Total Human Emancipation: Marxist Principles for a Material and Cultural Politics
Alexander van Eijk 11176911 University of Amsterdam
MSc Political Science (Political Theory)
3 June 2020
34,008 words
Research Group Alternatives to Capitalism
Supervisor Dr. Annette Freyberg-Inan
Second Reader Dr. Joost de Bloois
Abstract This investigation begins with the acknowledgement that much of Marxist theory and practice has focused overmuch on the material dimension of oppression and emancipation, to the detriment of cultural or psychological factors. Consequently, this thesis engages with the early humanist writings of Karl Marx and the psychoanalytical Marxism of Herbert Marcuse to develop a Marxist conception of emancipation that can properly reckon with material and non-material factors of both oppression and emancipation. It is argued that the total human emancipation thereby envisioned consists of two components. First, the consciousness project entails revealing the alienating nature of capitalist relations and replacing these with relations that allow for free and self-conscious life-activity within a community of equality and mutuality. Second, the development project entails revealing the inhibitive nature of capitalist relations and replacing these with relations that allow for the fulfilment of human potential, marked by a new rationality guided by human needs. From this concept of emancipation, five principles are developed to inform political practice: Three Project Principles (Emancipated Material Relations, Cultural and Psychological Sensitivity, Politicisation) guide the selection and evaluation of political proposals; and two Programme Principles (Variety and Compatibility, Incrementalism) inform how we are to bring these projects together so that their contributions are compatible and complementary. To illustrate how these principles can be used to develop an emancipatory alternative to capitalism, they are applied to three existing political proposals (workers’ cooperatives, Gramsci’s counter-hegemonic political education, Situationist proposals for psychogeography).
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Dedicated to Opa Her … even though I’m sure you would have disagreed with something on every page.
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Table of Contents 1. INTRODUCTION ...... 6 2. TOTAL HUMAN EMANCIPATION ...... 10 2.1 THE FULFILMENT OF HUMANITY IN HUMANIST MARXISM ...... 10 2.1.1 The Human Needs ...... 11 2.1.2 Humanist Marxism: The Undeveloped and Unscientific Marx? ...... 18 2.1.3 Humanist Marxism: A Summary ...... 26 2.2 BEYOND THE REALITY PRINCIPLE IN PSYCHOANALYTICAL MARXISM ...... 27 2.2.1 Freudian Psychoanalysis ...... 27 2.2.2 The Psychoanalytical Marxist Response ...... 28 2.2.3 Towards the Orphic and Narcissistic ...... 31 2.2.4 Psychoanalytical Marxism: A Summary ...... 34 2.3 TOTAL HUMAN EMANCIPATION: A CONCRETE CONCEPTION ...... 35 2.3.1 The Two Projects of Total Human Emancipation ...... 35 3. CAPITALISM AND EMANCIPATION ...... 41 3.1 THE CONFINES OF CAPITALISM ...... 41 3.2 CAPITALISM AND THE EMANCIPATORY PROJECT ...... 43 3.2.1 Can the physical human needs be met within capitalism? ...... 43 3.2.2 Is consciousness possible within capitalism? ...... 45 3.2.3 Is development possible within capitalism? ...... 48 3.3. CONCLUSION ...... 50 4. FIVE PRINCIPLES FOR AN EMANCIPATED FUTURE ...... 51 4.1 FIVE GUIDING PRINCIPLES ...... 52 4.1.1 The Three Project Principles ...... 52 4.1.2 The Two Programme Principles ...... 55 4.2 THREE PROPOSALS FOR AN EMANCIPATED FUTURE ...... 56 4.2.1 Workers’ Cooperatives ...... 57 4.2.2 Gramsci’s Proposals for a Broader Cultural Project ...... 59 4.2.3 Psychogeographic Urbanism ...... 63 4.3 THE THREE PROPOSALS AND EMANCIPATION ...... 67 4.3.1 The Project Principles ...... 67 4.3.2 The Programme Principles ...... 70 4.4 FEASIBILITY OF THE EMANCIPATORY PROGRAMME ...... 72 5 CONCLUSION ...... 77 5.1 EVALUATION ...... 80 5.2 IMPLICATIONS ...... 81 5.3 FINAL WORDS ...... 82 WORKS CITED ...... 83 LIST OF FIGURES ...... 86
5 1. Introduction A close friend of mine is currently writing his thesis for a study in fashion. He was looking for some advice on how to connect his arguments to political theory and asked for my help. Having discussed his thesis, it seemed strongly connected to the Frankfurt School of critical theory and Herbert Marcuse’s work in particular, so I lent him my copy of Eros and Civilization and gave him my notes on the book. Later that evening he sent me a message telling me how much the book resonated with him, accompanied by the following quote from my notes:
The development of civilization, through the repression of instinctual desire, has increasingly opened up the potential for liberation. Society has reached a point where toil and domination are no longer required, yet we maintain it in the form of surplus-repression.
This is the central argument of Eros and Civilization and clearly it struck my friend, as it had struck me, as incredibly lucid and important. If two people from such different academic fields could be so struck by a single argument, I thought, something really important must be happening here. Perhaps what makes this argument so striking is that it is so devastatingly timeless. While the book was originally published in 1955, it could easily be describing our world today. More so than ever, we have untold riches and abundance within our collective grasp but have found no way to put them towards the eradication of toil and domination. Surplus-repression, or repressing our instinctual wishes and desires beyond the point needed for healthy society, remains the modus operandi of the global capitalist system. To put it in Wilhelm Reich’s words, our societies are still “psychologically sick.”1 Moreover, we seem to have forgotten how to fight back. On the individual level, the growing popularity of mindfulness, modern stoicism, self-care and other coping mechanisms do nothing but silently assent to the status quo and further deepen the grasp of capitalism on our psyches. On the collective level, our political parties – even the supposedly leftist groups – are all more preoccupied with reform within capitalism and pay little to no attention to the actual possibility of overthrowing toil and domination. In the words of Slavoj Žižek’s recent book,2 we have a left that does not dare to speak its own name; a left that does not dare to be truly leftist. With all this in mind, I was bothered by the seeming inability of Marxist theory at large to grapple with this issue. In the 130 years since the death of Karl Marx, it seems, Marxists have inadequately dealt with this more cultural or psychological aspect of oppression. While it is perhaps true that all Marxist thinkers have developed and utilised some form of ideological analysis, these concepts and proposals rarely go the length we need them to. The analysis remains almost entirely material.
1 Reich, W. (1951). The Sexual Revolution. London: Vision. 2 Žižek, S. (2020). A Left that Dares to Speak its Name. Cambridge: Polity Press.
6 In other words, there is a mistaken tendency in much of Marxist thought to adhere loyally to an economic orthodoxy, often referred to as Vulgar Marxism. This is to say that many Marxists cling to their copies of Capital and follow Lenin3 into a dogmatism that inhibits them from considering anything outside the scope of their economic categories. To them, there is only the proletariat and its material oppression by the bourgeoisie. These people have rightly been criticised for their inability to take into account more cultural or psychological factors of revolution and emancipation. It is exactly this mistaken tendency that has scared off many radical thinkers and actors from properly engaging with Marxism. For example, radical feminists have long been pointing out the gender-blindness of such an orthodox Marxism.4 What good is it to women if they can be liberated as workers but not as women? Another relevant example comes from race and postcolonial theorists.5 Again, what kind of emancipation are we even talking about if one race still dominates the other? These are blind spots in an economistic approach to Marxism that cannot be forgiven. If an emancipatory project is to deserve its name, it must be aimed at a total human emancipation. There are many accounts of how Marxism came to be represented in this way. Some argue, for example, that Marx himself believed in this absolutely singular analysis, as reflected in the volumes of Capital. We shall see through the course of this investigation, however, that such an analysis cannot be attributed to Marx. Others have argued that this orthodoxy is the result of Friedrich Engels’s meddling with the final volumes of Capital after Marx’s death. While it would be an interesting discussion, the point of this investigation will not be to reconstruct this development. Instead, I would like to argue that Marxism need not take this form. Indeed, as we have already touched upon briefly, Marcuse seems to find a way of including psychological factors within a decidedly Marxist framework. This is important precisely because these economic-historical analyses, while flawed in many ways, have nonetheless brought immense and invaluable contributions to our understanding of the real world. The material approach of works like Capital, or more recently Giovanni Arrighi’s The Long Twentieth Century,6 has been unquestionably crucial to the theoretical and practical apprehension of the modern world. Even non-Marxists often cannot but agree that the material analysis of Marxism remains unrivalled in its accurate depiction of capitalist relations and their historical development. These contributions are of such importance that we cannot let them be ignored or abandoned. With that in mind, however, these material analyses can only get us so far. Famously, Orthodox Marxism presents an excellent analysis of contemporary conditions, and how they developed, but falls rather silent on what is to replace these conditions. Put simply, we are not quite told what is supposed to come after the revolution. At most, it is said that the capitalist class must be overthrown, but again we do not quite know what is to replace capital’s rule.
3 Lenin, V. (1969). What is to be Done? New York: International Publishers. 4 Sargent, L. (ed.). (1981). Women and Revolution. Montreal: Black Rose Books. 5 Warren, R. (ed.). (2016.). The Debate on Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital. London: Verso. 6 Arrighi, G. (2010). The Long Twentieth Century. London: Verso.
7 We can say, therefore, that there are two central problems with this form of Vulgar Marxism. First, the economic orthodoxy blinds our analysis to non-material factors that we intuitively know are important and must be considered for any emancipatory project. Second, a purely economic analysis cannot provide us with a vision of emancipated society in a satisfactory way. What we need, therefore, is a Marxism that retains its immense perceptive ability to understand material relations and their development, but is nonetheless able to incorporate non-material factors of analysis. This leads us to the following research question:
How can a viable alternative to capitalism be developed that achieves total human emancipation?
Answering this question will require a few argumentative steps. First, we will need to present a theoretical framework that allows us to define what we have tentatively called total human emancipation. I believe such a Marxism can be properly developed by drawing on traditions within Marxism that have already attempted to expand beyond the material analysis. Chapter 2 will therefore be centred around a discussion between Marx’s early humanist writings and the psychoanalytical Marxist writings of Herbert Marcuse. The interaction between these two traditions will allow us to consider material and non-material factors both in our analysis of modern conditions and in our proposed vision of an emancipated future. Second, we will need to justify our anti-capitalist approach. This is to say, once we have defined total human emancipation, it must be argued that it cannot be achieved within the confines of capitalism. Obviously, if we find that emancipation is possible within capitalism, we no longer require the Marxist critique. In Chapter 3, we will discuss the possibility of total human emancipation under conditions of capitalism and find that our anti-capitalist approach, rooted in Marxist theory, is justified. Third, we will need to show we can develop a coherent political programme that will actualise our theory of emancipation. As mentioned, one of the problems of Vulgar Marxism is its inability to adequately present a vision of the emancipated future. Chapter 4 will therefore show how our newly developed theory of total human emancipation can allow us to not only envision what is to replace current conditions but also show us the political path we must take to get there. To be clear, the objective here is not to present a definitive political programme, but to lay down the principles that will allow us to do so and illustrate how our theory can bring us to concrete political action. Taken together, then, we will have arrived at a final answer to our research question, inspired by the shortcomings of Orthodox Marxism. What we will have developed is a theory of emancipation, rooted within Marxism, that both retains the perceptive power of material analysis and solves the problems of economic orthodoxy. The academic relevance of this research is clear. First and most obviously, we are trying to resolve crucial flaws in an incredibly important and widely used theoretical framework. Specifically, we are trying to develop a Marxism that can be sensitive to non-material factors and properly envision an
8 emancipated future. Second, we are re-engaging with insightful theories from the past that we do not often see used anymore. Beyond their initial popularity with the Frankfurt School and French intellectuals in the 1960s, the psychoanalytical and humanist strands of Marxist thought are often neglected. As such, a revival of these bodies of thought could bring out new insights or reformulate older insights to make them relevant to our contemporary situation. As Brecht wrote in The Caucasian Chalk Circle, “Mixing one’s wines may be a mistake, but old and new wisdom mix admirably.”7 This research is also societally relevant. First and foremost, the project entails actual, human liberation from domination and is therefore by definition important. But moreover, as mentioned, this research will provide a diagnosis and prognosis for an oppressive society. If an effective and persuasive Marxism can be developed that counters the alienation of human existence, this would give real-world critical actors and activists another powerful tool in their fight for justice. Finally, as I am writing this paper, the world is in the midst of a global epidemic. As with any crisis, the current Coronavirus pandemic has revealed the extremes of our capitalist system. It is particularly in these times of crisis that we must focus on building positive alternatives.
The images of working people fighting each other over toilet paper shouldn’t fill you with contempt or superiority because you’re not ‘stooping’ to that. It should fill you with a profound sadness at what capitalism can do to people when alienation overwhelms us. A profound sadness, but also a rage at the system that produces this behaviour and a desire to smash it. Don’t laugh at those people. Don’t call them stupid. Think about what you’re doing to build a system in which scarcity is no longer an issue.8
7 Brecht, B. (1944). The Caucasian Chalk Circle. https://www.thesuttonacademy.org.uk/_site/data/files/documents/home%20learning/year%209/A5609EBD170778E9F 680069C0B67043A.pdf. Retrieved 1 June 2020. 8 Wallman, S. & Sandev, M. (2020). “On Panic Buying”, https://overland.org.au/2020/03/on-panic-buying/. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
9 2. Total Human Emancipation In this chapter we investigate what we have tentatively called total human emancipation in the previous chapter. As discussed, what we are looking for is an understanding of emancipation that is firmly rooted in Marxism but nonetheless capable of a broader analysis than focusing on mere material factors. In other words, the objective of this chapter is to develop a Marxist framework that is sensitive to cultural and psychological factors of oppression and therefore able to present an alternative to capitalism that extends deeper than the material revolution. To achieve this aim, we will have to interact with two unorthodox traditions within Marxism, psychoanalytical and humanist Marxism. These two have been chosen as they can also be understood as critiques of a solely material analysis, but nonetheless are derived directly from the Marxist episteme. As such, these two traditions should allow us to develop an understanding of emancipation that is able to reckon with non-material factors yet is still rooted within Marxism. This chapter will be structured as follows. First, in Section 2.1, the theoretical foundations, critiques and claims of humanist Marxism will be outlined and discussed. Second, in Section 2.2, the same will be done for psychoanalytical Marxism. Finally, in Section 2.3, these two traditions will be brought together to come to a coherent conception of total human emancipation.
2.1 The Fulfilment of Humanity in Humanist Marxism
Marx’s early concept of human emancipation relies on his particular view of human nature at the time, as expressed in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (hereafter the 1844 Manuscripts). Here, Marx writes that total human emancipation is achieved only when each individual human being becomes a Gattungswesen (“species-being”), or a being fully in line with the essence of her species.9 In other words, the entirely emancipated human is an individual that has actualized their essential capacities. Emancipation thus means embodying what it means to be human and to live accordingly. To Marx, the essence of any species becomes clear from its corresponding “life-activity.”10 This is to say that how and what a species produces, its activities for sustaining and improving life, are its defining characteristics. The life-activity of all living species is determined to some extent by nature. Everything lives within the natural order, which sets out its own logic with relevant limitations. The cold, for example, forces all species to find or build shelter. In this sense, even human life-activity is to some extent determined by nature. What separates humanity from other living species, however, is that human life-activity, properly understood, also has a free and self-conscious component. As Marx writes, while the animal is “immediately identical with its life-activity,” the truly human being will “make his life-activity the object
9 Marx, K. (1988). Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Amherst: Prometheus Books, p. 75. 10 Idem, p. 76.
10 of his will.”11 Take the beaver as an example. When these rodents build their dams, their activities are entirely determined by the logic of nature. Their life-activity is neither free nor self-conscious. Humans, on the other hand, labour according to not only the logic of nature but also man-made logics such as aesthetics. This becomes obvious when one considers that, as Marx reminds us, humans build, labour and produce even when we do not need to.12 For all other species, labour stops once their naturally imposed needs have been met. Humans, however, adhere to a logic that is not determined by nature alone. In this sense, we can say that emancipation of our life-activities becomes the fulfilment of humanity, the peak of emancipation. But this is still rather vague. When exactly can we conclude that our life-activity has returned to its properly human essence? Have we not already conquered natural determination? Are we not already working by human standards of beauty or efficiency? To answer these questions, we will have to discuss what Marx classifies as the basic human capacities that, together, constitute a truly emancipated life-activity. In Sub-section 2.1.1, we will introduce Marx’s understanding of the basic human needs. These correlate to the essential capacities and a recognition of these needs will lead to the individual becoming a properly emancipated species-being. In Sub-section 2.1.2, we will discuss common criticisms against humanist Marxism, focusing particularly on the notion that this tradition is an undeveloped and unscientific stage in Marxist thought. Finally, in Sub-section 2.1.3, we will present a coherent summary of our discussion of the humanist Marxist conception of total human emancipation.
2.1.1 The Human Needs In the 1844 Manuscripts, we find passing mention of certain essentially human capabilities which, as discussed, must be actualised by the individual to become emancipated. There is, unfortunately, no attempt in any of Marx’s early writings to present a systematic or conclusive discussion of what exactly these essential needs of human emancipation are. Luckily, the task of systematizing them has been taken up by David Leopold in his book The Young Karl Marx.13 Leopold distinguishes between four types of human needs that Marx claimed must be recognised to achieve human emancipation: basic physical needs, less basic social needs, needs in labour, and the need for community. These needs are listed according to the order in which they appear in the 1844 Manuscripts. This investigation, however, will rearrange these in order of priority. As will become clear later, the notion of total human emancipation that will be developed at the end of this chapter implies a chronological process in the achievement of the human needs. First, the basic physical needs must be fulfilled before any further needs can be considered by the individual. Second, the productive and
11 Ibid. 12 Idem, p. 77. 13 Leopold, D. (2007). The Young Karl Marx. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
11 communal needs must be recognised. Finally, the emancipatory process can focus on the last stage, the social needs. At the moment, this relation of priority might seem arbitrary. Hopefully, its importance will become clearer once we have properly discussed the human needs throughout the remainder of this sub-section. For now, it can be said that the physical needs hold this primary position because the starving individual cannot be expected to think of any other need but the satisfaction of their hunger. Following that, the productive and communal needs hold the secondary position because their recognition entails the foundation of a truly human existence. Upon these foundations, the social needs will raise human existence to its greatest potential. This will become much clearer after we have discussed each of these needs in turn.
Physical Needs The first type of essentially human needs Leopold finds in Marx’s early writing are the basic physical needs. These needs are relatively uncontroversial and simple. Human emancipation requires the fulfilment of the needs for sustenance, basic hygiene, warmth and shelter.14 Marx also includes less obvious needs, however, such as climatic conditions and sexual activity. The need for particular climatic conditions includes the needs for “light” and “air.”15 Under sexual activity Marx includes, unfortunately, exclusively heterosexual relations by linking these activities to the reproduction of the species.16 This investigation will consider sexual activity more broadly as sexual relations between individuals, regardless of orientation and reproductive function.17 Recalling our earlier theoretical discussion, we can say that in pursuing these physical needs we are following a logic imposed upon us by nature and that we are, therefore, not yet entirely emancipated. As such, Marx writes in the 1844 Manuscript that there is no perceivable difference between the starving man and an animal when they eat to satisfy hunger.18 Furthermore, being burdened by these basic physical needs hinders us from ever becoming true species-beings, because we are as yet unable to freely determine our activities in human terms. As Marx writes in the third manuscript, “the care-burdened, poverty-stricken man has no sense for the finest play.”19 These basic physical needs, if left unfulfilled, reduce humanity to animalhood and block the way to further human emancipation. This emancipation can only begin in earnest with the recognition of the remaining human needs. It is here, therefore that we must turn to the following needs on our list, the productive and communal needs.
14 Idem, p. 228. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 17 Admittedly, this is a point that requires some theoretical justification. This investigation is, however, not the place to get into grander debates on sexuality and orientation. To avoid going on a distracting tangent, we can say simply that if we are trying to achieve a theory of emancipation that applies to all humans, we cannot discriminate on the basis of sexuality. 18 Marx, K. (1988). Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Amherst: Prometheus Books, p. 109. 19 Ibid.
12 Productive and Communal Needs As mentioned, the human needs are derived from Marx’s notion of life-activity. In order to be entirely emancipated, we must conduct our lives in truly human forms. The foundation of such a human existence lies in the productive and communal needs that Marx discusses in the 1844 Manuscripts. Put simply, Marx argues that emancipated labour and genuine community are essential to an emancipated existence. In order to properly present this argument, we will begin by discussing the productive need for a labour process that is self-directed and fulfilling, followed by the communal need for genuine and mutual relations between human beings. Recalling our discussion of the beaver, we said earlier that while every living species labours in some way, only us humans determine labour on our own terms. To be properly human, then, we require a labour process that is led primarily by human logics and avoids determination by nature as much as possible. Our work should be an expression of our humanity. This productive need is fulfilled by an emancipated labour process. Here, Marx posits four relations of labour that must be emancipated to fulfil this human need.20 First, the relation between worker and product. In self-realising work the labourer’s creations embody their talents and abilities, which is something the labourer draws pleasure from. In other words, the labourer recognises the product as a product of their own talents, allowing them to be proud of it. Second, the relation between worker and process. The emancipated labour process is organised in such a way as to allow for the labourer to express and employ individual talents. Third, the relation between worker and other individuals. Under conditions of emancipated labour, each worker takes pleasure in having provided another human with needed goods, and a mutuality arises with strong emotive bonds. Fourth, the relation between worker and human nature. If truly emancipated, the process of production becomes an expression of humanity and a means to supply others with goods necessary for emancipation. In this sense, the productive worker becomes a mediator between humans and human nature. Emancipated labour, as stipulated above, is crucial to Marx’s concept of human emancipation. The worker gains an intimacy with the labour process that allows for the total fulfilment of her particular talents and abilities. Furthermore, work becomes something actually enjoyed by the labourer, a source of emotional and creative fulfilment. Finally, a community of labourers is built that engenders mutuality. Workers encounter each other as collaborators in the fulfilment of their human natures and recognise each other as such in “thought” and “love.”21 This brings us to the other aspect of truly human life-activity, the notion that we are essentially communal beings. A proper understanding of all our life-activity will reveal that nothing we do has ever truly been done alone. This is true in a basic sense when we say that the carpenter has relied on the toolmaker for his hammer, who in turn has relied on the lumberjack and the miner for his resources, all
20 Idem, p. 75-78 21 Marx, K. (n.d.). “Comments on James Mill”, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/james-mill/. Retrieved 25 May 2020.
13 of whom have in turn relied on the farmer for their foods. Our communal nature is also true, however, in a far deeper and more meaningful sense. To show this, Marx takes academic theorising as an example. On the surface, this seems like an individual activity par excellence. In the end, of course, it is the thinker alone doing the thinking. However, even in this seemingly individual activity wherein we draw only from our own capacities our communal nature is revealed.
But again when I am active scientifically, etc. – when I am engaged in activity which I can seldom perform in direct community with others – then I am social, because I am active as a man. Not only is the material of my activity given to me as a social product (as is even the language in which the thinker is active): my own existence is social activity, and therefore that which I make of myself, I make of myself for society and with the consciousness of myself as a social being.22
Besides being an interesting mission statement for Marxist academia, this quote reveals a great deal of insight into human consciousness. Again, in the thinker we see community in the basic sense. To even begin to think, the thinker requires language, a social product. However, even deeper than that, our very existence is communal. We live and work by social logics and always within a communal network. The properly conscious human being thus thinks as an expression of real community. In this vein, Marx writes that, “[one’s] general consciousness is only the theoretical shape of that of which the living shape is the real community.”23 Life and thought become identical in embodying true, emancipated humanity. Under conditions of alienated labour, however, we are separated from this essentially human life-activity. Again, Marx draws on the four relations within the labour process by which we can recognise such alienating labour. First, the relation between the worker and the product of labour. Bestowing life on the product of her labour, the worker creates something that is no longer hers. She is confronted by “an alien object exercising power over” her.24 Second, the relation between the worker and the labour process. Alienated labour is conducted within a process over which the worker, again, has lost control. The labour process is “turned against him, neither depends on nor belongs to him.”25 Third, the relation between the worker and other human individuals. The alienated worker is mutually estranged from other human beings such that no moral bond is created between them. The dehumanised worker sees herself as an individual, owing nothing to others. Fourth, the relation between the worker and human nature. By working merely to satisfy physical needs, the alienated worker turns their human essence, self-conscious life-activity, into a means for physical existence. This is the apex of dehumanisation, as our very human essences are turned against ourselves to obstruct the development of free life-activity. Alienated labour is thus the negation of humanity.
22 Marx, K. (1981). Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Amherst: Prometheus Books, p. 105. 23 Ibid. 24 Idem, p. 75. 25 Ibid.
14 To Marx, alienated labour is also necessarily connected to private property. Marx writes that private property is both the product of alienated labour and the means by which alienation is maintained and reproduced.26 Put simply, if the products and processes of labour appear to the worker as alien, they must necessarily be the possession of another being. It is through private property that the worker can be estranged from both the product and process of labour, living under perpetual conditions of alienation and dehumanisation.
Thus, if the product of his labor, his labor objectified, is for him an alien, hostile, powerful object independent of him, then his position towards it is such that someone else is master of this object, someone who is alien, hostile, powerful, and independent of him. If his own activity is to him an unfree activity, then he is treating it as activity performed in the service, under the dominion, the coercion and the yoke of another man.27
If alienation is the negation of humanity, maintained by private property, then overcoming these conditions would be the negation of the negation – the return to emancipated human life.
The transcendence of private property is therefore the complete emancipation of all human sense and attributes; but it is this emancipation precisely because these senses and attributes have become, subjectively and objectively, human.28
To summarise the last few paragraphs, we have begun to grapple with Marx’s notion of emancipation understood as a return to the species-being. This means living and thinking in truly human terms, or, according to those capacities that make us truly human. We have found that this consists of two central components. First, the emancipated human being engages in free, self-determined and self-conscious life-activity. Second, this activity takes place with a consciousness of the communal nature of not only the activity itself, but also the communal nature of our own existence. One could argue, then, that this is the familiar Marxist project of material emancipation embedded within a language of humanism. This humanist bend, however, is not merely interesting packaging for a theory we are already familiar with. First of all, because it is connected directly to a stipulated image of what the emancipated human being looks like, humanist Marxism is more than a critique of capitalism; it also hints more concretely at what should replace it. This line of inquiry will be taken up in Chapter 4. Second, humanist Marxism is far more than simply Marxism expressed in terms of human nature; it also introduces valuable concepts within its own framework. In particular, the final category of needs, the social needs, present an image of emancipation that goes much further than the typical material revolution. These will be introduced in the remainder of this sub-section.
26 Idem, p. 81. 27 Idem, p. 80. 28 Idem, p. 107.
15 Social Needs It is with the introduction of the social needs that we have arrived at perhaps the most original contribution of Marx’s early period to his general thought. It is these needs, defined as the recognition of essentially human capacities, that truly define the humanist Marxist conception of emancipation above and beyond the material dimension. Again, we owe a great debt to Leopold’s work in categorising these needs as we find them spread throughout the 1844 Manuscripts, under no coherent banner. The first of the social needs found by Leopold are the needs for recreation and culture. In this group we can include watching plays, dancing, singing, and going out drinking, as specific mention is made by Marx of “the theatre, the dance-hall, the public-house.”29 Another social need is that for education and intellectual exercise. Here Marx mentions thinking, theorising, reading and learning in general.30 Also part of this category of social needs are artistic expression and aesthetic pleasure, as Marx counts “painting”31 and “an eye for beauty”32 among our essential human capacities. Finally, and perhaps most relevant to our investigation, Marx mentions the need for emotional fulfilment, placing particular importance on the need “to love.”33 Following Leopold, we do not consider each of these examples in the 1844 Manuscripts as specific needs but as indicative of a broader category.34 For example, as described above, when Marx writes of the dance-hall, we do not say that dancing itself is emancipatory but that there is a human need for recreation. As such, we can develop a list of social needs as follows.
i. Recreation ii. Culture iii. Intellectual Fulfilment iv. Artistic Expression v. Aesthetic Pleasure vi. Emotional Fulfilment
These social needs can also be understood as an extension of the earlier statement that human life- activity must be guided by human logics. Put concretely, a truly human mode of existence will aim at the fulfilment of the productive and communal needs, as described above, but also recognise the social needs. The emancipated human does not construct a building only to provide shelter, but also to gain a setting in which people can come together to engage in culture, intellectual fulfilment or simply to sustain meaningful relationships.
29 Idem, p. 118-119. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid. 32 Idem, p. 108 33 Idem, p. 119. 34 This approach has a number of benefits that will be discussed in depth in a later sub-section entitled “Universality & Specificity.”
16 Total Human Emancipation and the Human Needs Taken together, the four human needs provide a picture of total human emancipation. First, the basic physical needs are those determined by nature. We must eat, sleep and shelter from the elements. If we do not fulfil these needs, we cannot even begin to become emancipated. Second, we must begin to make our life-activities the object of our will, as Marx puts it. This means shaping our entire modes of existence towards the fulfilment of our remaining human needs for emancipated labour, community and the social needs. A useful way to think of these needs is through their relation to alienation. As Leopold writes in his description of this concept in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, alienation implies a separation from something.35 Not just any kind of separation counts as alienation, however. The subject must be separated from something, or in such a way, that this separation is problematic. In humanist Marxism, this problematic separation is found in the separation of human individuals from their human essence. In other words, in humanist Marxism, alienation is understood as de-humanisation. While the human needs are basic and essential to humanity, it is not guaranteed that they are felt. This is how, from a humanist Marxism, we might explain why we have not yet been emancipated in this way. In this vein, Marx comes to the seemingly paradoxical conclusion that we come closer to emancipation the more deprived we feel.36 Only when we feel all our human needs in their various and complicated forms, have we gained a true understanding of what it means to be human. The alienated human being, however, does not feel these needs and is therefore inhibited from any emancipation. There are two ways in which we can be alienated from these human needs. First, as already discussed, being physically deprived will occupy all our energies towards immediate goals of satisfying hunger, finding shelter or breathing clean air. Again, the starving man cannot be asked to think of intellectual fulfilment. Second, individuals can be alienated from their human needs through the mediation of a fetish. This is to say, that certain phenomena take on the appearance of relating to our human needs when in fact they obscure more than they reveal. In discussing the fetish, Marx focuses on the fetishization of the commodity.37 It is well-known how Marx argues that the commodity presents itself as an autonomous object, thus obfuscating the social relations of capitalism that lie behind it.38 Within our understanding of alienation as de-humanisation, however, this fetish relationship takes on another component. The commodity is further fetishized by presenting itself as the gratification of our human needs. In other words, buying a house is presented as fulfilling our human need for shelter, or buying books as satisfying our needs for intellectual fulfilment. Gratification is always mediated through the commodity-fetish. As such, we do not feel our human needs directly, but only the pseudo-
35 Leopold, D. (2019). “Alienation”, In: Zalta, E (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/alienation/. Retrieved 3 April 2020. 36 Marx, K. (1981). Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Amherst: Prometheus Books, p. 117. 37 Lewin, H. & Morris, J. (1977). “Marx’s Concept of Fetishism”, Science & Society, 41(2): 172-190. 38 Idem, p. 173.
17 need for commodities, or the resources to acquire them. What happens then is that we lose all our diverse human needs and feel instead only the single, pseudo-need for money.39 In this vein, Marx writes of this dehumanisation leading to the particularly dismal housing for many industrial workers of his time.
Even the need for fresh air ceases for the worker. Man returns to living in a cave, which is now, however, contaminated with the mephitic breath of plague given off by civilization, and which he continues to occupy only precariously, it being for him an alien habitation which can be withdrawn from him any day – a place from which, if he does not pay, he can be thrown out any day.40
Emancipation is then understood as the return to our human essence, accomplished by a proper recognition of the human needs. In this vein, we can formulate the particular humanist Marxist understanding of emancipation. We must be engaged in free, self-conscious activity that is guided by the pursuit of our social needs, within a community of genuinely mutual relations. As such, overcoming alienation, and thus achieving total human emancipation, requires the recognition of all our human needs, as stipulated by Marx in the 1844 Manuscripts. Having formulated this understanding of emancipation, it is important that we now turn to relevant critiques of this concept. This is important for two reasons. First, any statement becomes more convincing if it is proven able to engage successfully with detractors. Second, by interacting with important criticisms, we ensure that we are not overlooking anything in our theory or making claims that we do not intend to. In Sub-section 2.1.2 we will therefore tackle the main existing critiques of the humanist Marxist understanding of total human emancipation.
2.1.2 Humanist Marxism: The Undeveloped and Unscientific Marx? The content of humanist Marxism derives almost entirely from Marx’s early writings, culminating in the 1844 Manuscripts. Chronologically, this category of Marx’s writings forms the stage before his more rigorously scientific works of the Grundrisse and his most famous work, Capital. Many commentators have, therefore, argued that humanist Marxism presents an immature stage in the development of Marx’s thought and should be read only as the precursor to more valuable, later work. In this vein, Louis Althusser finds a radical epistemological break within Marx’s thought between these two periods, whereby only works in the latter period can be considered scientific and valuable.41 Personally, I am unconvinced by this critique for a number of reasons. First, even if we accept an epistemological break between humanist Marxism and scientific Marxism, it is not obvious that this disqualifies the earlier period entirely. If anything, we are lucky to have access to the inspirations and
39 This line of reasoning will be taken up more fully in the next chapter, when we discuss the possibility of emancipation within capitalism more directly. 40 Marx, K. (1988). Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Amherst: Prometheus Books, p. 117. 41 Althusser, L. (2005). For Marx. London: Verso.
18 concerns that Marx carried with him into his, perhaps more opaque, scientific writings. Second, humanist Marxism is far more concerned with imagining its ideal society and what exactly an emancipated human being is to look like. The writings of Marx’s scientific period are incredibly lucid and analytical critiques of capitalism but famously silent on what is to be done after the revolution. From this earlier period, we can thus draw far more insights into what it is we are concretely fighting for. Third, I am not convinced that humanist Marxism is as idealistic as it is often portrayed. As was made clear in our discussion above, this tradition starts from the analysis of what human life and relations truly look like – what separates us from other species. The starting point of humanist Marxism is, therefore, not simple armchair philosophising by Marx but a concrete analysis of social relations. Nonetheless, while I am sceptical of much of the backlash against humanist Marxism, there is a great deal of insight to be gained by engaging with its critiques. Another way to look at this debate would be to place it within the larger academic debate on what is known as ideal theory. This type of thinking is concerned with finding perfect principles and scenarios, unrestricted by issues of feasibility. Ingrid Robeyns has characterised ideal theory as the search for a “Paradise Island” and summarised it as follows:
The aim of ideal theory is to work out the principle of justice that should govern a society, that is, to propose and justify a set of principles of justice that should be met before we would consider a certain society just.42
The primary value of ideal theory lies in the fact that it allows unrestrained thinking and gives the critical theorist free rein to dream up the perfectly emancipated world. As such, this type of theorising can be effective in producing new theories that are properly imaginative and ground-breaking. The major problems with ideal theory, however, stem from the very same fact that make it so effective. Specifically, the fact that this kind of theorising is divorced from the constraints of the real world leads to two crucial weaknesses. First, by being concerned only with perfect outcomes, ideal theory does not provide a roadmap or blueprint on how to build that perfect society. As such, it cannot adequately serve the critical thinker or activist in the real world. Ideal theory, therefore, will always run the risk of fulfilling that classic stereotype of the academic in her ivory tower. Second, as Charles W. Mills has pointed out, by relying on idealised models of the real world, ideal theory leads to “the exclusion, or at least marginalization, of the actual.”43 In other words, the real issues faced by real people can be easily ignored in ideal theory. There are two central critiques that support the claim that the project of humanist Marxism is either too ideal or based on unscientific principles. First, one might say that a level of universality is maintained here that is simply untenable. In other words, there is no way to produce a list of needs and
42 Robeyns, I. (2008). “Ideal Theory in Theory and Practice”, Social Theory and Practice, 34(3): 341-362, p. 343. 43 Mills, C.W. (2005). ““Ideal Theory” as Ideology”, Hypatia, 20(3): 165-184, p. 168.
19 activities that will somehow emancipate every single human being. Second, one might say that any goal for the perfection of human life is simply too ambitious. The real world is a dirty place and absolute perfection can never be achieved. These objections will be discussed in the following section in order to proceed towards a concrete blueprint for human emancipation.
Universality & Specificity Philosophers and social scientists have long tried to come up with conclusive lists of what it means to be truly human. In the early stages in the development of social psychology, Henry Murray posited over 25 basic human needs that were supposedly felt by all individuals.44 There were two main critiques of this now all but forgotten theory. First, the list was considered long to the point of being unwieldy. Conceptualising and applying lists like these, critics argued, “would only lead to longer and longer lists, of dubious usefulness.”45 Second, as a necessary result of such a long list of needs, many of the needs were actually potentially conflicting. The proposed need for deference to superior individuals, for example, could easily conflict with the proposed need for superiority over others. As a result of this unsuccessful endeavour, social psychology has mostly steered clear of definitive lists of basic human needs. This is an important experience for the evaluation of humanist Marxism. These problems raised by social psychologists against Murray’s system of human needs must be responded to before the humanist Marxist project can be taken up in full. For this purpose, we can generalise the critiques brought against Murray into two larger objections. The first critique can be reformulated into the objection that humanity is so diverse that to create a list of basic human needs would result in a list that is long to the point of being useless. The second critique can be reformulated into the objection that humanity is so diverse that any list of basic human needs would necessarily contain conflicting and contradictory needs. Regarding the first objection, we must remember that other famous psychologist of basic human needs, Abraham Maslow, with his emphasis on the relevance of specificity. Maslow suggests that the exact number of needs that make up any list of essentially human needs “depends entirely on the degree of specificity with which one chooses to analyse them.”46 In other words, the list of basic human needs can be endless if one chooses to be extremely specific. However, one can choose instead to work more generally and find the grander categories to which each human need belongs. If we understand each of Marx’s examples as a tentative suggestion, we can actually build upon them and come to a relatively systematic account of human emancipation. For example, as in the work of David Leopold discussed above, when Marx suggests reading and theorising, we can understand
44 Murray, H. (1938). Explorations in Personality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 45 Pittman, T. & Zeigler, K. (2007). Basic Human Needs, In: Kruglanski, A. & Tory Higgins, E. (ed.), Social Psychology. New York: The Guilford Press, p. 476. 46 Maslow, A. (1987). Motivation and Personality. New York: Harper & Row, p. 25.
20 these not as specific needs but as part of the general need for intellectual fulfilment. The point is not to create an exhaustive list of activities that are essential to humanity, but to find those activities that conceivably allow the individual to develop and deploy their humanity. As such, the claim is not that going to the theatre is emancipatory per se, but that being exposed to culture and aesthetic pleasure are elements of human emancipation. What we get then is a list of basic human needs as follows:
i. Physical needs: sustenance, hygiene, warmth, shelter, climatic conditions, sexual activity ii. Productive needs: emancipated labour iii. Need for community: mutuality and equality iv. Social needs: recreation, culture, intellectual fulfilment, artistic expression, aesthetic pleasure, emotional fulfilment.
This approach is not simply less controversial but also far more useful than a very specific and direct interpretation of Marx’s writing. It is important to remember that the 1844 Manuscripts are unfinished and unpublished notes. Furthermore, there is no attempt to create an exhaustive, systematic account of the particular capacities that should or should not be counted as essentially human. Instead, it makes more sense to read all these examples of activities and capacities as exemplary cases. We cannot take seriously the thought that Marx truly believed that one of the secrets of human emancipation is to frequently go fencing, or that the dance-hall is the true arena of liberation for all. Such an objection would not do justice to Marx’s body of thought. This more general approach to the understanding of human needs is also fruitful for responding to the second objection, which claims that human needs can be conflicting and contradictory. At the level of extreme specificity, it will be easy to find a conflict between human needs. For example, Marx mentions both going drinking and fencing as specific examples of emancipatory activities. Unless one is exceptionally reckless or does not particularly care about the rules of the sport, these are two practically conflicting activities. You really should not be fencing drunk. In the more general approach, however, both of these activities fall under the general need for recreation, and the conflict disappears. Understood in this way, the claim is simply that human emancipation requires the fulfilment of a basic need for recreation in whichever way the individual defines that for themselves. In this way, we avoid many of the problems of universalising. At this more general level, the claims made about basic human needs are much less problematic, and the risk of an unfair characterisation of needs is reduced. But this does not solve all of our problems. We are, of course, still claiming that there are four basic categories of human needs, as listed above, that must be recognised for total human emancipation. These categories must, therefore, be evaluated in turn.
21 Universality of the Physical Needs The first category is that of the physical needs. As mentioned, there is little reason to think of these as controversial. Basic human survival requires the fulfilment of each of the needs categorised under this banner. Without sustenance, hygiene, warmth, shelter and sexual activity there simply would not be human life, let alone any comfortable life. The need for climatic conditions is perhaps more dubious, but it, too, makes sense when considered properly. Light and air are crucial to adequate standards of living. In this vein, the United Nations Environmental Programme has argued that clean air should be considered a basic human right.47 The deeper importance for total human emancipation, beyond mere survival, of these basic physical needs is also well-supported by social psychological findings. Returning again to Maslow and his famous hierarchy of needs, we see that it is generally accepted that one cannot fulfil higher needs, such as entering fulfilling relationships or engaging in cultural activities, unless the primary, physical needs are fulfilled.48 This seems relatively obvious, too; a starving woman can hardly be expected to focus on achieving her need for intellectual fulfilment.
Universality of the Productive and Communal Needs Regarding these two categories of needs we can also be less than thorough. Both the need for non- alienating labour (productive needs) and genuine community (need for community) are core aspects of any Marxist project and, for the most part, leftist political theory at large. For discussions on the productive needs of humanity one could look to David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs49 or David Leopold’s entry on Alienation in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.50 The need for community is perhaps even less controversial, as it can be found even far outside of Marxist theory. Social psychology, for example, has long held that community is a central need for human thriving.51 Leopold’s The Young Karl Marx also contains deeper discussions of both of these needs in direct relation to humanist Marxism.52 For the present purposes, though, it will be concluded that total human emancipation requires also the needs for non-alienating labour and the need for community.
Universality of the Social Needs The final category is that of the social needs. There is a great deal of literature on the social needs of humanity and unfortunately not enough space within this investigation to cover it all. Generally,
47 United Nations Environmental Programme (2019. Clean air as a human right. https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and- stories/story/clean-air-human-right. Retrieved 1 April 2020. 48 Maslow, A. (1987). Motivation and Personality. New York: Harper & Row, p. 97. 49 Graber, D. (2019). Bullshit Jobs. London: Penguin. 50 Leopold, D. (2019). “Alienation”, In: Zalta, E (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/alienation/. Retrieved 3 April 2020. 51 Pittman, T. & Zeigler, K. (2007). Basic Human Needs, In: Kruglanski, A. & Tory Higgins, E. (ed.), Social Psychology. New York: The Guilford Press, p. 485. 52 Leopold, D. (2007). The Young Karl Marx. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
22 however, we can distinguish and discuss three relevant approaches to the social needs of humanity. For the present purpose, we shall term these homo ludens, homo sapiens, and homo amans. The first approach, homo ludens, posits the centrality of playfulness to human nature. The term was coined by historian Johan Huizinga, who argues that play has always been a central activity of human life, deeply interwoven with the foundation of all civilization.53 In Huizinga’s account, there are three foundational institutions of civilization that find their origin in the “primaeval soil of play.”54 First, in language the spirit of play is embodied by the continual to-and-fro between mind and matter, most obvious in the use of metaphors. Second, mythology is founded on playing “on the border-line between jest and earnest.”55 Finally, ritual must be understood as the culmination of serious play. To Huizinga, these three institutions form the foundation of civilization and show the centrality of play to human nature. There is not a person on the planet who has not at some point played in some way. It seems to come very naturally to us, not only as children but through our entire lives. It seems fair, therefore, to say that playfulness is a central need of human nature. In this vein, the art critic John Berger, commenting on prehistoric cave paintings, writes that art (a form of play) is “born like a foal that can walk straight away.”56 In other words, from the very start, humanity has been making art and engaging with reality in a playful way. In fact, Plato even goes so far as to say that one cannot live a full life without play.
What, then, is the right way of living? Life must be lived as play, playing certain games, making sacrifices, singing and dancing, and then a man will be able to propitiate the gods, and defend himself against his enemies and win in the contest.57
What we find here is thus a strong argument for the social needs of recreation, culture, artistic expression and aesthetic pleasure. The centrality of play to human nature indicates that we require the recognition of all these social needs to live a full and emancipated human life. The second approach, homo sapiens, posits the centrality of rationality and intellectuality to human nature. It is probably fair to say that most discourses on human nature begin by distinguishing man from animals by virtue of rationality. Ever since the Islamic Golden Age, and later the Enlightenment in Europe, it has become commonplace to consider reason and rational thought as the prime human activities – that which separates us from animals. One of the most famous expressions of
53 Huizinga, J. (1980). Homo Ludens. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 54 Idem, p. 5. 55 Ibid. 56 Berger, J. (2002). “Past Present”, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2002/oct/12/art.artsfeatures3. Retrieved 2 April 2020. 57 Ardley, G. (1967). “The Role of Play in the Philosophy of Plato”, Philosophy, 42(161): 226-244, p. 226.
23 this idea is the Cartesian cogito ergo sum, or, “I think, therefore I am.”58 Our ability to doubt and to think are the foundational proof of our very existence. The homo sapiens approach gives credibility to considering intellectual fulfilment as a basic social need. If our ability to doubt and think and theorise is fundamental to our human nature, then it makes sense that total human emancipation requires the recognition of a need to do so. The third approach, homo amans, posits the centrality of love to human nature. This approach is best represented by Søren Kierkegaard, often called the philosopher of love. According to Kierkegaard, humanity even has a duty to love, expressed as “You shall love.”59 This is because love “builds up” in the sense of “constructing something from the ground up into the heights.”60 By loving another, humans raise themselves to a higher level, even transforming the world around them into something more beautiful. The homo amans approach presents a strong argument for emotional fulfilment as a basic social human need. Through love we enter the meaningful relationships that humanity so desires, and raise ourselves, and the world around us, to a higher, more beautiful, level. Total human emancipation would seem, therefore, to require emotional fulfilment. Clearly, there are solid arguments to claim that either playfulness, or intellectuality, or emotionality are the defining feature or essential need of humanity. One could easily spend an entire book weighing the arguments of Kierkegaard, Huizinga and Descartes against each other, but for our present purposes that does not seem fruitful. If we were to pick any of these social needs, as listed above, to be the one essential need of humanity, we would necessarily be universalising to a greater extent than is desirable. To say that the essential need for human emancipation is, for example, aesthetic pleasure would ignore the valid arguments presented by Kierkegaard and Descartes. Similarly, if we were to say that intellectual fulfilment is the one true emancipatory need for humanity, we would have no answer to Huizinga’s claims for the centrality of play to human nature. Keep in mind, too, that even Kant, that great champion of rationality, considered moral feelings and love essential to a full human life.61 When it comes to the social needs, then, it is important not to place too much importance on any of them individually. Some people will find their joys in a beautiful painting, while others will be most thrilled by a night spent with good friends. It is a simple fact that none of these social needs can be said to be the singular, essential human need. All we can say is that human emancipation requires the recognition of each of these needs, present to a greater or lesser extent in every individual. We cannot simply reject any of them as essential, but we also cannot present any of them as the primary need. Another aspect of these social needs that becomes clear through the discussion above is their interrelatedness. The social needs for recreation, culture and aesthetic pleasure, for example, can easily
58 Descartes, R. (2003). Discourse on Method and Meditation. New York: Dover Publications. 59 Kierkegaard, S. (2009). Works of Love. New York: Harper Collins, p. 34. 60 Idem, p. 201 61 Wilson, E. (2018). “Kant and Hume on Morality”, In: Zalta, E. (ed.) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-hume-morality/. Retrieved 25 May 2020.
24 be fulfilled by the very same action. For example, if an individual is particularly fond of the opera, going to a performance will fulfil all three of these needs. Further still, if one goes to the opera hall with cherished friends the need for emotionally fulfilling relations can also be satisfied. As such, the basic human needs, however individuals prioritise them, can be largely complementary.
Perfection & Feasibility The past section has been concerned with the problem of unfairly universalising our claims on human nature. We have avoided this problem, first, by adjusting the level of specificity. In this vein we have opted to choose for a more general approach to the human needs as opposed to positing specific activities as fulfilling basic human needs. Second, we discussed other theories of human nature, categorised as homo ludens, homo sapiens and homo amans. In doing so we have made sure that none of our claims on the social needs required for human emancipation are posited without wider theoretical backing. Furthermore, we have found that none of the conceptions of man can be presented as the final, singular understanding of human nature. Our framework of the basic needs of humanity thus considers them all together, existing in different measures in each individual. Having discussed the problem of universality, we are left with the problem of feasibility. The relevant objection here was that any project aimed at perfecting or fulfilling humanity is simply too ambitious. As such, we would run the risk of designing some Paradise Island to which no real politics could ever lead. It is important, therefore, to formulate our principles of human emancipation in such a way as to make them conceivably possible in the real world. This is not the same critique as claiming that the needs are invalid because they imply a level of human life above mere survival. One can accept that humanity must thrive to be emancipated, but that these particular requirements are nonetheless too demanding. As such, it will be assumed that the basic physical needs listed above are uncontroversial. Regarding the social needs there can be more debate on their feasibility. To take only one example, it will obviously be extremely difficult to ensure that every individual achieves emotional fulfilment, whatever that means for them. No communist revolution can ever guarantee that the person you love will love you back or that all your relationships will be fulfilling. That is simply an unrealistic goal. In one way or another, the same criticism applies to all the social needs. There is no way to guarantee that every individual will always be able to live a life that is filled with recreation, intellectual fulfilment and aesthetic pleasure. What can be achieved, however, is a situation that allows more than any other the fulfilment of these social needs. This is a crucial distinction. The goal cannot be to guarantee that every social need is permanently and perfectly met for every individual. Instead, taking the second objection into account, the goal must be to create such a situation wherein each individual has the greatest opportunity to fulfil their social needs.
25 This less ambitious objective applies equally to the productive and communal needs. There is no way to guarantee that all labour will be creatively fulfilling and totally enjoyable. Some tasks are necessary but simply not very enjoyable or imaginative. Similarly, even the greatest communities will contain people who quite simply do not get along. There is no way to guarantee that everyone will like each other. Here again we must curtail our ambitions and set our objectives to finding that situation most appropriate for achieving these needs. So far then, we have tackled two major critiques of humanist Marxism and developed our concept of total human emancipation further in light of their important implications. First, the basic human needs posited by humanist Marxism were defended and formulated in such a way as to avoid unfair universalisations. Second, the ambitiousness of this emancipatory project was curtailed to avoid ignoring relevant feasibility issues. With these developments in mind, all that remains for our discussion of humanist Marxism is to present a final, concrete image of the humanist Marxist project for total human emancipation.
2.1.3 Humanist Marxism: A Summary Humanist Marxism begins with an analysis of what separates humanity from other living species. We find that it is our particular form of life-activity that makes us truly human. What humans produce and how they do so is, unlike any other species, determined primarily by our own logic. We are not subject to nature to the same extent that other beings are and have replaced the demands of our natural environment with our own needs. For the most part, however, we live under alienating conditions that divorce us from this truly human life-activity. This can happen in two ways. First, when we are deprived of our physical needs, we live under the sole rule of nature and have no opportunity to expend our energies on emancipatory activity. Second, when we live under conditions of the commodity-fetish, we have no direct relation to gratification and are inhibited from feeling our human needs in any way other than the pseudo-need for money. Furthermore, modern conditions of private property and alienating labour also deprive us of our productive and communal needs. We are inhibited from understanding ourselves as mutual beings, engaged in free and self-conscious behaviour. Total human emancipation is therefore the return to human essence, the actualisation of all our essential capacities. This requires a recognition of the human needs, above and beyond those required for mere survival. To put it quite awkwardly in one sentence, we can say that emancipation is achieved when we recognise our needs for emancipated labour, genuine relations of mutuality and the social needs for recreation, culture, intellectual fulfilment, artistic expression, aesthetic pleasure and emotional fulfilment.
26 2.2 Beyond the Reality Principle in Psychoanalytical Marxism Another strand of Marxism concerned with total human emancipation is that of psychoanalytical Marxism. This school was greatly influenced, as we shall see, by the early humanist writings of Karl Marx, particularly the 1844 Manuscripts. With these sentiments in mind, it arose primarily as a critique of Freudian psychoanalysis. As such, in order to properly understand psychoanalytical Marxism, we will first need to briefly discuss the theoretical contributions of its primary opponent, Freud. In Sub-section 2.2.1, we will therefore begin with a discussion of Freudian psychoanalysis with a particular focus on its insistence on an eternal conflict between the individual psyche and civilisation. Following this, the Marxist response from Wilhelm Reich and Herbert Marcuse will be discussed in Sub-section 2.2.2. Once we are more familiar with the roots of psychoanalytical Marxism, we will investigate Marcuse’s understanding of emancipation in the psychoanalytical sense in Sub-section 2.2.3. Finally, Sub-section 2.2.4 will provide a summary of our findings so far.
2.2.1 Freudian Psychoanalysis Perhaps Sigmund Freud’s most important contribution to psychological theory and academia at large is his structural model of the psyche. This model was first introduced in Beyond the Pleasure Principle62 and developed fully in a later essay, The Ego and the Id.63 Freud posited that the human psyche consists of a rational conscious, embodied by the Ego, and an unconscious, embodied by the Id and the Superego. The Ego functions essentially as a mediator between the two unconscious parts of our psyche, choosing at different times to side with the one or the other. The most primal of these vying parties is the Id. For this part of our unconscious psyche, gratification and happiness are all that matters. As a response to external dangers or pressures, however, the Superego joins the internal psychological battle. This part of our unconscious represents the social conscience, or the introjection of external demands into our unconscious psyche. Between these two unconscious agents there is a constant battle to control the Ego. In simpler terms, our conscious selves are constantly being bombarded to listen either to our internal drives or external expectations. On the basis of this structural model, Freud posited that in the healthy mind this battle is eventually resolved in favour of the Superego. In other words, the healthy adult subjects himself to the demands of the real world and is not preoccupied with instinctual desires. In more Freudian terms, this implies giving up the pleasure principle of the Id, in favour of the reality principle of the Superego.
We know that the pleasure principle is proper to a primary method of working on the part of the mental apparatus, but that, from the point of view of the self-preservation of the organism among the difficulties of the external world, it is from the very outset inefficient and even highly dangerous.64
62 Freud, S. (1961). Beyond the Pleasure Principle. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 63 Freud, S. (1991). “The Ego and the Id”. In: Freud, S., On Metapsychology: 339-408. London: Penguin. 64 Freud, S. (1961). Beyond the Pleasure Principle. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, p. 4.
27 To Freud, reality requires us to move beyond the pleasure principle and accept a more realistic principle to live by than chasing after instant gratification all the time. It would simply, as the quote above tells us, be dangerous and inefficient not to accept the reality principle. This is not, however, paramount to a total abandonment of pleasure. Freud specifically argues that the reality principle is founded on the postponement of pleasure.65 By delaying gratification and pursuing its more sustainable satisfaction we ensure a more lasting pleasure in our lives. For this reason, Freud posits the necessity of repression – the healthy Freudian psyche is one that represses the instinctual desires of the Id. In order to side with the Superego and thus follow the reality principle, our Ego must not be susceptible to distractions of instant gratification emanating from the Id. In successful cases, the healthy mind succeeds in “turning something away, and keeping it at a distance, from the conscious.”66 This is, of course, not an easy process, as the Id is the primal part of our unconscious. In unsuccessful cases, the psyche will develop neurotic symptoms, even running the risk of turning this process into an “interminable struggle.”67 Nonetheless, Freud would later argue in Civilization and Its Discontents68 that instinctual repression is the foundation of all civilised life. From this view, one cannot overestimate the extent to which civilization is built upon a renunciation of instinct. In fact, to Freud, the extent to which the individuals in a society have embraced the reality principle is the marker of its civilizational development.69 This is because civilised life requires sacrifices from members of society. If everyone was simply running around chasing their instinctual pleasures, society would not function. Instead, Freud argues that we must submit to the reality principle and accept otherwise unacceptable levels of toil and domination. In this vein, Freud concluded that humanity does not want the freedom to pursue pleasure but longs instead for domination by society, our fellow men turned into prosthetic gods.
2.2.2 The Psychoanalytical Marxist Response The first of Freud’s Marxist detractors was Wilhelm Reich, a close pupil and one-time assistant director of one of Freud’s clinics. Reich was critical of Freud’s idea that neurosis was only a potential danger of instinctual repression, arguing instead that this kind of repression would always lead to unhealthy, unbalanced psyches. Focussing particularly on the sexual instincts, Reich believed that the abandonment of the pleasure principle did not mark a human liberation towards civilisation but rather a regression into oppressive moralism.
65 Idem, p. 6. 66 Freud, S. (1991). “Repression”, In: Freud, S., On Metapsychology: 145-158. London: Penguin, p. 147. 67 Idem, p. 158. 68 Freud, S. (1962). Civilization and Its Discontents. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. 69 Idem, p. 44.
28 What is correct in [Freud’s] theory is only that sexual suppression forms the mass-psychological basis for a certain culture, namely, the patriarchal authoritarian one, in all its forms. What is incorrect is the formulation that sexual suppression is the basis of culture in general.70
This is the founding argument of psychoanalytical Marxism. Instinctual repression might correctly be considered the basis of modern civilisation, as Freud posited, but it does not have to be the basis for all forms of civilisation. Instead, an emancipated civilisation of humanity could be built upon less oppressive mass-psychological foundations. In other words, though this particular school of critical theory is Marxist, for its adherents the simple overthrowing of the bourgeoisie is not enough. Much like humanist Marxism, psychoanalytical Marxism finds that there are far deeper, human-psychological battles to be won as well. Building on this foundational critique, Herbert Marcuse of the Frankfurt School would write arguably the most important text for psychoanalytical Marxism, Eros and Civilization.71 Following Reich, Marcuse also argues that it is merely a historical fact that civilisation has “progressed as organised domination,” but it did not have to be so.72 In other words, Freud is attacked here for falsely turning what are actually historical contingencies into biological truths. Even if repression may once have been instrumental for civilised life, humanity has since progressed far beyond this need.
[The individual mind] exercises against itself, unconsciously, a severity which once was appropriate to an infantile stage of its development but which has long since become obsolete in the light of the rational potentialities of (individual and social) maturity. The individual punishes itself (and then is punished) for deeds which are undone or which are no longer incompatible with civilized reality, with civilized man.73
In light of this progression of humanity beyond the need for total instinctual repression, Marcuse introduces the notion of surplus-repression. This concept means accepting that some repression might be “necessary for the perpetuation of the human race in civilization,” but that we are currently doing far more than that.74 Surplus-repression, then, consists of all the instinctual repression that is unnecessary for communal life. It does not satisfy any of our human needs but serves only those who benefit from social domination. Surplus-repression is directly tied to the prevailing reality principle. By siding with the Superego, the demands of the external world are internalised in the individual psyche, and real human happiness is forgone. By accepting the reality principle, we punish ourselves for deeds “which are no longer incompatible” with civilisation.75 What happens here is that we understand ourselves no longer
70 Reich, W. (1951). The Sexual Revolution. London: Vision, p. 10. 71 Marcuse, H. (1974). Eros and Civilization. Boston: Beacon Press. 72 Idem, p. 34. 73 Idem, p. 33. 74 Idem, p. 34. 75 Idem, p. 33.
29 as agents of our individual needs and goals but as instruments for the maintenance of the world as we know it. We could be free, but instead we accept a supposedly unalterable reality as it currently exists. As such, we do not live actual lives but act out roles that have already been decided for us.
Men do not live their own lives but perform pre-established functions. While they work, they do not fulfill their own needs and faculties but work in alienation […;] alienated labor is absence of gratification, negation of the pleasure principle. Libido is diverted for socially useful performances in which the individual works for himself only in so far as he works for the apparatus, engaged in activities that mostly do not coincide with his own faculties and desires.76
In typical Marxist fashion, Marcuse understands this situation as the result of a particular dialectic, the dialectic of civilisation. This process is represented as a battle between Eros and Thanatos, the Greek gods of Love and Death, respectively.77 Initially, civilisation requires the work of Eros. Civilised life requires the love and mutual care embodied by Eros to come together in the thousand different ways that build up civilisation. The great progress of civilisation has, however, also required the work of Thanatos. Mastery over nature, industrial production and fulfilling our ever-increasing material needs has necessitated the use of destruction and domination. Both of these forces, if properly balanced, are indispensable for civilisation and proper human life. Yet the very success of these two powers working in tandem has shifted the dialectical balance. In other words, it is precisely the success of civilisation that justifies the repressive hold it maintains on our individual psyches.
But the closer the real possibility of liberating the individual from the constraints once justified by scarcity and immaturity, the greater the need for maintaining and streamlining these constraints lest the established order of domination dissolve. Civilization has to defend itself against the specter of a world which could be free. If society cannot use its growing productivity for reducing repression (because such usage would upset the hierarchy of the status quo), productivity must be turned against the individuals; it becomes itself an instrument of universal control.78
Far from balancing each other out, the success of civilisation has required the strengthening of Thanatos. The destructive powers of civilisation are turned inwards to keep the “established order of domination” from tumbling. In modern civilisation, Thanatos has won the dialectic of civilisation, conquered Eros and subjugated the individual consciousness. To Marcuse, this has led to the inability to feel truly human needs. Instead, we feel only those needs that are shaped by and can be fulfilled by
76 Idem, p. 45. 77 Idem, p. 78-80. 78 Idem, p. 93.
30 the existing world. Humanity has entirely lost “the awareness that they could […] determine their own needs and satisfactions”79 Resistance is not futile, we have simply forgotten how to imagine it. This argument is very similar to those made by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, colleagues at the Frankfurt School, in The Dialectic of Enlightenment.80 The greatest achievement of humanity, culture, is turned against those it was supposed to benefit. To Adorno and Horkheimer, the liberating powers of culture are turned into the destructive powers of mass culture produced by a culture industry.81 In all fields of life, then, the modern individual is alienated from their human essence and reduced to a collective “state of anaesthesia.”82
The human energies which sustained the [reality] principle are becoming increasingly dispensable. The automatization of necessity and waste, of labor and entertainment, precludes the realization of individual potentialities in this realm.83
2.2.3 Towards the Orphic and Narcissistic As was noted above, the psychoanalytical Marxist critique of modern civilisation is based, crucially, on historical contingency. Essentially, it is argued that instinctual repression has been at the centre of societal progress but that it does not necessarily have to be. As such, an emancipated future is possible. In this sub-section we will trace the emancipated future that emanates from psychoanalytical Marxism. In Marcusian terms, the dialectic of civilisation can be re-engaged by gradually strengthening the powers of Eros. The key to this process is the unleashing of “phantasy.”84 The power of phantasy lives in the unconscious Id, which was made powerless by civilisation and must be armed once again. It is aimed at the reconciliation of reason and pleasure, reconciling the reality principle and the pleasure principle for a fulfilled human life. Here Marcuse relies on the insights of surrealist artist Andre Breton.
To reduce imagination to slavery – even if one’s so-called happiness is at stake – means to violate all that one finds in one’s inmost self of ultimate justice. Imagination alone tells me what can be.85
It is important that Marcuse chooses to quote an artist here because art plays a crucial emancipatory role. This is because the prevailing reality principle has relegated the liberating powers of phantasy to utopia to such an extent that it can only exist in art. Only in art can the “tabooed logic” of emancipation be carefully expressed.86 The fantastic demand of “Ohne Angst Leben,” to live without anxiety, cannot be allowed to gain expression in political theory, the supposed realm of the real. The real possibility of
79 Idem, p. 100. 80 Adorno, T. & Horkheimer, M. (2002). The Dialectic of Enlightenment. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 81 Marcuse, H. (1974). Eros and Civilization. Boston: Beacon Press, p. 104. 82 Idem, p. 104. 83 Idem, p. 105. 84 Idem, p. 140. 85 Idem, p. 149. 86 Idem, p. 185.
31 freedom is turned into an infantile dream. This radical critique inherent in phantasy must be taken from art and placed into the real world. To explain how this can happen, Marcuse draws once again from Greek mythology.87 The modern world is depicted as following the image of Prometheus as its culture-hero. In the story, Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to humanity. In doing so, the immortal endowed humanity with reason, but was punished by the gods. Tied to a rock for eternity, an eagle would sweep down each day and eat at Prometheus, only for his body to be regenerated the next day. As the modern culture-hero, Prometheus embodies the idea that gratification requires toil and sacrifice. The story reminds us that happiness can only be achieved through suffering. Prometheus could not outsmart the gods any more than can we escape reality. Counterposed to the Promethean culture-hero, Marcuse introduces the images of Orpheus and Narcissus. Orpheus’s songs and music could charm anyone, even rocks and stone, into a sensual state. As such, the Orphic image is one of sensuousness, instinctual gratification and aestheticism. Narcissus was famously obsessed with beauty, so much so that in modern depictions he chases his own reflection in a river and drowns. The Narcissistic image is one of obsession with and pursuit of beauty. These are, therefore, radical critiques of the Promethean image. Under the Orphic and Narcissistic images, life ought not to be spent toiling but should be dedicated to happiness and beauty.
The Orphic and Narcissistic Eros is to the end the negation of this order – the Great Refusal. In the world symbolized by the culture-hero Prometheus, it is the negation of all order; but in this negation Orpheus and Narcissus reveal a new reality, with an order of its own, governed by different principles.88
In order to trace these new and different principles that are to govern our new reality, Marcuse engages with the thought of Friedrich Schiller, an 18th century writer and philosopher. Schiller posited that man had been dealt a mortal wound by modern civilisation that separated the sensuous and the reasonable. This wound can only be healed by bringing these two modes of human existence back into harmony. As such, the emancipated life is one in which duty and pleasure coincide.89 Marcuse adds that the founding principle of an emancipated civilisation is, therefore, a commitment to pleasure.90 The reasonable must be minimised and always serve the sensuous – duty must be subordinated to pleasure. Marcuse is not particularly clear on what that would look like in reality. Generally speaking, though, he paints a picture of a world wherein toil is absolutely minimised and the great powers of civilisation are harnessed to satisfy our pleasures, rather than repress them. A key component of this is labour. Freedom cannot exist in the realm of necessary labour, which is a system of “essentially
87 Idem, p. 160. 88 Idem, p. 171. 89 Moland, L. (2017). “Friedrich Schiller”, In: Zalta, E. (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schiller/. Retrieved 25 May 2020. 90 Marcuse, H. (1971). Eros and Civilization. Boston: Beacon Press, p. 190.
32 inhuman, mechanical, and routine activities.”91 Emancipated human existence requires the minimalization of necessary labour. We must only ever work enough to sustain our primary mode of being in the new reality governed by Eros and pleasure. Labour must be completely subordinated to play. We can generalise these statements on labour to say that the emancipated human being lives in a world where all necessary yet unpleasurable tasks are minimised and placed always in the service of human satisfaction. All of life becomes a “co-operation for the free development and fulfilment of individual needs.”92 Living in such a world, reason gains a new character. The old, repressive reason of the reality principle “gives way to a new rationality of gratification in which reason and happiness converge.”93 With this new rationality embedded in the emancipated individual, there is no need for a repressive enlightened despot to safeguard the balance of total human emancipation. Each individual will be capable of distinguishing between rational and irrational authority. One can compare this to our current rationality in the sense that we know we are not being repressed in a surplus manner when the pilot tells us to put on our seatbelts, and we know that we are when a policeman arrests us without solid grounds. There are two relevant objections that might arise here. First, we might say, much like in our discussion of humanist Marxism, that this is a far too ambitious goal. If left entirely to their own devices, humans would live in total anarchy, chasing instant highs and destroying the civilised world. Something akin to the Hobbesian state of nature, permanent warfare, would engulf our once-stable lives. Second, because it is based largely on Freudian insights, one might object that psychoanalytical Marxism inherits much of the armchair philosophising of Freud’s own work. We can think back to our discussion of ideal theory here. To a great extent, Freud is imagining certain truths to be essential to human life, an endeavour which will always run the risk of invalid universalisation. Regarding the first objection, it is important to remember that psychoanalytical Marxism aims only at the abolition of surplus-repression. We can accept that some toil and hard work will always be necessary to keep civilised life, but nonetheless aim for the highest conceivable freedom to satisfy instinctual desires. Labour is again a useful example. Marcuse does not propose the disappearance of labour in its entirety, merely that it be minimised and always put towards providing humanity with the greatest opportunity to satisfy human desires. This necessary level of toil will be maintained by the new rationality embedded in the emancipated human. True morality becomes a self-enforced feature within our own sensuous rationality. Of course, this might not satisfy our critics. How can one possibly expect to change rationality? To this, Marcuse posits again that the current principles guiding human life are also merely historical contingencies. There is no reason to suggest that new guiding principles of human life cannot arise that properly and fairly distinguish between necessary and surplus repression.
91 Idem, p. 195. 92 Idem, p. 224. 93 Ibid.
33
That they cannot make this distinction now does not mean that they cannot learn to make it once they are given the opportunity to do so.94
Regarding the second objection, it is fair to say that psychoanalytical Marxism is acutely aware of Freud’s mistakes. In fact, the entire discipline, in essence, arose to correct these mistakes. Clearly, Reich and Marcuse agreed that Freud was developing unfair essentialisations regarding the nature of humanity. As such, psychoanalytical Marxism developed with this in mind and would be very cautious about turning historical contingencies into pseudo-essential truths. Crucially, the proposals of psychoanalytical Marxism do not aim at some predetermined, concrete goal but are rather focused on what the emancipated world would look like if individuals were given free rein to develop themselves. There are only few, but well-founded positive claims made on the nature of humanity. The real project of psychoanalytical Marxism is driven by the removal of external pressures such that whatever is natural in humanity will be allowed to express itself. As such, the problem of unfair universalisation is minimized. In this past section, we have discussed the inspirations of psychoanalytical Marxism, its central claims and concepts, and its vision of an emancipated future. Again, all that remains is to present a brief summary of our conclusions so far before moving on with our investigation.
2.2.4 Psychoanalytical Marxism: A Summary The impetus for the foundation of this strand of Marxism was to critique traditional, Freudian psychoanalysis. The primary fault recognised in Freud’s writings was that he turned what should be understood as historical contingencies into biological truths. In other words, when Freud posits that there is an eternal conflict between individual desires and civilised life in a community, he erases the very real possibility of an emancipated future founded on the resolution of this conflict. At this point, psychoanalytical Marxism picks up where the father of psychoanalysis left off. As such, instead of imagining an eternity of neurotic mental conflict, psychoanalysis reveals the historical contingency of psychological repression. The reality principle which forces the individual to divert, ignore or otherwise repress their desires is no longer necessary for civilised living. Instead, it serves only those who benefit from the status quo. This oppression is internalised by the individual by interacting with the general culture that demands it. In other words, the culture of modern civilisation demands inhibited subjects. An emancipated civilisation, however, would overcome these repressive requirements and lead to emancipated human beings. Individuals would be free to pursue their own desires and live in contentment without repression. This entails an entirely new form of rationality, guided not by social
94 Idem, p. 225.
34 domination but by gratification. In other words, reason and pleasure would become harmonious – seeking out joy, beauty or play would become the most rational thing to do. Moreover, all unenjoyable activities, work and toil, would be rational if, and only if, they support the general pursuit of pleasure.
2.3 Total Human Emancipation: A Concrete Conception Over the past twenty or so pages, we have discussed two unorthodox strands of Marxism at length. For both humanist and psychoanalytical Marxism, we have investigated their central claims and potential critiques lodged against them. From these discussions, it has become clear that both of these traditions are deeply concerned with total human emancipation, the particular interest of our investigation. This is to say that both traditions are Marxist in the usual sense that they espouse the overcoming of private property, but they do not stop at this material revolution. The emancipated futures envisioned by both psychoanalytical and humanist Marxism are deeply sensitive to mental, cultural and relational issues that are often ignored in leftist thought. As such, with the above discussions in mind, we can begin to present a coherent and concrete conception of total human emancipation.
2.3.1 The Two Projects of Total Human Emancipation I would argue that both of the Marxist traditions discussed here contain two central and connected emancipatory projects that lead to their respective understandings of total human emancipation. This is an idea I borrow from Henri Lefebvre’s own discussion of humanist Marxism95 but would like to develop further and apply more generally to include also psychoanalytical Marxism. The first project recognised by Lefebvre is geared towards the recognition of “the reciprocity of the needs and desires of men.”96 In other words, this project demands that the true mutuality of human nature be understood. It means understanding man as a social being, as not being able to exist at all without society. Achieving this project requires the overcoming of the “social mystery” which renders human relations “opaque” and “elusive,” revealing instead the true nature of humanity and human social existence. This project is particularly evident in relation to the productive and communal needs. The second project of humanist Marxism is “committed to the notion of art as a higher creative activity, and a radical critique of art as an alienated activity.”97 Art is a higher creative activity in the sense that it foreshadows the joy of future emancipation. In typical humanist Marxist fashion, this project entails the fulfilment and eventual supersession of art. The “spiritual powers” of humanity find expression in art but are alienated as long they remain in this exclusive domain. Art fulfils itself when all of life can become filled with the beauty and emotion of art – or more accurately, when humanity is developed enough to see all the beauty and emotion of truly human life.
95 Lefebvre, H. (2014). Critique of Everyday Life. London: Verso. 96 Idem, p. 330. 97 Ibid.
35 [Marx] does not imagine a world in which all men would be surrounded by works of art, not even a society where everyone would be painters, poets or musicians. Those would still only be transitional phases. He imagines a society in which everyone would rediscover the spontaneity of natural life and its initial creative drive, and perceive the world through the eyes of an artist, enjoy the sensuous through the eyes of a painter, the ears of a musician and the language of a poet.98
I propose that we can best understand these two projects as aimed at consciousness and development, respectively. The first project, that of consciousness, seeks to reveal the true nature of social relations and construct modes of living that are in line with truly human relations. Regarding humanist Marxism, to this project belong the pursuit of free and self-conscious life-activity and the pursuit of genuine relations of mutuality. In other words, the consciousness project entails the recognition of the basic human needs of productive activity and of community (the second and third basic human needs). The second project, that of development, seeks to build forth upon these foundations and raise human life to its highest potential. To this project belongs the pursuit of all those activities Marx posited as being central an emancipated life, such as intellectual fulfilment, play, aesthetic enjoyment, etc. In other words, the development project entails the recognition of the social needs (the fourth basic human need). Together, these projects culminate in the humanist Marxist understanding of total human emancipation.
One thing to keep in mind, however, is that this conception of total human emancipation assumes that the most basic human needs, the physical needs, have been fulfilled. This is not clear from the diagram above, but for the purposes of summarising the humanist Marxist conclusions, it is a fair assumption. Recalling our earlier discussion, there is absolutely no progress to be gained at all until these physical needs have been met. Otherwise, all our activities are still determined by nature and we cannot proceed on the path towards human emancipation. Put simply, the starving man cannot be asked to think of higher goals than satisfying his immediate hunger. These projects of consciousness and development can also be found in the psychoanalytical Marxist conception of total human emancipation. First, regarding the project of consciousness, we can say that this tradition espouses the overcoming of surplus-repression. It makes sense to classify this goal under the project of consciousness because it entails revealing the true nature of social relations,
98 Idem, p. 331.
36 criticising the oppressive nature of unnecessary repression and returning to a truly human mode of living and thinking. Second, regarding the project of development, we can say that psychoanalytical Marxism requires the formation of a new, emancipated rationality. Recalling our earlier discussion of this tradition, this new rationality is one guided by gratification that subordinates toil to pleasure. In other words, building forth on the initial emancipation achieved by overcoming surplus-repression, an emancipated rationality is developed and instilled that trades the oppressive reality principle for a realistic pleasure principle that resolves the tension between reason and sensuousness. This marks the total development of human life as it shares with the developmental goal, laid out above, a commitment to raising existence to its greatest potential.
In this way, we can systematise our two Marxist traditions under similar banners. Both are concerned with what we have termed total human emancipation and in both we can find a two-step process towards achieving that ultimate goal. Naturally, however, there will always be problems with any undertaking like this. First and foremost, there is the usual hermeneutical problem of interpretation. Neither Marcuse nor Marx are still around to tell us whether or not this characterisation is a fair representation of what they were trying to do scientifically or politically. However, this problem will always present itself in academic work. We are always building on the work of others who came before, and we can never be sure that we have presented their work exactly as they would have wanted us to. Moreover, though, perhaps it does not matter all that much whether these original theorists would agree with our conclusions. If we present our system on the basis of thorough argumentation, it takes on a validity of its own, independent from the works that might have inspired it. A second, related, problem is the issue of imposing undue order on what should be considered related but essentially separate bodies of thought. By combining psychoanalytical and humanist Marxism we essentially combine two disparate modes of thinking that might not be as translatable to each other as we might hope. Though they share Marxist principles, the humanist and psychoanalytical traditions come from epistemic backgrounds that are non-trivially different. In other words, psychoanalysis does not share all the same concerns, methods or problematics as humanism. This is a problem we will have to be cautious of in the remainder of this discussion; however, it should not disqualify the undertaking of systematising the two traditions under similar banners. This work so far has been grounded in thorough discussions of the roots of both of these traditions, such that we can
37 understand, for the most part, the meaning of each concept within its own context. This understanding should also mean that we can carefully begin to expand these concepts beyond their respective traditions. With these concerns in mind, I believe that the value to be gained from combining these two traditions is greater than the potential risks. As we will see, psychoanalytical and humanist Marxism complement each other greatly and can really flesh out our conception of total human emancipation. How combining these two traditions brings invaluable insights to our emancipatory theorising will be the focus of the remainder of this chapter. First, it will be discussed how psychoanalytical and humanist Marxism can complete our understanding of the consciousness project. Thereafter, it will be discussed how the two traditions complete our understanding of the development project.
Consciousness Recalling our initial statements on the consciousness project, we can say that this project entails two components: first, revealing the alienating or otherwise oppressive nature of modern social relations; second, promoting ways of living and thinking that form a return to truly free and human existence. In humanist Marxist terms, what we are trying to achieve here is a genuinely human life-activity. Combining our two Marxist traditions we can make the following statements about this emancipatory project. First of all, consciousness requires the overcoming of private property. As was made clear in the beginning of this chapter, the institution of private property is the negation of humanity and responsible for the continued alienated nature of human existence. As such, we can also say more concretely that truly conscious life-activity requires the fulfilment of the productive and communal needs of humanity. This is to say that humanity must recognise its true natures as freely conscious individuals working and existing within a community of genuinely mutual relations. This part of our emancipatory project is, therefore, familiar to us from leftist thought more generally. Second, consciousness requires the overcoming of surplus-repression. In order to begin living these truly free lives of human life-activity, we will need to realise the oppressive nature of our modern ways of thinking and interacting with our psyches. This means recognising that we have been inhibiting ourselves above and beyond what is truly still necessary for communal life. Only by tempering the power of the Superego can we transcend modern repressive conditions and begin to build modes of thinking that will lead us to an emancipated future. In other words, we need to recognise our own mental conditioning and realise that much of our thought has been prescribed. In this way we can begin to work on what truly benefits all of us, not only those who seek to maintain the status quo. The value of combining psychoanalytical and humanist Marxism in this vision of the consciousness project is that we gain a depth of thought that we otherwise would not have achieved. Where the humanist strand gives us the general picture of oppression and how it is maintained through
38 private property, insights from psychoanalytical Marxism grant us a deeper understanding of how this oppression takes shape within our own minds and how to potentially overcome it.
Development Recalling, again, our initial statements on the developmental project, we can say that this project entails the fulfilment of human existence or raising life to its greatest potential. What we are trying to achieve in this project is the peak of human emancipation, the realisation of absolute humanity freed from external chains such that it may develop itself to its maximum. Again, the combination of our Marxist traditions allows us to make the following statements about this emancipatory project. First, development requires the institution of an entirely new and emancipated rationality. In our discussion of psychoanalytical Marxism, we have revealed how the modern reality principle has turned toil and domination into reasonable conditions of human existence. An emancipated rationality would accept as rational only those activities which are constructive to achieving the greatest possible joy, beauty or happiness. The problem here, unfortunately, is that it is not immediately obvious how this works or by which categories any such distinction can be made. This problem is especially strong in Marcuse’s passages which rely on images of Greek mythology as opposed to concrete proposals. This leads us directly to our second statement on the development project. Second, development requires the recognition of the basic social needs of humanity. In our discussion of humanist Marxism, we revealed that there are various conceptions of human nature or essentially human activities but that none of these could be considered final or universally acceptable. Instead, it makes more sense to conclude that the final goal of the development project should be all the social needs we discussed, as they exist in varying extents in all human individuals. Recalling our discussion at the time, it was concluded that these include recreation, culture, intellectual fulfilment, artistic expression, aesthetic pleasure, and emotional fulfilment. The value of combining our two Marxist traditions here is obvious. From psychoanalytical Marxism, we know that a new rationality guided by gratification is necessary, but we do not quite know how exactly that would work. This is where humanist Marxism provides the concrete criteria for such an emancipated rationality. Put in this way, we can say that only those activities that provide or promote fulfilment of the basic social needs can be considered rational. Any activity that is not directly enjoyable in this sense, must either be shown to aid in the achievement of other human needs or be considered irrational and avoidable. Finally, we can round off our theoretical discussion of total human emancipation. Initially, we defined this concept of emancipation as being broader and deeper than the familiar material emancipation that we see in most leftist theory. After a long discussion of humanist and psychoanalytical Marxism, we were able to describe and define this idea of emancipation further.
39 Total human emancipation consists of two components. First, a project of consciousness seeks to reveal the oppressive nature of modern social relations and culture. These are to be replaced with emancipated modes of thinking and living. Second, a project of development seeks to raise humanity to its greatest potential. This is achieved by an emancipated rationality, guided by the real needs of humanity.
40 3. Capitalism and Emancipation In the previous chapter we have argued that total human emancipation consists of two central components. First, consciousness reveals the true nature of social relations and the need for free and mutual human life-activity. Second, development raises real life to its fullest potential, instilling a new rationality guided by the pursuit of all human needs. Taken together, these two goals form the coherent project of total human emancipation. In this chapter, I will discuss whether this kind of emancipation can be achieved within the confines of capitalism. It should be clear from the previous discussion that I do not expect this to be possible. Furthermore, both of the theoretical traditions I have drawn from are explicitly Marxist and thus anti-capitalist. Nonetheless, probing the viability of this concept of human emancipation within capitalism is a worthwhile effort, for two reasons. First, we cannot simply assume that capitalism makes emancipation impossible. In fact, we might even find that emancipation is possible in degrees within the confines of capitalism. That would obviously be a relevant discovery for our theory, particularly if we are trying to work out how to get from our current situation to an emancipated future. This leads us to a second reason why discussing the viability of emancipation within capitalism is important. By discussing how capitalism might obstruct emancipation we can also gain insights into the challenges we might realistically encounter on the path to total human emancipation. As such, this discussion should prove to be fruitful even if the initial assumption is confirmed.
3.1 The Confines of Capitalism In order to properly discuss anything, however, it must first be defined. In this particular case, that means we will need a functional definition of capitalism. This is far from a simple task for two reasons. First, capitalism is certainly not a monolithic form of social organisation. For example, while perhaps all commentators agree that both the Netherlands and the United States of America are capitalist economies, differences between the two are numerous and important. Second, capitalism is not a static form of social organisation. Again, most commentators will agree that the Netherlands was a capitalist economy in the 1970s and 2010s, but there are numerous and important differences here, again. Capitalism is therefore a diverse and dynamic phenomenon in the real world that complicates any final definitional endeavour. For this reason, I will employ a minimal definition of capitalism. This means defining capitalism by the least amount of necessary conditions which are generally shared by all its instances. In doing so, this investigation will avoid making claims that are quickly outdated or apply only to a small subset of capitalist economies. This approach is possible because there are certain aspects of capitalism that appear throughout all its forms. I will argue that these are private property, market exchange, economic classes and a logic of accumulation. In this vein, we can understand capitalism as a mode of production, or
41 a way of organising society so as to supply it with the goods it requires. The four components of capitalism will be discussed in turn. Private property. In Marxist theory, the development of capitalism begins in earnest with primitive accumulation, or the initial privatisation.99 The famous example often used in this context is the process of enclosure in 16th century Britain. This entailed turning previously shared land, the commons, into the private property of a single owner. In concrete terms, this meant that herders could no longer let their sheep graze freely on these lands but had first to request permission from the landowner. In more theoretical, Marxist terms, this resulted in the privatisation of the means of production. For the first, the primitive accumulation put the means necessary for production, such as land, tools and machinery, into private hands and ushered in an entirely new way of organising labour and production. Economic classes. This primitive accumulation and its associated institution of private property would eventually lead to the separation of society into economic classes defined by their relation to the means of production. Returning to our example of the enclosures, where once herders would freely graze their sheep, the landowner now hires workers to labour on that land. A new distinction arises between the capitalist, who owns the means of production, and the labourer, who owns nothing but their labour. Capitalist production then occurs only when the labourer sells their labour to the capitalist. The labourer thus uses the means of production to create value for the capitalist, which is returned in part in the form of a wage. Market exchange. The products created in this capitalist mode of production are distributed on the basis of market exchange. In other words, products are bought and sold by private individuals as opposed to being distributed by a central body or hierarchical organisation. Each individual encounters other traders on the marketplace, and the price of each product is decided by whatever another trader is willing to pay for it. The logic of accumulation. Because of this market exchange, products are created for the purpose of being sold. Production becomes guided by the profit motive. Furthermore, the capitalists can only benefit fully from their ownership of the means of production if they continue to expand the value that can be generated by the workers using these. Taken together, this means that the capitalist economy is driven by a constant need to grow, to produce in greater numbers and with greater efficiency. In other words, this is a system fuelled by a logic of capital accumulation in the sense that all income from production must be used to generate more income. Capital begets capital. In the interest of presenting a minimal definition of capitalism, this brief discussion of capitalism and its components has been as neutral as possible. There have been no comments on, for example, the extractive nature of the relation between capitalist and labourer, or the social implications of a logic of constant accumulation. These points, and more, will of course arise in the critique of this mode of
99 Marx, K. (2013). Capital. Ware: Wordsworth, p. 501.
42 production that follows. Nonetheless, it is important that here we have started with a relatively uncritical, neutral image of the necessary components that define the capitalist mode of production.
3.2 Capitalism and the Emancipatory Project It makes sense now to investigate whether total human emancipation is possible within these confines by structuring our discussion along the lines of the two components of emancipation: consciousness and development. First, therefore, I will ask whether human consciousness as we have defined it earlier is possible within the confines of capitalism. Second, I will ask whether human development as we have defined it earlier is possible within the confines of capitalism. Together, the answers to these two questions will bring us to an answer to the question of whether total human emancipation is possible within the confines of capitalism. However, as we discovered in our theoretical discussion, neither of these emancipatory projects are possible at all until the most basic human needs, the physical needs, are met. As such, before we begin to discuss consciousness and development, we will have to ask whether the physical human needs can be fulfilled within the confines of capitalism.
3.2.1 Can the physical human needs be met within capitalism? Recalling our earlier discussion in the previous chapter, we outlined a few physical needs that must be met before any emancipatory project can begin in earnest. It will not be necessary to investigate them all, as a lack in just one of them will hinder emancipation generally. For example, a starving man, even though he has a roof over his head, cannot be asked to think of anything higher than his immediate hunger. As such, I will focus on the physical needs for sustenance and shelter, arguably the most basic of the physical needs. It has become a commonplace argument for the validity of capitalism as a social organisation to observe that we are materially better off now than ever before. If we were to take just a general statistic, like global GDP, this seems undeniably true. Growing steadily from US$1.37 trillion in 1960 to US$85.9 trillion in 2018, we can only conclude that total production under capitalism is immensely richer than anything that came before.100 In this vein, proponents of capitalism, like Rainer Zitelmann, argue that “in those countries that dare to give capitalism feer rein and reduce the influence of the state on the economy, people’s lives improve constantly.”101 In fact, we even find a similar sentiment in passages from Marx’s own writing.
100 World Bank (n.d.). “GDP (current US$)”, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?end=2018&start=1960&view=chart&year=1960. Retrieved 25 May 2020. 101 Zitelmann, R. (2019). “Capitalism is not the problem, it is the solution”, The European Financial Review, https://the-power- of-capitalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/The-European-Financial-Review-Capitalism-is-Not-the-Problem-It-is-the- Solution-December-January-2019.pdf. Retrieved 25 May 2020.
43 The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground – what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?102
While it is true that capitalism has brought about development and prosperity of an unprecedented magnitude, this does not mean that the basic physical needs of humanity are being met by this system. The key problem here is that the development of capitalism is uneven. This is to say, the wealth produced by capitalism is not shared among all those who have contributed to it or those who need it most but is captured and hoarded. If we were to take a look at a different set of statistics we would not be filled with the same confidence in the ability of contemporary capitalism to guarantee the fulfilment of the basic physical needs for shelter and sustenance. In the United Kingdom alone there are an estimated 320,000 homeless people103 and nearly 4 million people rely on food banks.104 The problem is not specific to the United Kingdom’s form of capitalism, of course. New Zealand, for example, has the highest rate of homelessness in the OECD,105 and in the United States of America there are, according to its own government’s statistics, 41 million people facing food insecurity.106 The implications of the latter statistic are profoundly shocking – this means that 1 in every 8 American households had difficulties providing every member of the house with enough food. Keep in mind that this is the richest nation in human history. A relevant concept that could be used to understand this situation is the notion of the reserve army of labour, first formulated by Friedrich Engels107 but developed further by Marx in Volume 1 of Capital.108 Marx wrote that a portion of the working population is constantly turned into “unemployed or half- employed hands.”109 This is because capitalism’s innate logic of constant accumulation requires it to always have a permanent supply of workers to draw from, to repurpose or to pit against the already employed workers. In fact, the whole “movement of modern industry depends” upon this reserve
102 Marx, K. & Engels, F. (2008). The Communist Manifesto. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 7-8. 103 Butler, P. (2018). “At least 320,000 homeless people in Britain, says Shelter”, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/22/at-least-320000-homeless-people-in-britain-says-shelter. Retrieved 30 April 2020. 104 Bulman, M. (2018). “Nearly 4 million UK adults forced to use food banks, figures reveal”, Independent, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/food-banks-uk-how-many-people-adults-poverty-a8386811.html. Retrieved 30 April 2020. 105 Barret, J. & Greenfield, C. (2018). “Left behind: why boomtown New Zealand has a homelessness crisis”, Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-newzealand-economy-budget/left-behind-why-boomtown-new-zealand-has-a- homelessness-crisis-idUSKCN1IL0UG. Retrieved 30 April 2020. 106 Feeding America (2017). “41 Million People in the United States Face Hunger”, https://www.feedingamerica.org/about- us/press-room/new-data. Retrieved 29 April 2020. 107 Engels, F. (2007). The Condition of the Working Class in England. Gloucester: Dodo Press. 108 Marx, K. (2013). Capital. Ware: Wordsworth. 109 Idem, p. 441.
44 army.110 Capitalism thus necessarily creates “a mass of human material always ready for exploitation.”111 This logic has led to the profoundly disturbing phenomenon, and perhaps strongest argument against the efficiency of capitalism, of the working poor. Capitalism is supposed to reward hard work and punish laziness. Yet, the majority of the Americans who fall below the poverty line are actually employed.112 For these people there is essentially no way out anymore. They have done what they were supposed to but still sleep in their cars, rely on food stamps or powerlessly await the foreclosures on their homes. Every passing day brings renewed risks of hunger or homelessness. The capitalist mode of production requires these people to live like this, to put pressure on higher-paid workers or to be constantly available for work across the economy. Clearly then, the capitalist mode of production will always create a mass of people whose basic physical needs are either unmet or at constant risk of being unmet. For all these people, emancipation as we have defined it has been made impossible by contemporary conditions. Food stamps, food banks and homeless shelters undoubtedly do a great deal to ameliorate these problems but will never tackle the problem at its root cause. The conditions of capitalism require this reserve army of the impoverished to feed its logic of constant accumulation. Before we have even begun to discuss our two emancipatory projects, therefore, we can already tentatively confirm our initial assumption. Total human emancipation requires us to overcome capitalism entirely. As such, we can say emphatically that our vision of an emancipated future must necessarily be anti-capitalist. Nonetheless, for reasons stated earlier, it will be fruitful to continue our investigation into the other barriers capitalism presents to the achievement of the two emancipatory projects of total human emancipation.
3.2.2 Is consciousness possible within capitalism? To answer the question whether human consciousness is possible within the confines of capitalism it will be useful to repeat briefly what its conditions are. Put simply, individuals must be able to understand themselves as human beings engaging in free, self-conscious activity within a community of genuine and mutual relations. As we shall see, there are a number of key components of capitalism that seriously inhibit any such human self-understanding. First and foremost, the institution of private property is an obvious obstacle to human consciousness as we have defined it. In the previous chapter, it was already discussed how private ownership in the production process alienates the worker from truly human life-activity. As such, it will
110 Ibid. 111 Idem, p. 440. 112 United States Census Bureau (2019). “Income and Poverty in the United States: 2018”, https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2019/demo/p60-266.html. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
45 not be necessary to delve too deeply into this topic here. It will be necessary, however, to show that capitalist production is alienating per se. The alienating nature of capitalist labour can be seen if we recall the four relations of labour stipulated by Marx in the 1844 Manuscripts.113 First the relation between the worker and the product of labour. The capitalist labourer creates a product that she does not possess. Instead, it is owned by the capitalist and traded on the free market. As such, the worker is alienated from the product. Second, the relation between the worker and the labour process. The worker has no control over the labour process. Instead it is stipulated by the capitalist, or at least the foreman or manager, who serves the capitalist. Here again, the worker is alienated from the process of her own labour. Third, the relation between the worker and other human individuals. Products appear on the market as private property and are traded between private individuals. Even the worker’s labour is sold in this same manner. Workers interact with other individuals as self-contained units of barter with no mutual obligations or attachments. Again, we can say that the worker is alienated from their fellow humans by an imposed sense of individuality. Fourth, the relation between the worker and human nature. As a result of the previous three relations, the workers do not engage in free, self-conscious life-activity but are instead working for their respective capitalist bosses. Furthermore, because there are no bonds of mutuality and attachment in the market, the workers only work for their own survival. Alienated labour is thus deeply linked to the necessary conditions that make up the system of capitalism. These conditions of alienated labour thus create alienated humans. In other words, the conditions are also responsible for creating the kind of people that live within them. In this vein, Marx writes of the “one-sided development” of the capitalist worker.114 The capitalist system does not promote the free development of the human mind but demands instead a monotonous specialisation so that the worker can fit within the labour process. In this sense, the capitalist worker is not human in the true sense, but merely an instrument of labour. We can summarise these comments on alienated labour with the following quote from Eugene Victor Wolfenstein.
When we lose control of what we make and how we make it, we lose the qualities that distinguish us from other species. The alienation of labour is literally the loss of our humanity.115
A very similar argument is presented by Marcuse, with the introduction of his concept of the performance principle. Recalling our discussion in the previous chapter, psychoanalytical Marxism posits that each historical era comes with a particular reality principle. This principle enters the human psyche through the superego and implies acquiescence to the demands of external constraints. Marcuse defines the reality
113 Marx, K. (1988). Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Amherst: Prometheus Books, p. 75-78. 114 Leopold, D. (2007). The Young Karl Marx. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 232. 115 Wolfenstein, E.V. (1993). Psychoanalytic-Marxism. London: Free Association Books, p. 25.
46 principle appropriate to the capitalist era as the performance principle because it consists generally of an expectation to perform predetermined roles.
Men do not live their own lives but perform pre-established functions. While they work, they do not fulfill their own needs and faculties but work in alienation […] alienated labor is absence of gratification, negation of the pleasure principle. Libido is diverted for socially useful performances in which the individual works for himself only in so far as he works for the apparatus, engaged in activities that mostly do not coincide with his own faculties and desires.116
In psychoanalytic Marxist terms, therefore, the capitalist form of the reality principle, the performance principle, necessarily entails surplus-repression. In other words, capitalism engenders a particular psychology in its subjects that is inimical to free human thought and existence. Instead, we are forced to understand ourselves as instruments of labour serving the constant enrichment of others above ourselves and to feed the seemingly unstoppable growth of the economy. As such, it can be concluded that the conditions of capitalism simply do not allow for widespread conscious human existence. Through alienation in the market and in production, humans encounter each other as individuals and are inhibited from forming bonds of mutuality. Furthermore, the labour process is inimical to genuinely human life-activity that is self-conscious and freely determined. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, an entirely submissive psychology is instilled in capitalist subjects that bears no resemblance to a true consciousness of human nature. This is not to say, however, that consciousness is entirely impossible within capitalism. This seems necessarily obvious, of course. Neither Marx nor Marcuse, nor any anti-capitalist theorist, could have produced any of their critiques if consciousness was entirely impossible. The claim here is merely that widespread human consciousness is impossible within the condition of capitalism. This leaves open the possibility of smaller-scale communities who do, in fact, break free from the chains of mental oppression and live genuinely human lives. Marx himself recognised this possibility in his comments on French labour activists.
When communist workmen associate with one another, theory, propaganda, etc. is their first end. But at the same time, as a result of this association, they acquire a new need – the need for society – and what appears as a means becomes an end. You can observe this practical process in its most splendid results whenever you see French socialist workers together. Such things as smoking, drinking, eating, etc., are no longer means of contact or means that bring together. Company, association, and conversation, which again has society as its end, are enough for them; the brotherhood of man is no mere phrase with them, but a fact of life, and the nobility of man shines upon us from their work-hardened bodies.117
116 Marcuse, H. (1974). Eros and Civilization. Boston: Beacon Press, p. 45. 117 Marx, K. (1988). Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Amherst: Prometheus Books, p. 123-124.
47 By coming together in this way, these communist workmen Marx writes about have understood true human existence. In humanist Marxist terms, these workers have begun to recognise their shared human needs for productive emancipation and genuine community. Human consciousness is thus possible within capitalism, but only in a limited sense. This is also obvious when we take into account the actual existence of workers’ cooperatives. Take, for example, the Mondragon Co-operative Corporation in the Basque Country. Reading their guiding principles, it becomes obvious that this is an enterprise that comes close to our previously defined notion of genuinely free and mutual life-activity.
Labour is the main factor for transforming nature, society and human beings themselves. As a result, the systematic recruitment of salaried workers has been abandoned, full sovereignty is attached to labour, the wealth created is distributed in terms of the labour provided and there is a will to extend the job options available to all members of society.118
Again, however, while we might fairly recognise the possibility of a limited consciousness, in the sense that it applies only to the workers of a particular kind of cooperative, we must also notice the impossibility of this type of life-activity in the general sense. Only a minute sliver of the capitalist working population is engaged in this type of emancipated labour. Furthermore, there are valid reasons, as outlined above, to doubt that capitalism could ever exist if these kinds of labour practices became the norm. As such, the most we can say is that capitalism allows for a limited form of conscious, truly human life. Naturally, this limited consciousness will not suffice for total human emancipation. Crucially, it might provide a viable foundation for the totally emancipatory revolution – which is a question that will be picked up again in the next chapter – but the presence of a limited and inhibited consciousness cannot lead to the conclusion that the consciousness component of total human emancipation is fulfilled. In other words, we can only conclude that human consciousness is not achievable within the confines of capitalism. Or, answering our question more directly, the conditions of capitalism do not allow for an accurate human self-understanding as mutual and interdependent beings engaged in free and self- conscious activity.
3.2.3 Is development possible within capitalism? Here again, it will be useful to briefly repeat what the conditions of human development are. We can say humanity has been properly developed when human existence is raised to its fullest potential. This was defined earlier as instilling an emancipated rationality within the individual that is guided by the pursuit of the basic human needs for recreation, culture, intellectual fulfilment, artistic expression, aesthetic pleasure,
118 Mondragon (n.d.). “Our Principles”, https://www.mondragon-corporation.com/en/co-operative-experience/our- principles/. Retrieved 30 April 2020.
48 emotional fulfilment. Again, we shall see that capitalism inhibits the widespread development of human life that is necessary for total human emancipation. Perhaps the most important remark that can be made on this topic is Marx’s insistence that this emancipatory development is realised when individuals feel their needs in the most deep and diverse manners. Under conditions of private property and market exchange, however, all human needs are funnelled into the single pseudo-need for money. In other words, the fetishization of money is such that when we are deprived in some basic way, we do not feel the need for fulfilment itself but a need for the money to purchase something which will fulfil that need. For example, we do not feel a need for recreation but a need for the money to buy beer, cinema tickets or a television. The conditions of capitalism inhibit development by making individuals understand their needs only through the scope of currency and property. Here again, we can employ Marcuse’s notion of the performance principle that rules the minds of capitalist subjects. Repeating what we said earlier, this principle is called as it is because it demands that individuals do not live their own lives but instead “perform pre-established functions.”119 As such, the capitalist subject only values their own activities to the extent that they are deemed useful, efficient or otherwise productive in capitalist terms. There is no space within this principle to engage in genuinely self-fulfilling activities purely for the sake of enjoyment. Under the power of the performance principle, fulfilling our social needs is deemed wasteful and we are therefore expected to repress these desires. How this works can perhaps be best seen in the contemporary phenomenon of mindfulness. One can hardly open a magazine, scroll through social media or even have a conversation with a colleague without hearing some experience of how mindful meditation changed someone’s life, gave them the power to balance their work and private lives, or helped them conquer their anxious minds. At first glance, this seems like a positive phenomenon. Yet, even within the simple example above, it soon becomes clear that this supposedly emancipatory activity only serves the continued existence of our repression. Through mindfulness we try to calm our minds not for our own sake, but so that we can continue our alienated labour. In essence, we meditate simply to survive capitalism. Furthermore, these Buddhist principles applied to the corporate world have also become big business. In his book, McMindfulness, Ronald Purser reveals that there are over 100,000 books on Amazon.com with the word “mindfulness” in the title.120 Furthermore, one of the most popular mindfulness apps, Headspace, has reportedly been downloaded over 40 million times, and the general meditation industry is projected to be worth $2 billion by 2022.121 Here again, we see that people do not feel a direct desire to live calm and contented lives but instead latch onto a product that promises them that desired outcome. The capitalist subject has so much so lost any semblance of truly human life that others have managed to become dizzyingly rich simply by teaching people how to be calm.
119 Marcuse, H. (1974). Eros and Civilization. Boston: Beacon Press, p. 45. 120 Purser, R. (2019). McMindfulness. London: Repeater Books. 121 The Good Body (2019). “22 Meditation Statistics: Data and Trends Revealed for 2019”, https://www.thegoodbody.com/meditation-statistics/. Retrieved 2 May 2020.
49 The only conclusion we can draw from this discussion is that the emancipatory project of human development cannot take place within the confines of capitalism. This is not to say that recreation or intellectual fulfilment are impossible within capitalism. Rather, these are only outcomes promised by the purchase of a certain good. Regardless of whether this promised is fulfilled, which it often is not, there is no direct connection between the subject and their basic human needs. In other words, the capitalist subject must adhere to principles that are inimical to our project of development.
3.3. Conclusion This chapter has tried to answer the question whether total human emancipation as we have defined it in the previous chapter is possible within the confines of capitalism. In order to answer this question, a minimal definition of capitalism was used to avoid our claims becoming quickly outdated or applying only to a certain sub-section of capitalist economies. It was argued that capitalism is a mode of production characterised by private property, economic classes, market exchange and a logic of accumulation. From our discussion above we can conclude that total human emancipation is impossible within the confines of capitalism. This discussion was structured around the three components necessary for total human emancipation. First, it was argued that the basic physical needs are either unmet or at constant risk of being unmet for a great deal of capitalist subjects. Second, it was argued that widespread consciousness is made impossible by the capitalist institutions of private property and the prevailing performance principle. Finally, it was argued that widespread development is also made impossible by the capitalist reduction of all human needs to the pseudo-need for money, or money fetishism, combined with the performance principle of capitalism that hinders any understanding of the capitalist subject as an agent of their own gratification. All in all, we can emphatically conclude that our vision of an emancipated future has to be anti-capitalist. It is not enough, however, to know that our emancipatory project has to be anti-capitalist. This is, in itself, not a coherent political programme. There are many ways to oppose capitalism and even more suggestions for anti-capitalist alternatives. In the next chapter, therefore, we will investigate various existing anti-capitalist programmes and discuss their ability to achieve what we have determined to be the ultimate goal, total human emancipation.
50 4. Five Principles for an Emancipated Future The two traditions we have drawn from in our theoretical discussion, humanist and psychoanalytical Marxism, can both fairly be read as critiques of other leftist theory. Essentially, the claim is that much of leftist theory ignores the concerns raised by these traditions. More concretely, we can say that a pre- occupation with the material revolution leaves out non-trivial mental or psychological issues. As such, leftist theory has been flawed in both its analysis of capitalism and its proposals for an emancipated alternative. This becomes clearest when we look at the work of Wilhelm Reich, the founding father of psychoanalytical Marxism. In his preface to the second edition of The Sexual Revolution,122 Reich warns of two dangers in leftist theory. First, there is the danger of psychologism, defined as the thought that “only the psychic human forces make history.”123 This is the critique of Freudian psychoanalysis, discussed in the Chapter 2. A purely psychological approach to politics will ignore crucially relevant material factors. Second, there is the danger of economism, defined as the thought that “only technical development makes history.”124 This is where Reich begins his critique of Leninism. Much like the purely psychological approach, a purely material approach will miss crucial factors that must inform an accurate analysis. Without going on too much of a tangent into this discussion, we can say that the general claim of our theoretical traditions is that leftist theory at large has veered too far to the side of economism and is due for a reminder of the importance of total human emancipation. This is the thought that will guide the remainder of this investigation as we discuss how our theoretical emancipatory concerns can be translated into actual political practice. We cannot, however, simply veer into the realm of political practice blindly. There are, of course, countless political proposals, programmes and alternatives. Even if we limit ourselves to only political proposals that are in some way inspired by Marxism, our objects of analysis would require entire books, as opposed to just this chapter. Luckily, however, we have developed a theoretical framework over the past chapters that can guide our empirical investigation. In Section 4.1, therefore, we will discuss how guiding principles for political action can be distilled from our theory of total human emancipation. On the basis of these principles, three existing proposals will be selected and presented as a coherent political programme in Section 4.2. These are workers’ cooperatives, Gramsci’s proposals for political education and the Situationist proposals for psychogeographic urbanism. In Section 4.3 it will be discussed how our guiding principles helped us to select and evaluate these proposals, and ultimately bring them together into a single programme. Finally, as we are bringing our investigation out of the realm of purely normative theory and into the realm of real- world action, we will also encounter new problems. For that reason, Section 4.4 will be dedicated to discussing the real-world feasibility of our project for emancipation.
122 Reich, W. (1951). The Sexual Revolution. London: Vision. 123 Idem, p. xxi. 124 Ibid.
51 4.1 Five Guiding Principles As mentioned above, using our theoretical framework of total human emancipation that we have developed on the basis of our discussion of humanist and psychoanalytical Marxism, we can distil a number of principles that will guide our investigation into a real-world political programme for emancipation. Doing so is important for two reasons. First, it will allow us to select existing political proposals based on their apparent compatibility with emancipation, as we have defined it. In other words, these proposals will make it much easier for us to approach the great mass of existing political projects and find those from which we can draw important lessons or which we can use to further our political action. Second, these principles will allow us to evaluate these proposals in terms of their contribution to the political project for emancipation. Put simply, if we find that a political programme matches all our guiding principles, we can conclude that it positively contributes to the real-world achievement of our theory of total human emancipation. If we find that a proposal is lacking in one of our principles, we will also know how to improve it. Before we start to distil principles from our theory, it will be useful to remind ourselves one last time of our definition of total human emancipation. As we argued in Chapter 2, total human emancipation is the return to a truly human mode of living and thinking. This emancipation consists of two related projects. First, the project of consciousness entails revealing the oppressive nature of current forms of life-activity and replacing these with a mode of existence that allows for self-conscious activities within a genuine community of mutual relations. Second, the project of development entails realising the full potential of humanity, inhibited by current conditions, by instilling an emancipated rationality guided by the achievement of human needs. I will argue that there are five guiding principles for political action to be drawn from our theoretical framework. Furthermore, these can be separated into two categories, which I will refer to as the Project Principles and the Programme Principles. This is because the first category pertains directly to individual projects, whereas the second pertains more to how these projects are to be combined into a coherent programme. This will make more sense after we have properly discussed both categories. In Sub-section 4.1.1, therefore, we will discuss what I term the Project Principles and how they are derived from our theoretical framework. In Sub-section 4.1.2, the same will be done for the Programme Principles.
4.1.1 The Three Project Principles As we will see, the three principles that will be presented here pertain directly to individual political proposals, understood as separate projects. These principles can be used to develop and evaluate political projects on the basis of their potential contributions to real-world emancipation. From our theory of total human emancipation, we can derive three such principles.
52
Project Principle I: Emancipated Material Relations
Projects must in some way contribute to the breaking down of material inequality and hierarchy, and their replacement with relations of equality and mutuality.
From our discussion of the consciousness project, we have already learnt the importance of material relations. The way in which people conduct their life-activity and how they interact with one another are crucial components of emancipation. As such, we know that emancipated material relations must achieve two goals. First, there must be an emancipated labour process such that life-activity can become truly self-conscious and led by human concerns. Second, this activity must take place within a genuine community of mutual relations. As such, this principle for political action requires more than the simple overthrowing of the bourgeoisie and private property. We also have an image of what is to replace these oppressive relations. Furthermore, we also know that an emancipated life-activity requires the fulfilment of the basic physical needs. No progress on the emancipatory path can be achieved at all when an individual is still deprived of shelter or sustenance. If these needs are unmet, no person can be expected to seek out genuine community or self-conscious labour, as surviving hunger or cold become their only goal. An emancipated life-activity thus also demands the satisfaction of all basic physical needs. Put together, Project Principle I requires our political proposals to replace oppressive modern conditions with relations that allow for a truly human existence of self-conscious activity within a genuine community. In other words, this principle can be understood as the material basis in our guiding principles. The focus is on the actual living conditions of people, their resources and ways of existing in the real world. Bringing these theoretical remarks more concretely into the real world, then, we can say that Project Principle I demands the abolition of material inequality and hierarchical relations, and their replacement with more emancipated relations. In this sense, we replace the boss with the co-worker, the teacher with the collaborative learner, the president with the elected council, and so on.
Project Principle II: Cultural and Psychological Sensitivity
Projects must in some way contribute to a political practice that extends beyond the material and seeks also to reform shared cultures and individual mindsets.
53 This principle combines the insights of both of our emancipatory projects. Recalling our discussion of the consciousness project, we concluded that even the material revolution has a non-material component in that it requires the overcoming of surplus-repression. From our discussion of the development project, we gained the insight that emancipation must actualise the greatest potential of human existence by instilling a new rationality guided not by toil and domination but by human gratification. In Marcusian terms, we concluded the necessity of disavowing the Promethean culture of capitalism in favour of an emancipatory culture. It is here, in Project Principle II, that we stipulate our insistence on non-material reform. Where in theory we have said that our emancipatory project requires a sensitivity to cultural or psychological factors, we can say now more practically that our political proposals must in some way contribute to reshaping both our shared cultures and our individual mindsets. This entails projects that refocus our political attention not simply to our material relations, but also to those aspects of culture that justify these relations, such as art, education and even the way we talk about each other. Furthermore, Project Principle II also stipulates that it is not enough to satisfy only the physical, productive and communal needs. We require also the social needs for recreation, intellectual fulfilment, etc., as discussed in Chapter 2. Proposals in this vein might therefore also aim at the introduction of more emancipated leisure into our everyday lives.
Project Principle III: Politicisation
Projects must in some way contribute to challenging currently accepted truths, revealing their oppressive or inhibitive nature.
A crucial insight from our discussion of psychoanalytical Marxism is the idea that surplus-repression has been internalised and become automatic within the capitalist subject. In other words, modern oppression is largely hidden and entered into pseudo-voluntarily by the individual. This means that a great deal of currently accepted truths must be critically re-evaluated and revealed as oppressive. As such, politicisation will be a crucial component for an emancipatory political programme. This principle has two implications for political practice. First, aspects of modern life that are currently uncritically accepted as fair, good or unquestionable, must be opened up to debate. This means we must extend our revolutionary process into supposedly neutral realms such as education, sports, the arts and even more directly private affairs like marriage, sexuality and the family. Second, this principle demands an interdisciplinary cooperation between theorists and practitioners in various fields. This means that our revolutionary alliance must be broader than the typical cooperation between the Marxist theorist and the workplace organiser. Our revolutionary actors must include teachers, parents and children, artists and anyone involved in contributing to the (re-) production of our shared culture and relations.
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Taken together, then, we have three Project Principles that can guide our search for political proposals based on their potential contributions to our achieving our theory of emancipation in the real world. How exactly we can put these principles to use will be made clear in Section 4.2. First, we must turn to the other category of guiding principles, the Programme Principles.
4.1.2 The Two Programme Principles These principles derive primarily from the nature of the Project Principles. Clearly, the principles laid out above call for a wide range of projects that might contribute in various important ways to total human emancipation. As such, we must also stipulate principles for bringing these projects into a coherent programme. For this reason, the two Programme Principles will be presented in the remainder of this sub-section.
Programme Principle I: Variety and Compatibility
The unique contribution of each project must be recognised and permitted, but only in such a way that it is complementary to other projects and their contributions.
Perhaps the most obvious statement that can be made when we look at the past three guiding principles is that our emancipatory programme is truly all-encompassing. This leads us naturally to concluding the importance of a variety of compatible political projects, our fourth principle. If our revolution is to be sensitive to material, cultural and psychological factors, it cannot be achieved by merely one proposal. Instead, we must bring together projects of various stripes and goals into a coherent programme such that each project contributes differently, but importantly, towards the final goal of total human emancipation. In the previous principle, we already stipulated the importance of an interdisciplinary alliance of revolutionary actors across various sectors. Here, we double down on that idea. The emancipatory revolution cannot be imposed by some Leninist vanguard party but relies instead on the coming together of distinct but related battles fought by a great variety of political projects. It should be noted, however, that this principle consists of two components that must guide political action. On the one hand, there is the insistence on variety. This implies a relative autonomy of disparate political projects across various fields. On the other hand, there is the insistence on compatibility. This means that these projects are not entirely autonomous but exist within a larger framework that ensures that each project contributes in some meaningful way towards total human emancipation. We can see already how this might pan out in our discussion of the consciousness project. As mentioned, humanist Marxism focuses on the overcoming of private property to combat alienation, but
55 psychoanalytical Marxism posits that this requires also a psychological approach against surplus- repression. As such, we could imagine two proposals, one in the cultural realm and the other more directly material, approaching the problem of alienation in a compatible and cooperative manner.
Programme Principle II: Incrementalism
The implementation of political projects must make sense chronologically, such that resources are not spread thinly, and successes remain sustainable.
From our observation that the programme for total human emancipation is all-encompassing we can also draw our final guiding principle. As we now know, the project for total human emancipation is incredibly large and spans a great deal of reforms. These reforms cannot all be conceivably achieved by one proposal or in one quick political action. Furthermore, we already found a hierarchy of priority in our discussion of the human needs, stipulating the importance of fulfilling the basic physical needs before the emancipatory project begins in earnest. In other words, our political proposals have to be sensitive to appropriate timing. This is similar to the typical Marxist idea of progress, which posits that revolutions have their particular moments in history. However, it is also more specific than such a general statement. Our issues of timing must be sensitive to the great variety of political actions that are included within our programme. For example, we might find it entirely futile to materially organise a particular workplace if there have been no efforts to overcome surplus-repression among the workers. If the oppressive nature of relations has not been revealed, there will be far more difficulty in trying to replace them. As such, we can say that relevant cultural and material projects must be thought of as complementary, not only in their achievement of the same goal but also in the order in which they should implemented. Furthermore, this also implies a priority of smaller projects to larger actions. As our theoretical framework allows us to expect, the successes of large-scale revolutions will be unstable and perhaps even counter-productive if they are not embedded within an all-encompassing background of various successful emancipatory projects. It is only on such foundations that the great, swooping political actions can be sustainably successful in contributing to total human emancipation. This should not be taken to imply a disavowal of the revolutionary method, however. Swift and large-scale action will be the best method for many battles, but these moments must be embedded within a grander project of smaller- scale victories that will safeguard our progress.
4.2 Three Proposals for an Emancipated Future As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, the five guiding principles that we have just developed will be able to inform our evaluation both of existing political proposals and of how to bring them into a coherent programme. To this end, we will discuss three existing proposals which, when combined into
56 a coherent project, show a great fidelity to our guiding principles. At the end of this discussion, therefore, it will become clear how our five principles can aid in developing emancipatory proposals and evaluating existing proposals. First, however, we will need to know more about the specific proposals to be considered. These will be topic of this section. In Section 4.3, we will build on this knowledge to show how our guiding principles have been used to select these proposals and how their individual contributions can be brought together into a single, coherent programme. In Sub-section 4.2.1, we will outline the political proposal for workers’ cooperatives. Sub-section 4.2.2 will discuss Gramsci’s proposals for embedding the cooperative within a larger cultural project that revolves around political education. Finally, Sub-section 4.2.3 will use the Situationists’ idea of psychogeography to investigate how this political project can be extended even further into an all- encompassing programme of emancipatory revolution.
4.2.1 Workers’ Cooperatives The history of the cooperative movement begins roughly with the work of Welsh textile manufacturer and social reformer Robert Owen in the 19th Century.125 A charitable, though paternalistic, businessman, Owen aimed to pursue his radical principles of empathy with the poor at his Scottish cotton mill, New Lanark.126 This entailed an entire renovation of not only the mill but also the entire surrounding village, leading to improved housing, healthcare and education.127 Labour conditions were also improved greatly, as Owen ended the hiring of poor children and instituted educational programmes for younger workers. Compared to the rest of industrialising Britain, Owen’s employees lived the safest, healthiest and perhaps happiest lives.128 While New Lanark garnered great interest both domestically and abroad, perhaps even more influential was the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers. This group of 28 tradesmen joined forces in 1844 to start their own enterprise, guided by what are now known as the Rochdale Principles.129 These principles still live on today, embedded within the framework of the International Co-operative Alliance, an organisation of 312 cooperative workplaces across 109 countries130. Having undergone a few revisions from the 1844 original, these principles are currently formulated as follows:
125 Cooperative forms of production certainly were not “invented” in 19th century Britain, but it is here that they first become a tool against capitalist conditions of production. 126 Siméon, O. (2017). Robert Owen’s Experiment at New Lanark. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 127 Idem, p. 56. 128 Idem, p. 88. 129 Connover, M. (1959). “The Rochdale Principles in American Co-Operative Associations”, The Western Political Quarterly, 12(1): 111-122. 130 International Co-operative Alliance (n.d.). “Cooperative identity, values & principles”, https://www.ica.coop/en/cooperatives/cooperative-identity. Retrieved 25 May 2020.
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1. Voluntary and Open Membership Joining the cooperative is open to anyone willing to accept its guiding principles and practices. This does, of course, imply responsibilities, but ones that have been voluntarily entered into. 2. Democratic Member Control Decisions must made by democratic assent of all members of the cooperative, and decision-making representatives must be elected by the entire workforce. 3. Member Economic Participation The capital of the cooperative must, in part, be commonly owned. Decisions as to its investment must therefore be agreed upon democratically. 4. Autonomy and Independence The cooperative may enter into agreements with other organisations, such as businesses or the state, but only in manners that maintain its autonomy and the decision-making ability of its membership. 5. Education, Training, and Information The cooperative provides educational programs for its members such that they can increasingly contribute to the development of the enterprise and also inform others of the benefits of cooperative organisation. 6. Cooperation among Cooperatives Cooperatives are expected to work together with other cooperatives on local, national and international levels. 7. Concern for Community The cooperative is also concerned with its external surroundings and aims at developing the entire community in which it operates.
The influence of New Lanark on these principles is clear, yet we also see a strong shift from paternalism to self-management. What these principles share with Owen’s pioneering efforts is a commitment to education, welfare and the community at large. These principles, however, build forth upon this foundation and allow for real leadership from the working class itself. This is by no means an exhaustive history of the cooperative movement; such an endeavour would require its very own study. However, for our present purposes, it is enough that we understand the general conditions of a workers’ cooperative. We can define it as a productive enterprise characterised by democratic control such that the workers involved are in some way responsible for what they produce, how they produce it, and what happens to the product. Without too much analysis, we can already tentatively state that this proposal in itself will not fulfil all five of our guiding principles. Most specifically, we argued that our political programme must contain a sensitivity to cultural and psychological factors, in combination with the material dimension. The emancipation of the workplace, however, consists of an almost entirely material project. To be sure, there are considerations of non-material factors, such as education and instilling a cooperative
58 mindset, but these are not pronounced enough to satisfy our search for a political programme that does justice to the non-material factors of oppression and emancipation. It is here, therefore, that we turn quite naturally to our discussion of Gramsci’s contributions to political theory and practice. As we will see, much of what was said in the previous paragraph will become much clearer after we have properly engaged with Gramsci’s analysis of hegemony and his proposals for emancipation.
4.2.2 Gramsci’s Proposals for a Broader Cultural Project Through his theory of hegemony,131 Antonio Gramsci revolutionised Marxist thought and tried to draw Marxism away from economism in both thought and practice.132 Unfortunately, Gramsci was arrested by Mussolini’s fascists in 1926, putting an end to his political activism in the Italian Communist Party he helped to found and his ability to engage properly in academic theoretical debates. At his trial, the sentencing judge famously declared: “For twenty years, we must stop this brain from functioning.”133 Luckily, however, Gramsci was not one to face oppression silently but continued writing on all sorts of topics in his Prison Notebooks, published after his death, which would become perhaps one of the most important texts in Marxist theory, after Marx’s own. As mentioned, Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony drew the attention of Marxist theory away from economic determinism and towards a sensitivity to cultural aspects of repression and the revolution to come. Put simply, Gramsci revealed that social domination consists of more than the material relation between worker and capitalist, but extends also to a culture that arises out of these conditions. This is a culture that is created and maintained by the ruling class, and exists to continue to the suppression of the dominated class. For the most part, this is not a conscious conspiracy waged by the ruling class but an organic process. In this vein, Gramsci introduced the concept of the organic intellectual.134 These thinkers either come from or are assimilated by a particular class of society and represent their class ideas on the intellectual level. In doing so, the organic intellectual becomes a “permanent persuader.”135 These intellectuals include artists and scholars, but also more obvious functionaries such as industrial managers, bureaucrats and politicians. Through these “deputies” of the “dominant class”, the masses become convinced of a particular ideology and begin to accept it uncritically.136 In other words, the particular interests of a powerful class are turned into common sense for all subordinate classes – the proletariat believes that what is good for the capitalist is good for all.
131 Bates, T. (1975). “Gramsci and the Theory of Hegemony”. Journal of the History of Ideas, 36(2): 351-366. 132 Gramsci, A. (2003). Selection from the Prison Notebooks. London: Lawrence & Wishart, p. 158-168. 133 Eaton, G. (2018). “Why Antonio Gramsci is the Marxist thinker for our times”, New Statesman, https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/observations/2018/02/why-antonio-gramsci-marxist-thinker-our-times. Retrieved 24 May 2020. 134 Gramsci, A. (2003). Selection from the Prison Notebooks. London: Lawrence & Wishart, p. 5. 135 Idem, p. 10. 136 Idem, p. 12.
59 In the real world, this happens primarily through a battle between traditional intellectuals and the organic intellectuals of the historically progressive class. This latter class is progressive in the Marxist sense. These are the ascendant classes that herald a new mode of production, or new social ordering. In this vein, the capitalist intellectuals replaced feudal thinkers as the producers of common sense to arrive at cultural hegemony in its modern form. Gramsci writes that this battle can appear in many different ways. The French Revolution, for example, was marked by a harmony between economic and cultural domination as the bourgeoisie rose to its power together with its respective intellectuals.137 At the same time in England, however, the land-owning aristocracy maintained a virtual monopoly on cultural hegemony while the bourgeoisie rose to economic power, and thus these traditional intellectuals were assimilated instead of replaced.138 Unfortunately, it is beyond the scope of this investigation to delve any more deeply into this thoroughly interesting theory and its historical interpretation.139 For now, however, we can be content to conclude that Gramsci’s concept of cultural hegemony posits that social domination is supported by culture and imparts on subservient classes a common sense that is against their own interests. Such a situation is caused by the success of the ruling class in replacing or assimilating the producers of culture. The primary weakness of the proletariat, and the cause of its subservience to capital, is therefore its inability to produce or assimilate its own intellectuals. In other words, the working class has, as of yet, been unable to ‘win’ the cultural fight. This is not to discredit the work of great artists and theorists who have come to represent the class struggle in their works. As we shall see later on, the works left behind by these intellectuals are an essential component of any future emancipation. Rather, the organic intellectuals of the proletariat have failed to convert their culture into common sense. In order to achieve this, we can find two relevant proposals in Gramsci’s own work. First, in his political activism, Gramsci was deeply concerned with embedding the material workers’ councils of his time within a larger cultural project. Second, in the Prison Notebooks, we find very concrete proposals for an education system that will impart students with the necessary counter-hegemonic culture. These two proposals will be considered, respectively, in the following two sections.
The Cultural Clubs Following the Russian Revolution in 1917, Gramsci was presumably excited about the growing support for revolution in his own country, but nonetheless also very worried. In particular, Gramsci was worried that the Italian proletariat would seize power too soon. In other words, what was to be feared was the untenable situation of economic victory without cultural hegemony. The relatively fresh communist
137 Idem, p. 18. 138 Ibid. 139 For a fuller discussion, one can turn to pages 18-23 of the edition of the Prison Notebooks cited in this paper or the chapters on history of Caddedu, E. (ed.). (2020). A Companion to Antonio Gramsci. Leiden: Brill.
60 party he helped to found was deemed to lack the “cultural resources to act” and should instead focus on building a revolutionary culture that would allow for a successful total revolution.140 Crucially, this does not mean abandoning the model of the workers’ council, soviet, or as we might now call it, the workers’ cooperative. Gramsci believed that important cultural lessons could also be learnt by the masses from simple material organisation.141 In what he termed, “the school of labour” workers learn the values of equality, hard-work and cooperation. As such, a new culture arises which replaces the concept of citizen with that of comrade.142 This new culture would be unmissable in the revolution to come and could only be learnt from such a workers’ cooperative. Even though the cooperative is perfectly suited to instil a new “communist viewpoint” in the workers, these cooperatives could not impart all the necessary lessons to their workers. To truly succeed in producing a new emancipatory culture, the workers’ cooperative had to be embedded within a much larger framework of a cultural project that extended past the bounds of labour. To this effect, Gramsci worked to form clubs and organisations that could operate in tandem with the growing cooperative movement. For example, reading clubs would organise workers to discuss the oeuvres of Emile Zola, Anatoly Lunacharsky and Max Eastman, encouraging engagement with radical theoretical and cultural works.143 Another example is a newspaper founded together with a group of other Italian radicals that would publish features such as “The Battle of Ideas.”144 Taken together, Gramsci thus tried to build a large network of radical cultural organisations within which the cooperatives could be embedded. In his activism we find a keen sensitivity to the importance of cultural work, combined with more traditional forms of political organising.
The Common School Gramsci himself had a strong relationship to education. Though he was born into “a backward peasant environment,” Gramsci managed to thrive at university, “despite constant ill-health, under- nourishment and over-work.”145 Clearly, education was very important to him. The editors of the English translation of the Prison Notebooks, Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, write that Gramsci is ultimately concerned with the education of intellectuals from the working class, “and his life was precisely the history of the formation of such an intellectual.”146 Obviously, however, our understanding of cultural hegemony does not lead to a simple acceptance of any kind of education. As we know, the teacher can be as much a part of social domination as the industrial manager. Gramsci argued that, under contemporary conditions, truly formative
140 Welton, M. (1982). “Gramsci’s Contribution to the Analysis of Public Education Knowledge”, The Journal of Educational Thought, 16(3): 140-149, p. 142. 141 Ibid. 142 Gramsci, A. (1968). “Soviets in Italy”, New Left Review, 1(51): 28-58, p. 37. 143 Welton, p. 142. 144 Idem, p. 143. 145 Gramsci, A. (2003). Selections from the Prison Notebooks. London: Lawrence & Wishart, p. 25. 146 Ibid.
61 education is permitted only to “a tiny elite of ladies and gentlemen who do not have to worry about assuring themselves of a future career.”147 For the remaining masses, on the other hand, specialised training turns them into useful workers or assimilates them as bourgeois functionaries. With this in mind, Gramsci sketched a comprehensive proposal for an emancipatory school system along the lines of what he called a common school.
A rational solution to the crisis ought to adopt the following lines. First, a common basic education, imparting a general, humanistic, formative culture; this would strike the right balance between development of the capacity for working manually (technically, industrially) and development of the capacities required for intellectual work. From this type of common schooling, via repeated experiments in vocational orientation, pupils would pass on to one of the specialised schools or to productive work.148
The first part of Gramsci’s two-tiered educational system is the common basic education. Here, all students attend the same school throughout their primary grades. The goal of this stage is to engender a culture of solidarity and equality between pupils. This is achieved by the total collectivisation of all scholastic activities, characterised by a “collective life by day and by night.”149 Teachers become assistants in the learning process, and any brighter students are expected to help the less privileged. In this collective way, pupils learn the basics of any primary education (“reading, writing, sums, geography, history”) but are also imparted with lessons of solidarity and “rights and duties.”150 The formative education of a society’s children thus becomes a public affair. The second tier of this educational system is the creative school. It is called this because here the aim is to develop students towards the “intellectual maturity in which one may discover new truths” and teach the creative skills necessary to think and work.151 Here, pupils are free to experiment with various vocational subjects, finding the best use of their talents and interests in a way that is “autonomous and responsible.”152 These last two guiding principles, autonomy and responsibility, are highly important. The student is allowed to develop freely but must always do so with the public good in mind. We are all expected to understand the debt we owe to society and apply ourselves to its greatest benefit. It is in this second tier of vocational study that the student thus transitions from a collective education to a specialisation that will best fit them.
The advent of the common school means the beginning of new relations between intellectual and industrial work, not only in the school but in the whole of social life.153
147 Idem, p. 27. 148 Ibid. 149 Idem, p. 31. 150 Idem, p. 30. 151 Idem, p. 33. 152 Ibid. 153 Ibid.
62 Gramsci’s comprehensive proposal for an emancipatory school system thus aims at engendering an entirely new mindset in the student body, and thus eventually in the population at large. Throughout the primary grades, pupils are taught the value of solidarity and cooperation. Upon these foundations, students will learn to fully develop their own skills with this social responsibility in mind. The whole of social life gains a deeper harmony between intellectual and industrial work such that their truly emancipatory power can be realised.
4.2.3 Psychogeographic Urbanism So far, we have discussed two proposals for an emancipated future. We began with the workers’ cooperative and its limited achievements of emancipation. We then found that these initial gains won by the cooperative could be harnessed more fully when embedded within a larger cultural project. The proposal that will be discussed now, psychogeographic urbanism, takes this idea to its most radical extreme. As we will see, this vision of an emancipated future truly attempts to revolutionise all of everyday life. First, however, it must be discussed where this theory came from and what its claims are. The theory of psychogeography was developed by the Situationists, a group of radical artists and theorists active throughout the 1960s and located primarily in Paris. The group was led by Guy Debord, whose book The Society of the Spectacle provided the main theoretical foundation for their radical art, theory and practice.154 The theory of the spectacle was essentially an expansion on Marx’s original critique of the commodity. As Debord writes, the emergence of modernity marks the “decline of being into having, and having into merely appearing.” The central claim here is that modern conditions replaced authentically human existence with a life first ruled by the commodity, then by the spectacle. In this two-stage historical development, humans have also devolved first into consumers and then into spectators, respectively. This is to say that all our social relations, in the society of the spectacle, are mediated by images and every individual becomes a mere viewer. There is no truly human life or authentic relations, we merely present images of how we wish to be seen. These images then interact with the images presented by other people. In this way, our lives have become devoid of all humanity. A particular interest for the Situationists was the concept of time. According to these radical artists, modern life is lived under a “universal schedule.”155 Our entire lives are structured around a predetermined clock with appointed slots for work, rest, recreation and transport between these. Even the supposed negation of work, the holiday, is determined by the work calendar; we must wait until the Summer until we can all take bigger trips, throughout the year there are a few slots available for smaller trips. In other words, our entire understanding of time is conditioned by the necessity of toil. The overcoming of toil, then, also requires an entirely new notion of time. An emancipated notion of time will be organised around human needs, not the necessity of labour or the demands of
154 Debord, G. (2016). Society of the Spectacle. Detroit: Black & Red. 155 Nieuwenhuys, C. (1980). New Babylon – 10 Years On. New Babylon lecture for the Faculty of Architecture, Technical University of Delft. Delft. https://stichtingconstant.nl/system/files/1980_new_babylon-ten_years_on.pdf. Retrieved 1 June 2020.
63 capital and the spectacle. As Constant Nieuwenhuys, an architect and painter associated with the Situationists, wrote:
In a society without work, therefore, timekeeping will be seen in a very different light, also literally, and will be organized more in accordance with changing needs than a universal schedule: there will be no need to plan time collectively because there will be less need to coordinate the activities of different individuals.156
Psychogeography is essentially the application of this same analysis to space instead of time. Again, we begin with the analysis that our spaces have been organised around the necessity of toil. In this vein, Constant argues that our cities have been designed more with the automobile in mind than with any human needs.157 Furthermore, our urban environments are split up to accommodate only predetermined activities; one neighbourhood is for shopping, another is residential, yet another is for business. In other words, the city channels all our human activities into sanctioned behaviours, and we are inhibited from the free play of our own human powers. The emancipated city, on the other hand, allows the free development and deployment of the individual’s own energies. A crucial concept here is the Situationist idea of dérive, or drifting.158 The central idea here is that if our cities are organised so as to channel their inhabitants to particular areas to perform certain roles, the most radical thing we can do is get lost. I heard once from a professor that the Situationists would give guided tours to tourists in Paris using a map of London – guaranteeing that they would soon lose track of their locations and become totally lost in the streets of Paris. In this way, the drifter becomes freed from the city’s control over their life and can begin to navigate freely. In this vein, drifting is a return to a truly human mode of existence. By refusing to submit to the city’s logic, the drifter can wander through an urban landscape guided only by their own feelings, hence the term psychogeography. As Debord, writes, the dérive consists of both a “letting-go” of spectacular or capitalistic logics and their replacement with a new “domination of psychogeographical variations.”159 In this sense, the drifter also creates a new city for themselves; the roads feel different and every building takes on a new meaning. What separates Situationist drifting from the regular stroll or journey by foot is that it is led by a logic of internal desire and culminates in “playful-constructive behaviour.”160 Attempting to design a city that would best allow for perpetual drifting, Constant developed plans for a megacity he called New Babylon.161 It would be built atop our current cities so that we look
156 Ibid. 157 Nieuwenhuys, C. (2006). “Another City for Another Life”, In: Knabb, K. (ed.), Situationist International Anthology. Berkeley: Bureau of Public Secrets, p. 71-73. 158 Debord, G. (2006). “Theory of the Dérive”, In: Knabb, K. (ed.), Situationist International Anthology. Berkeley: Bureau of Public Secrets, p. 62-68. 159 Idem, p. 62. 160 Ibid. 161 Nieuwenhuys, C. (1980). New Babylon – 10 Years On. New Babylon lecture for the Faculty of Architecture, Technical University of Delft. Delft. https://stichtingconstant.nl/system/files/1980_new_babylon-ten_years_on.pdf. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
64 down on the ruins of capitalism that we have quite literally overcome. All necessary production is automated and takes place within these ruins, giving the inhabitants of New Babylon eternal free-time to roam around the various spaces of the emancipated city. Each wall and every compartment is movable by inhabitants, so that individuals are constantly rearranging the space to their own desires. Nothing is permanent and everything exists for pleasure. Constant’s plans were never realised, but models of the emancipated city can be seen in the Kunstmuseum Den Haag, in the Netherlands. Pictured below are three of Constant’s many attempts to visualise New Babylon. Figure 1 shows an ink drawing on paper of what the emancipated city might look like. It shows how New Babylon rests on massive pillars that extend out of the ruins of a capitalist past and lift the emancipated city, quite literally, above these ruins. Figure 2 shows a map roughly spanning the Dutch provinces of North and South Holland, indicating how New Babylon would span across the country, connecting various city- hubs. Figure 3 shows a photograph of an exhibition of Constant’s Ludieke Trap (Playful Stairs). The steps are held up by nothing but chains, making them incredibly wobbly and thus open to a spirit of playfulness and creativity.
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Figure 1: Gezicht op een sector (View of a sector), 1960.
Figure 2: New Babylon – Holland, 1963.
Figure 3: De Ludieke Trap (The Playful Stairs), n.d.
66 4.3 The Three Proposals and Emancipation In the previous section, we have discussed three concrete proposals: the workers’ cooperative, Gramsci’s political education and the Situationists’ project of psychogeography. To be clear, the purpose is not to present these proposals as the definitive emancipatory programme. The objective is to illustrate how our theory of emancipation might inform real-world political action. This discussion allows us to reveal the great value of our guiding principles, presented in Section 4.1. As promised, I will argue that these principles have a two-fold functionality. First, the Project Principles allow us to select existing political proposals that can form part of an emancipatory programme. Second, the Programme Principles allow us to bring these projects together in a way that acknowledges their individual contributions to emancipation in a complementary manner. These two functions will be discussed and demonstrated more fully in the remainder of this section. Sub-section 4.3.1 will be focused on the first function, while Sub-section 4.3.2 will be focused on the second.
4.3.1 The Project Principles Using our Project Principles, we can inform our search for political projects that could potentially contribute to the larger project of total human emancipation. This sub-section will show, therefore, how the three particular proposals discussed earlier were chosen on the basis of the guiding principles. From Project Principle I, Emancipated Material Relations, we know that an emancipatory political proposal must in some form bring real life-activity closer to a truly human mode of life. Again, this entails the creation of social relations that allow for self-conscious activity within a community of mutuality. The workers’ cooperative was chosen as a proposal for its direct fidelity to this first Project Principle. We can say that the workers’ cooperative achieves conscious life-activity in that it emancipates all four relations of labour stipulated in our theoretical discussion. First, the relation between the worker and the product of labour. The cooperative worker creates a product that is truly commonly possessed. It no longer confronts them as something alien but as a good over which its creators actually have control. Second, the relation between the worker and the labour process. All decisions are made democratically, and the workers, therefore, have a real say in how they wish to conduct their labour. Third, the relation between the worker and other human individuals. These emancipated workers do not confront each other as private individuals but as collaborators in a social and mutual project. A strong moral bond exists between them that guides their activities away from selfishness and towards genuine concern. Fourth, the relation between the worker and human nature. The life-activity of the worker is conducted not merely for physical survival or the enrichment of another but is guided by social concerns. Here, for the first time, we see truly human activity guided by a genuine self-consciousness. Where once private property and capitalist production formed the negation of humanity, we see the truth in Marx’s statement that overcoming these conditions is the negation of that negation. In
67 other words, where once capitalist production led to alienating, non-human lives, the cooperative workplace takes back that lost humanity and returns it to the newly empowered worker. From Project Principle II, Cultural and Psychological Sensitivity, we know that an emancipatory political project must in some way be responsive to non-material factors of oppression and present alternatives to these. Here again, the contributions to emancipation by the worker’s cooperative can be seen. Once truly empowered to make their life-activity the object of their own will, the workers no longer have to repress their own desires in ways that do not directly serve their communities. Put simply, if there is no boss in charge of you, you do not have to bend your mind to his will. Instead, the emancipated workers need only inhibit their desires to the extent that these desires are incompatible with the community at large. This is what was meant when we discussed that membership of a cooperative might be voluntary but still entails responsibilities. Put concretely, members cannot expect to constantly pursue all their desires, as they must also contribute in a fair way to the collective endeavour. This kind of repression is crucially different, however, in the sense that it truly functions in the name of civilised co- living. Surplus-repression, which is hereby overcome, is repression in the name of those who benefit from social domination. Now, however, it is for the first time the entire community which truly benefits from repression. A far stronger fidelity to Project Principles I and II can be seen, however, in Gramsci’s proposals for political education and counter-hegemonic culture. In other words, we find in these proposals a sensitivity to both the relevant material and immaterial factors, combined with an emphasis on variety, compatibility and incrementalism. Regarding the sensitivity to material and immaterial factors, we can focus on Gramsci’s insistence on embedding the workers’ cooperative within a network of cultural clubs. By bringing people together outside of the workplace and showing them that there is more to gain in the revolution than emancipated labour, the first steps are made for our project of development. In Marx’s words, quoted earlier, these workmen gain new needs that were previously unfelt. It is through the recognition of these social needs that humanity can be truly emancipated in the way defined at the beginning of this investigation. Put concretely, we can imagine a process whereby the revolutionary proletariat is instilled with a rationality that is guided by the newly revealed social needs for recreation, culture, intellectual fulfilment, artistic expression, aesthetic pleasure, and emotional fulfilment. When we embed the cooperative within such a cultural framework, our real humanity becomes revealed to us and we can begin to develop human existence to its greatest potential. In the proposals for a common school, we find further evidence of sensitivity to the non-material combined with a politicisation effort that turns the previously neutral realm of education into a relevant politico-cultural battlefield. Here, Gramsci writes specifically that pupils should be taught humanist values from a young age. As such, we can easily imagine how a proper recognition of the social needs can be expounded in this kind of education. Pupils can learn the values of art, recreation and intellectual
68 fulfilment in their everyday lives freely and develop an intimacy with these social needs that is prohibited in a capitalist education geared towards training specialised workers. Finally, the Situationist proposals for a psychogeographic urbanism were chosen for a similar fidelity to Project Principles I and II. Just as with Gramsci’s proposals, we see here a dedication to both material and non-material factors. New Babylon eradicates all private space by removing all permanent architectural barriers. This leads to a conscious human existence because each individual comes to understand themselves as part of a larger network of mutuality. Together, each inhabitant of the psychogeographic city is responsible for their surroundings. This entails the absolute disavowal of material hierarchy in the organisation of shared space. Furthermore, every change made to the surrounding space will affect not only the individual responsible, but all those active within this space. As such, moral bonds of mutuality are created between everyone involved, and the idea of the private individual ceases to be a functional concept. From Project Principle III, Politicisation, we know that an emancipatory political project must in some way challenge accepted truths that are in reality oppressive or inhibitive. Again, all of our proposals correspond, to some extent, to this principle. The workers’ cooperative challenges the neutrality of workplace relations and Gramsci challenges the neutrality of education. It is in this Project Principle, however, that psychogeography distinguishes itself. Recalling our earlier discussion, we concluded that this principle of politicisation requires an interdisciplinary alliance of revolutionary actors, including teachers and artists. To this list we can now also add architects. Constant’s politicisation of architecture is such that even the very idea of a boundary is questioned. This shows the value of engaging critically with all accepted truths and discovering the radical potentials within vastly different fields of academia and practice. All in all, then, our guiding principles have allowed us to choose, from the vast array of political proposals, a selection of projects that seem able to contribute positively to our emancipatory projects of consciousness and development, culminating in total human emancipation. The value of this function cannot be understated, as it provides for both the theorist and the activist an analytical viewpoint from which to draw political proposals that might conceivably contribute to a radical project. Having said this, though, none of these individual projects should be understood as being able to independently achieve total human emancipation. As we have argued in our Programme Principles, the relation between our political projects must be one of variety and compatibility, with an awareness of political timing, so as to ensure that our revolution of everyday life truly deserves its title. It is here that the second function of our guiding principles becomes clear, the ability to place proposals within a larger programme. In the following sub-section, therefore, we will discuss how our Programme Principles can be used to evaluate the three proposals we have discussed here and how these are thereby brought into a coherent political programme for emancipation.
69 4.3.2 The Programme Principles As mentioned, our Programme Principles can be used for the second function of bringing disparate political proposals together into a coherent emancipatory programme. This is important because, while we might conclude that a proposal contributes in some way to emancipation by testing it against our Project Principles, we still need to harness those contributions for our total project. As such, this sub- section will show how our Programme Principles can be used to bring these independent projects into an all-encompassing political revolution. Again, we will structure this discussion along the lines of each principle. From Programme Principle I, Variety and Compatibility, we know that the various and wide- ranging contributions of each political project must be thought of as a part of a greater whole. In other words, no one proposal is able to achieve total human emancipation on its own, but each contributes in a significant way. It is only through arranging these projects in a complementary way that total human emancipation is to be achieved. We can combine this insight with our evaluation of the proposals along the Project Principles to find how each proposal is to stand in relation to the other. This is to say, after we have evaluated each proposal, we can use that knowledge of its relative strengths and weaknesses to discover what kind of complementary project can best be attached to it. There are two ways in which this process can take place. On the one hand, we can establish that a certain proposal for political action makes great strides in one of our Project Principles but lacks effectiveness in another. In such a case, we would combine this project with another that is more focussed on the remaining Project Principles. On the other hand, we might find that a certain project is effective regarding all three of our Project Principles. In such a case, our work is still not done, however. In such a case, we can still combine this effective project with another that perhaps engages with the same goals in a different manner, or achieves an even deeper emancipation than the first. We can thus say tentatively that there are two possible processes in which we can combine proposals such that they achieve our first Programme Principle. Now, we must show exactly how this works by applying it to our three political proposals. First of all, we argued that the workers’ cooperative is most effective in achieving emancipated material relations, Project Principle I, but is limited in its achievement of the remaining principles. Again, this is not to say that no progress is made along the lines of these principles, but compared to the other proposals this progress is rather weak. As such, we know that the workers’ cooperative would benefit from being embedded within a larger cultural project. This leads us directly to Gramsci’s proposals for political education through the cultural clubs and common school. What we have there then is the beginning of a political programme that seems to achieve all three of our Project Principles, brought together by our first Programme Principle. We know that the variety and compatibility of these two proposals lend themselves well to complementary contributions towards emancipation.
70 Second, however, we argued that the Situationist proposal for psychogeography was effective according to all three Project Principles. The emancipated city of New Babylon entailed a material revolution, a sensitivity to cultural and psychological factors, and politicised accepted truths. This does not mean, however, that such a proposal would not benefit from being part of a coherent larger programme. In fact, as our first Programme Principle stipulates, the sheer variety of ways we can contribute to emancipation requires that various projects, each very important, be brought together in a manner that makes them compatible and cooperative. For example, there is no reason why New Babylon should not have a common school, or workers’ cooperatives in it. In this way, we gain deeper achievements in all three of our Project Principles by focusing on their variety and compatibility. From Programme Principle II, Incrementalism, we can also build this larger programme in a way that makes sense chronologically and safeguards any progress made. Recalling our discussion at the time, we argued that there are two dimensions to be considered when ordering our projects chronologically. First, it must be decided how material and non-material progress must be achieved in time. Second, it must be decided how large and small projects are to stand in relation to each other. Regarding the first dimension, material vs. non-material, it seems our investigation has once again brought us to a tension that requires a study of its own to be done justice. There are valid reasons to claim either the primacy of material projects, or the priority of culture. As we will see, this is a hotly debated issue within radical theory. On the one hand, the matter-first argument seems to make sense with our earlier claim that no emancipation can be achieved so long as we are deprived of our basic physical needs. It is useful here to recall Bertolt Brecht’s famous line in the Threepenny Opera, “Erst kommst das Fressen, dann komt die Moral,” often translated as “Food first, then morals.” Furthermore, as we have also seen in our theoretical discussion, material conditions often contribute to a corresponding culture. In other words, when we emancipate our workplace, we might find that our colleagues afterwards regard us in a different way. A new culture has arisen because of our material practice. On the other hand, however, the culture-first argument seems to make sense with our insistence on a sensitivity to cultural or psychological factors that are often neglected in Marxist theory and practice. Here we can think of Rosa Luxemburg’s famous statement that “socialism in life requires a complete spiritual transformation in the masses.”162 Furthermore, we can look to Gramsci’s valid fears of a premature material revolution that could, and did, fall asunder without the necessary cultural backing. We will find that many material projects are far riskier, or will face far more opposition without a great background of cultural projects to be embedded in. At the start of this chapter, however, we set out with the explicit purpose to avoid either economism or psychologism. In other words, we can allow ourselves to veer into a path that stipulates the absolute priority of any emancipatory factors and thus diminishes the others. The most we can say
162 Luxemburg, R. (1999). “Chapter 6: The Problem of Dictatorship”, In: Luxemburg, R., The Russian Revolution. https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/russian-revolution/ch06.htm. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
71 here is that, indeed, the physical needs are primary – we must be fed before we can revolt – but beyond that we cannot determine in advance whether material or cultural projects make the most sense at any given time. Instead, the utility and possibility of each project will be revealed only in the school of practice. In other words, it is only with an accurate understanding of the revolutionary situation that we will know which projects make sense, and when. Regarding the second dimension, large vs. small, we can say much the same. On the one hand, larger projects become much more achievable and sustainable when they are backed by a broad scale of previous, smaller contributions. Taking Gramsci’s activism as an example again, a larger revolution has a far greater chance of success if the revolutionary class has already become accustomed to political organisation. Nonetheless, large-scale political actions will also achieve far greater gains, making any smaller projects largely unnecessary. For example, if the entire construction of New Babylon is successful, smaller movements such as those for adequate sporting facilities, become achieved in its wake. Generally, though, it is perhaps best to err on the side of caution, giving priority to the smaller projects that will contribute to the larger.
On the basis of both the Project Principles and the Programme Principles, we have shown how a coherent political programme for total human emancipation can be developed out of various contributing proposals. Nonetheless, with this we have only illustrated a theoretical conclusion. If we are to truly move from theory into political practice, we will have to consider the real-world problems that we might expect to be faced by our programme. This will be the subject of the following section.
4.4 Feasibility of the Emancipatory Programme As mentioned, the political programme we have developed here will be of no use to real-world political actors, and thus to real-world emancipation, if we do not consider relevant feasibility issues. The best way to look for and discuss such issues would be to draw from the already existing empirical experiences of our three proposals. This allows us to extrapolate three general obstacles to the implementation of our emancipatory programme: external backlash from the ruling class, internal backlash from within the potentially revolutionary movement and the potential for revolutionary blindness. First, we must expect some form of external backlash. As the emancipatory process seeks to replace existing conditions, those who benefit from the old, oppressive conditions are bound to react. Much like in the laws of physics, any revolution will also produce a counter-revolution. Unfortunately, the analogy to Newton’s law ends here, as the counter-revolution is often much stronger than the emancipatory movement. This is because those who benefit from the current conditions are oftentimes the powerful, the wealthy, the ruling class.
72 The obvious example is Thatcher’s war against striking miners in the 1980s. Owen Jones has written that, to suppress these strikes, the “police were used as a political battering ram.”163 In fact, a whole “culture of brutality” was engendered within the police forces, and covering up crimes against striking civilians became common practice.164 As such, not only was the material force of the police mobilised against the unions, a national culture of enmity was engendered between the pro- and anti- Thatcherites. In other words, the ruling class has a great arsenal of both material and cultural weaponry to use against an emancipatory movement. Fortunately, however, we know that no ruling class can defend itself forever. A relevant real- world experience we can draw on here is that of the empresas recuperadas (worker-recuperated enterprises) in Argentina. Following economic collapse at the turn of the millennium, Argentinian workers occupied the closed-down businesses and operated them as workers’ cooperatives. Here again, “workers have at times had to confront police batons and assault vehicles” but often persisted with the support of the local community.165 How this worked can be seen more clearly from Marcelo Vieta’s reporting of an account from a worker at the Chilavert company cooperative.
During the days when Chilavert was under siege by police and our moments of occupation, the community support we received was key for us. We couldn’t have kept this place open or resisted repression without the community, without the support we received from the ERT [worker-recuperated enterprises] movement, from the neighbourhood assemblies, from students, from our families. Their support in so many ways – bringing us food, helping us stand off against police, coming to visit us, making this place relevant – is one of the most important parts of our history.166
Clearly, the combined powers of a community of workers and sympathisers can overcome even some of the most repressive police forces in the world. Solidarity is stronger than the police baton. While the project for workers’ cooperatives will face many challenges before it can become the primary form of global production, these are challenges the movement has faced and conquered before. Furthermore, as the cultural battles become more and more pronounced, oftentimes the barbarity of the traditional intellectual and the ruling class she represents becomes plainly revealed. In this vein, societies quickly become polarised and the revolutionary culture gains a new appeal. In Thatcher’s Britain, we see how this worked with the punk movement and the massive popularity of anti- Thatcherite musical artists like The Smiths, The Clash, Elvis Costello and The Communards. As David Khabaz writes, “It was kind of a paradoxical movement: if [Thatcher] hadn’t provided that sort of
163 Jones, O. (2015). The Establishment. London: Penguin, p. 128. 164 Idem, 130. 165 Vieta, M. (2013). “The emergence of the empresas recuperadas por sus trabajadores: A political economic and sociological appraisal of two decades of self-management in Argentina”, Euricse Working Paper, 55(13), p. 34. 166 Idem, p. 35-36.
73 attack on art, the critical edge of intellectual art would never have come about.” 167 Especially in our modern liberal mindset, we are generally shocked by anyone attacking the expressions of artists, painters, or writers and are quick to move to their defence.168 We can say, therefore, that the material and cultural powers of the ruling class are incredibly strong, but not entirely undefeatable. Second, our emancipatory programme must be wary of internal backlash too. As we know from our discussion of surplus-repression and Gramsci’s notion of cultural hegemony, much of the oppression has been internalised and automated within the potentially revolutionary individuals. In other words, the battle against oppression must, to some extent, take place within our own minds as well. Naturally, this will lead to some backlash from within the movement. No one will enjoy hearing that what they have long held as common sense is actually a problematic point of view. Again, however, we know that victory in battles like these is not impossible. On a smaller scale, there are a great many things we once all held as common sense, but now recognise as the oppressive mechanisms they really are. At some point in time, it made absolute sense to a great deal of Americans to believe in the validity of James Henry Hammond’s so-called mudsill theory. Hammond defended American slavery by arguing that it was “especially commanded by God” that White Americans are to rule over an enslaved African population.
In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life […] It constitutes the very mudsill of society […] Fortunately for the South, she found a race adapted to that purpose to her hand. A race inferior to her own, but eminently qualified in temper, in vigor, in docility, in capacity to stand the climate, to answer all her purposes. We use them for our purpose, an call them slaves.169
For the most part, we have eradicated this form of slavery globally and collectively come to realise the absurdity of statements like Hammond’s. There is no reason to suggest that we cannot expand our rejection of the mudsill theory of society beyond its initial battle. We have already learnt that such statements are idiotic on the basis of race, but we can extend this further. We can learn that no human being is inferior to another, no person should be subjected to the drudgery of life while others live in abundance. One could go on for entire chapters on the various ways in which our cultures and psychologies have changed over the course of history. For now, however, we can be content in concluding that
167 The Straits Times (2013). “Thatcher had “phenomenal” impact on Britain’s cultural landscape”, The Straits Times, https://www.straitstimes.com/world/thatcher-had-phenomenal-impact-on-britains-cultural-landscape. Retrieved 26 May 2020. 168 Admittedly, Western liberal sympathies are usually reserved for like-minded liberal intellectuals under illiberal regimes. Nonetheless, it is imaginable that the liberal insistence on freedom of expression could be used for radical cultural expression. 169 Hammond, J. H. (1858). “The Mudsill Theory”, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3439t.html. Retrieved 25 May 2020.
74 oppressive and inhibitive forms of common sense have already been conquered, we need only build on these victories to emancipate all of society. Crucially, such developments are already taking place. This can be seen best in the actual existence of modern workers’ cooperatives. Here, people have already overcome the idea that there must be a subordinate class and have joined together in collaborative efforts based on the equality of all individuals involved. Our goal should therefore be to build forth upon these successes. This leads us to a possible solution to both of the forms of backlash discussed here, internal and external, driven again by the tension between material and cultural factors. As we know from our discussion of the guiding principles above, we must be sensitive to the combination and complementarity of both material and non-material forms of oppression and emancipation. This becomes an invaluable insight when we confront the real-world issue of backlash. There are two ways in which this is relevant. First, as Gramsci feared, a premature material revolution can count on an undefeatable counter-revolution from the ruling classes. If instead, the safer and perhaps broader cultural battles are fought beforehand, much of the wind can be taken out the sails of the ruling classes. In other words, embedding our material efforts within a cultural programme can chisel away at the cultural powers of the ruling class, paving the way for material success. This can be seen quite well in the Argentine example quoted earlier. The existing culture of solidarity in neighbourhoods can be mobilised against the counter-revolution to safeguard material projects. Second, the opposite of this statement could also be true. As we know from our theoretical discussion, material conditions can also contribute to culture. For example, workers who join forces in a cooperative will presumably also develop a stronger culture of solidarity. Not only that, but material successes will obviously also make the movement materially stronger. Successfully occupying and running a factory, for example, will grant the emancipatory programme far more resources to draw from. As such, to minimise or combat both internal and external backlash, a delicate balance can be struck between material and cultural projects. Third, and finally, there is the potential problem of revolutionary blindness. This happens when excitement or fervour about a particular project makes us unable, or unwilling, to take in differing perspectives or factors into our analysis and practice. Recalling our statements in the beginning of this investigation, we set out to correct for such a problem by minimising the economism in Marxism, in favour of a sensitivity to culture and psychology. However, even our programme as we have stipulated it here runs a similar risk. This risk is perhaps greatest in the bigger projects. Take the emancipated city of New Babylon, for example. While structures like the Playful Stairs, pictured above in Figure 3, are fun and allow for a playful interaction with the environment, they would be a nightmare for anyone in a wheelchair or otherwise impaired. Our emancipated city does not deserve its title if it creates such barriers to its disabled inhabitants. Obviously, this problem can be ameliorated with a few modifications such as, in the particular example of the stairs, elevators or ramps. However, while I am not an architect, I trust
75 that smarter people than myself can find innovative solutions to any accessibility problems posed by the psychogeographic city. Another way the risk of revolutionary blindness might persist in the psychogeographic proposals is the potential for urban naivety. I owe this observation to a discussion with Annette Freyberg-Inan, who also proposed the term. What is meant here is that city-dwellers often neglect the reality of rural or agricultural life. One cannot simply abandon all of the natural logic in favour of a life guided only by your own pleasures or feelings. If we did, every harvest would necessarily fail. There is a certain time that crops must be sown, tended to and eventually reaped. Similar restrictions apply to caring for and benefitting from herds of animals. These are universal schedules that are so dreaded by the Situationists but simply cannot be avoided. The most we can hope for is an accommodation of this inescapable natural logic into a harmonious relationship with the logic of human gratification. Luckily, our theory of human emancipation already contains the picture of what such a relationship would look like. Recalling our initial discussion of the development project of emancipation, we concluded that an emancipated rationality would not completely ignore the necessity of labour. Instead, all inescapable toil and determination by nature would have to be geared towards the general gratification of human needs. In other words, waking up at a certain early hour to feed the chickens would be rational if, and only if, doing so would generally allow for a greater degree of human emancipation.170 Considering that one of our basic human needs is the need for sustenance, this seems like a reasonable level of repression by nature. If we are to be fulfilled, we must also be fed. Altogether then, we can say that the real-world issues to be faced by our emancipatory programme are considerable, but not undefeatable. First, we must be wary of external backlash from the ruling class that stands to lose power. Second, we must be able to confront internal backlash from potential allies and revolutionaries that will need to come to terms with the oppressive nature of what they once held as common sense. Third, we must be wary of revolutionary blindness, avoiding unilateral actions or neglecting other perspectives.
170 This particular example assumes that in our emancipated future we have not all become vegans. While this is certainly an interesting discussion, it is beyond the scope of the current investigation. If the reader prefers, the example of tending to the chickens can be replaced with harvesting the wheat fields.
76 5 Conclusion Having reached the end of our investigation we can begin to summarise our findings. Each chapter was dedicated to a particular question that would help us to answer our primary research question. Recalling our discussion in the first chapter, our intent was to develop an alternative to capitalism that achieves what we have termed total human emancipation. In Chapter One, we introduced our research interest. We presented the view that much of leftist theory is pre-occupied with material concerns and thus often blinded to potentially important cultural, psychological or human matters. The remainder of the investigation was therefore led by the following research question:
How can a viable alternative to capitalism be developed that achieves total human emancipation?
In Chapter Two, we asked the question: What is total human emancipation? Answering this question brought us to a lengthy discussion of humanist and psychoanalytical Marxism. On the basis of this discussion, it was posited that total human emancipation consists of two central projects.
i. Consciousness This project entails revealing the alienating nature of contemporary existence and social relations and replacing these with truly human forms of living. Specifically, this means a return to self-conscious, self- directed life-activity within a community of individuals who understand each other as equal and mutual beings.
ii. Development This project entails revealing the inhibiting nature of contemporary existence and social relations and replacing these with a mode of living that allows for the free and total development of the individual. Specifically, this means instilling an emancipated rationality within the individual that is guided by the pursuit of the social needs.
In Chapter Three, we asked the question: Can total human emancipation be achieved within the confines of capitalism? In this context, we found three negative conclusions. First, the conditions of capitalism require that there is always a section of the population whose basic physical needs are either unmet or at constant risk of being unmet. As such, emancipation is inhibited from the outset. Second, a conscious mode of living is made impossible by private property and the performance principle. Capitalist subjects only ever confront each other as self-contained individuals and are expected to understand themselves only as instruments of labour. Third, the project of development is made impossible by the capitalist institutions of money fetishism and the commodity. Capitalism can only ever promise gratification mediated by the commodity, meaning that we only understand our needs in these terms and are unable to conceive of ourselves as agents of our own gratification.
77 In Chapter Four, we asked the question: How can total human emancipation be achieved? Again, we began with the acknowledgement that much of leftist theory and political action has been overly concerned with the material dimension. As such, we distilled various principles for real-world political practice from our theory of total human emancipation. These were categorised as the Project Principles and the Programme Principles. The first category consists of principles that ought to guide our selection and evaluation of political proposals; they are as follows:
i. Emancipated Material Relations Projects must in some way contribute to the breaking down of material inequality and hierarchy, and their replacement with relations of equality and mutuality.
As we know from our discussion, a central aspect of emancipation is a return to material relations that allow for self-conscious activity within a community of mutuality. As such, our political projects ought to aim at replacing the oppressive relations of modern society with an emancipated mode of existence. This entails the breaking down of hierarchies and the overcoming of material inequality, in favour of collaboration and mutuality.
ii. Cultural and Psychological Sensitivity Projects must in some way contribute to a political practice that extends beyond the material and seeks also to reform shared cultures and individual mindsets.
From our theory, we know also, however, that material emancipation is not sufficient for total human emancipation and that our political actions must, therefore, also be sensitive to cultural and psychological factors. This entails the expansion of the political battleground beyond the workplace. Proposals must in some way also seek to alter shared cultures and individual mindsets through philosophy, education, and the arts.
iii. Politicisation Projects must in some way contribute to challenging currently accepted truths, revealing their oppressive or inhibitive nature.
Drawing particularly on the observation that modern society instils an alienating and submissive culture in the individual, it was concluded that our political action must also challenge accepted truths. This entails reviving settled discussions and re-opening debates on all the various facets of everyday life. No stone, from our cultural traditions to the way we understand space, can be left unturned.
78 To put all three of the Project Principles into one sentence rather awkwardly, we can say that our political action must aim at revolutionising material relations such that a human mode of existence is possible, with the awareness that such a revolution must also be sensitive to non-material factors and politicise currently accepted truths. In this vein, three exemplary proposals with some sensitivity to material, cultural and psychological matters were discussed. These were the workers’ cooperative, Gramsci’s proposals for a counter-hegemonic culture, and the Situationist proposals for psychogeographic urbanism. Considering the all-encompassing nature of the revolution of everyday life that total human emancipation requires, there is necessarily a wide variety of projects that this revolution entails. Using the Programme Principles, it was discussed how such projects can be combined, or embedded within the same programme, so that their different but important contributions can be made complementary. These principles are as follows:
i. Variety and Compatibility The unique contribution of each project must be recognised and permitted, but only in such a way that it is complementary to other projects and their contributions.
Our political programme must recognise that there is a wide range of political projects that might conceivably contribute to emancipation in various different ways. Our political programme must therefore be committed to organising these in such a way that they are compatible with one another. Particularly the tension between cultural and material projects is important here. It should be a priority of political organising to see to it that the contributions of differing, and seemingly conflicting, projects are harnessed in such a way that they complement the other projects.
ii. Incrementalism The implementation of political projects must make sense chronologically, such that resources are not spread thinly, and successes remain sustainable.
Our political programme must also be sensitive to the importance of timing. Larger projects will require many smaller victories before they can be sustainably achieved and maintained. At the same time, large-scale projects will also expedite progress. This is a tension that must be considered by our political programme.
Taken together, these five guiding principles for political action can inform a real-world politics that achieves total human emancipation. To illustrate how such a programme could be developed, we have
79 applied all five of the principles to inform our exemplary programme of the three proposals mentioned earlier. The previous three chapters have formed a coherent whole to provide an answer to our initial question concerning how an alternative to capitalism can be developed that achieves total human emancipation. Chapter Two laid the foundation by defining total human emancipation so that we knew what it is we were hoping to achieve. Chapter Three then tested the contemporary conditions of capitalism for their ability to provide emancipation as we have defined it. Finding that that was impossible, this chapter justified an anti-capitalist approach. As discussed, however, concluding that we must be anti-capitalist does not tell us enough to form a viable alternative. Chapter Four, therefore, built forth upon this observation to develop a coherent set of guiding principles from which a proper alternative to capitalism can be conceived and achieved. Here, in our concluding Chapter Five, we have brought these findings together in a coherent answer to our question. A viable alternative to capitalism that achieves total human emancipation can be developed through the five guiding principles for political action listed above.
5.1 Evaluation
As with any theoretical investigation, this work has not been without flaws. It is important that I mention potentially relevant shortcomings here to perhaps temper our conclusion. While I do not personally think either of these flaws necessarily disqualify this investigation or its conclusions, there is a fruitful debate to be had surrounding them. First, in the interest of clarity and space, many of the preceding discussions have not been as complete as they perhaps could have been. This is a problem that any investigation spanning as many theories and problematics as this one will encounter. Regarding psychoanalytical Marxism, this investigation has stayed essentially within the bounds of Herbert Marcuse’s theories, based almost entirely on his most important work, Eros and Civilization. Of course, this is not the only work within the tradition. Different investigative paths could have been taken if we had based ourselves on the works of Erich Fromm,171 for example. Furthermore, in our understanding of psychoanalysis we have limited ourselves to Freud but could have also expanded this to include Jacques Lacan172 or even Slavoj Žižek’s173 contributions. The second part of Chapter Two, therefore, can also be read as an invitation to other scholars to expand on our understanding of total human emancipation with a deeper discussion of psychoanalytical Marxism and its later contributors. These necessary limitations are even more pronounced in Chapter Four, where we discussed the three political proposals. While much effort was taken to place these proposals within their respective
171 Fromm, E. (1990). Beyond the Chains of Illusion. London: Continuum. 172 Lacan, J. (2017). Ecrits. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 173 Žižek, S. (2008). The Sublime Object of Ideology. London: Verso.
80 histories and theoretical backgrounds, there simply was not enough to space to engage in a full discussion. That being said, it was not the objective of this investigation to present a history of ideas, merely to evaluate these existing proposals within the theoretical framework we developed. As such, this should also not be a disqualifying error. Second, while I was re-reading and editing the previous chapters it became clear that this investigation runs the potential of a Western bias. While the claims and conclusions made are supposed to be valid for all of capitalism, our theoretical and empirical tools throughout this investigation have come exclusively from the Western world. This problem perhaps stems from my own lack of knowledge outside the Western canon. This investigation can thus also be read as an invitation, again, to other scholars to expand the present understanding of total human emancipation beyond the Western experience and episteme.
5.2 Implications
Any academic investigation, perhaps even more so in political theory than anywhere else, has to be relevant outside its immediate research question. If we had answered a question that was very interesting but had no broader implications for political theory or action, the value of our conclusions could quite fairly be brought into question. First, the most obvious implications of our conclusions lie in the field of political action. As we have developed guiding principles for a political programme, our findings are directly relevant to real- world political actors. Furthermore, in Chapter Four, it has already been shown how our understanding of total human emancipation can be used to evaluate existing proposals. Taken together, the implications for political action are that this investigation provides a framework for real-world actors to both evaluate and develop proposals for emancipatory action. Second, as mentioned in the introductory Chapter One, there is a tendency in radical theory to present a conflict between the supposed economic determinism of Marxist theory and more cultural theories of emancipation. While it is true that much of Marxist thinking has often ignored these non- material, cultural or psychological factors, this investigation has shown that we do not have to leave the Marxist episteme to engage with these properly. Particularly in Chapter Two, we have demonstrated the ability of Marxism, in all its various strands, to be able to reckon with culture and psychology. This finding is relevant for two important debates in political theory. First, Marxism is often accused of being too labour-centric. If we take only emancipated labour as the goal of our revolution, we ignore great swathes of everyday life that remain alienating or oppressive. Put simply, there is more to life than work. Recalling our discussion of humanist Marxism, we can say that this is an unfair critique of the Marxist framework used in this investigation. We posited, for example, that emancipated labour is only one of the many basic human needs, along with intellectual fulfilment, community, aesthetic pleasure, and much more. Furthermore, looking at the five guiding principles for political action
81 presented in Chapter Four, emancipated material relations, the category most related to labour, is only one of them. In other words, there certainly is more to life than work, and Marxism can be acutely aware of that. If anything, our theoretical discussion of emancipation has intended to minimise the phenomenon of work, allowing for a fuller development of humanity on its own terms. A second debate for which this finding is relevant is the debate on a supposed “Unhappy Marriage” that has arisen between Marxism and more cultural radical theories. Feminists, for example, have long argued very fairly that their concerns have been minimised by much of Marxism’s economic determinism and focus on the proletariat as a unified body.174 A similar, and also fair, critique has been presented by many postcolonial thinkers.175 In our theoretical discussion, however, it becomes clear that Marxism does not need to rely on such a totalizing version of economic determinism. In fact, we found that Marxism can quite happily accommodate cultural factors within its analysis. Furthermore, our theory aims at the emancipation of individuals qua humans, not merely qua labourers. This is the particular power of humanist and psychoanalytical Marxism that has hopefully been shown throughout this investigation.
5.3 Final words
Getting to the end of our discussion here was perhaps a rather arduous journey through some more obscure theory and belaboured argumentation. I want to thank the reader for their patience on this trek, because what we have just developed here really is an important contribution not only to Marxist theory but to political action as well. With our new theory of total human emancipation, we can begin again to dream of an emancipated future that has learnt the lessons of days gone by. What we must demand from now on is nothing less than…
…the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man – the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species.176
While this might seem fantastical now, we have shown throughout this investigation that emancipation is both conceivable and achievable. Ohne Angst Leben, living without fear, is within our reach, and it is our theory of total human emancipation that will bring us such a life.
174 Sargent, L. (ed.). (1981). Women and Revolution. Montreal: Black Rose Books. 175 Warren, R. (ed.). (2016.). The Debate on Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital. London: Verso. 176 Marx, K. (1981). Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Amherst: Prometheus Books, p. 102-103.
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List of Figures
Figure 1: Gezicht op een Sector (View of a Sector), 1960 …………………………………………………61 Nieuwenhuys, C. (1960). Gezicht op een Sector [Ink on paper]. The Hague: Kunstmuseum Den Haag https://www.kunstmuseum.nl/nl/collectie/gezicht-op-een-sector?origin=gm. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
Figure 2: New Babylon - Holland, 1963 …………….…………………………………………………61 Nieuwenhuys, C. (1963). New Babylon – Holland [Ink on city map]. The Hague: Kunstmuseum Den Haag https://www.kunstmuseum.nl/nl/collectie/new-babylon-holland?origin=gm. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
Figure 3: De Ludieke Trap (The Playful Stairs), n.d. ……………………………………………………61 Artist and Title Unknown [Photograph]. https://www.kunstmuseum.nl/nl/organisatie/nieuws/constant-new-babylon. Retrieved 26 May 2020.
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