Marx's concept of the alternative to capitalism

250 Pages·2012·1.72 MB·English

by  Marx

Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism
Historical
Materialism
Book Series
Editorial Board
Sébastien Budgen, Paris – Steve Edwards, London
Marcel van der Linden, Amsterdam – Peter Thomas, London
VOLUME 36
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/hm
Marx’s Concept of the
Alternative to Capitalism
By
Peter Hudis
LEidEn • BOSTOn
2012
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data
Hudis, Peter.
Marx’s concept of the alternative to capitalism / by Peter Hudis.
p. cm. — (Historical materialism book series ; 36)
includes bibliographical references and index.
iSBn 978-90-04-22197-0 (hardback : alk. paper) — iSBn 978-90-04-22986-0 (ebook)
1. Capitalism. 2. Marxian economics. 3. Marx, Karl, 1818–1883. i. Title.
HB501.H7835 2012
335.4’12—dc23
2012008823
iSSn 1570-1522
iSBn 978 90 04 22197 0 (hardback)
iSBn 978 90 04 22986 0 (e-book)
Copyright 2012 by Koninklijke Brill nV, Leiden, The netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill nV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing,
idC Publishers and Martinus nijhoff Publishers.
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This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Contents
Acknowledgements ........................................................................................ vii
introduction Why Explore Marx’s Concept of the Transcendence of
Value-Production? Why now? ................................................................ 1
The object and purpose of this study ...................................................... 1
Objectivist and subjectivist approaches to Marx’s philosophical
contribution ............................................................................................. 9
1. The Transcendence of Alienation in the Writings of the
Young Marx ................................................................................................ 37
Marx’s beginnings, 1837–41 ...................................................................... 37
Marx’s critique of politics and philosophy, 1842–3 ............................... 43
Marx’s critique of economics and philosophy, 1843–4 ......................... 56
discerning the ideal within the real, 1845–8 ........................................... 75
Evaluating the young Marx’s concept of a postcapitalist society ....... 85
2. The Conception of a Postcapitalist Society in the drafts of Capital .... 93
The ‘first draft’ of Capital: The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) ................... 93
The ‘second draft’ of Capital: the Grundrisse (1858) ............................... 100
The ‘third draft’ of Capital, 1861–3 ........................................................... 133
3. The Vision of the new Society in Marx’s Capital ................................... 147
Volume i of Capital ..................................................................................... 147
Volumes ii and iii of Capital ..................................................................... 169
4. Marx’s Late Writings on Postcapitalist Society ...................................... 183
The impact of the Paris Commune on Marx .......................................... 183
The Critique of the Gotha Programme ......................................................... 187
vi • Contents
Conclusion Evaluating Marx’s Concept of a Postcapitalist Society ..... 207
Appendix Translation of Marx’s Excerpt-notes on the Chapter
‘Absolute Knowledge’ in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit .................... 216
References ........................................................................................................ 223
index ................................................................................................................. 231
Acknowledgements
This work is not the product of mere solitary reflection, since it arose and
developed as a result of a series of discussions and debates with numerous
friends and colleagues over the course of the last decade, many of them
associated with the philosophy of ‘Marxist-Humanism’. i wish to especially
single out Richard Abernethy, dave Black, dan Buckley, dale Heckerman,
Karel Ludenhoff, Eli Messinger, Marilyn nissim-Sabat, James Obst, Sandra
Rein, Ali Reza, Sekou Samateh and Stephen Sarma-Weierman. i wish to espe-
cially thank Frieda Afary and Kevin Anderson for their insights, expressed
in numerous conversations and letters, and for their careful and studious
commentary on the manuscript.
i am no less indebted to the thoughts and suggestions provided by a num-
ber of scholars at Loyola University Chicago, who commented on earlier ver-
sions of this work. These include Andrew Cutrofellow, david ingram, Lauren
Langman, david Schweickart, dan Vaillancourt and Thomas Wren. While
any faults contained in this work are my responsibility alone, i could not have
come this far without their assistance.

Introduction
Why Explore Marx’s Concept of the
Transcendence of Value-Production? Why Now?
The object and purpose of this study
Two decades after the collapse of statist Commu-
nism in the USSR and Eastern Europe, which many
claimed had consigned Marx’s work to the dust-
bin of history, a new climate has emerged in which
his ideas are subject to renewed discussion and
re-examination. This change is due, in part, to the
phenomenon of capitalist globalisation, which has
sparked interest in Marx’s analysis of the inherently
expansionary and global nature of capital, which
he defined as ‘self-expanding value’. It is also due
to the emergence of a global-justice movement over
the past two decades, which has called attention to
the economic inequality, social instability and envi-
ronmental destruction that have accompanied the
global expansion of capitalism. Most of all, the new
climate of discussion on Marx’s work is due to the
worldwide financial and economic crisis that began
in 2008, the most serious to afflict the global econ-
omy in the past seventy years. The crisis has not only
revealed the deep fault-lines that prevent capitalism
from supplying the most basic of human needs for
hundreds of millions of people worldwide; it has
also made it clear that the system has little to offer
humanity except years and indeed decades of eco-
nomic austerity, reductions in public services, and
eroding living conditions. Capitalism has clearly
exhausted its historic initiative and raison d’être when