an attribute of capital. In the case of cooperation and manufacture, capital's appropriation of concrete labor appears to be a question of ownership. However, in large-scale industries, the productive forces of concrete labor are no longer those of the workers, and labor is already constituted in an alienated form, separated and opposed to the workers.
Postone's analysis further suggests that
References
- ^ Postone, Moishe (1993). Time, Labor and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx's Critical Theory. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- ^ Best, Beverley (2018). O'Hara, Daniel (ed.). Moishe Postone: Marx's Critique of Political Economy as Immanent Social Critique. SAGE Publications. pp. 482–497.
- ^ Feenberg, Andrew (1996). "Review of Moishe Postone, Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx's Critical Theory". Theory and Society. 25 (4): 607–611.
- ^ Feenberg, Andrew (1996). "Review of Moishe Postone, Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx's Critical Theory". Theory and Society. 25 (4): 607–611.
- ^ Feenberg, Andrew (1996). "Review of Moishe Postone, Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx's Critical Theory". Theory and Society. 25 (4): 607–611.
- ^ Postone, Moishe (1993). Time, Labor and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx's Critical Theory. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- ^ Postone, Moishe (1993). Time, Labor and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx's Critical Theory. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- ^ Postone, Moishe (1993). Time, Labor and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx's Critical Theory. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- ^ Miller, Karen (2004). "The Question of Time in Postone's Time, Labor and Social Domination". Historical Materialism. 12 (3): 209–237.
- ^ Best, Beverley (2018). O'Hara, Daniel (ed.). Moishe Postone: Marx's Critique of Political Economy as Immanent Social Critique. SAGE Publications. pp. 482–497.
- ^ Postone, Moishe (1993). Time, Labor and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx's Critical Theory. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
- ^ Zaretsky, Eli (1996). "Review essay: A Marx for our time? Moishe Postone's reading of Capital: Moishe Postone, Time, Labor and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx's Critical Theory". Philosophy & Social Criticism. 22 (2): 109–116.
Also view
- Critique of political economy
- Critique of Economic Reason
- Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner