A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism PDF
Preview A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism
A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism Also by Anthony Giddens and publislud by Palgrave Macmillan CENTRAL PROBLEMS IN SOCIAL THEORY SOCIOLOGY: A Brief but Critical Introduction CLASSES, POWER AND CONFLICT (edited, It'ith David lIeld) A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism Second Edition Anthony Giddens palgrave macmillan * C> Anthony Giddens 1981, 1995 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written pennlsslon or In accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence pennlttlng limited copying issued by the Copyright licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WH 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act In relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright. Designs and Patents Act 1988. First edition 1981 Second edition 1995 Published by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RGZ1 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York. N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academk Imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of Sl Martin's Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark In the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-0-333-62554-5 ISBN 978-1-349-24187-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-24187-3 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book Is available from the British Library. Viewed pathetically, a single second has infinite value; viewed com ically, ten thousand years are but a trifle, like yesterday when it is gone. If one were to say simply and directly that ten thousand years are but a trifle, many a fool would give his assent, and find it wis dom; but he forgets the other, that a second has infinite value. Kierkegaard Contents Preface to the Second Edition ix Introduction I I The Time-Space Constitution of Social Systems 26 2 Domination, Power and Exploitation: an Analysis 49 3 Society as Time-Traveller: Capitalism and World History 69 4 Time-Space Distanciation and the Generation of Power 90 S Property and Class Society 109 6 Time, Labour and the City 129 7 Capitalism: Integration, Surveillance and Class Power 157 8 The Nation-State, Nationalism and Capitalist Development 182 9 The State: Class Conflict and Political Order 203 10 Between Capitalism and Socialism: Contradiction and Exploitation 230 Notes and References 253 Index 28S VII Preface to the Second Edition This work is the first volume in a three-part study, the second and third volumes of which have now been completed. I Taken together, the three volumes represent an attempt to outline and justify a critical theory of late modernity. Such a critical theory must have three strands. First of all, it must be 'methodologically adequate' in terms of basic issues to do with agency, structure and the interpretation of history. A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism seeks to move away from all forms of teleology save for those directly associated with individual human beings. Contrary to functionalism, social systems have no 'needs' which can be invoked as means of explanation for social occurrences; and contrary to certain versions of historical materialism there is no overall teleology to history either. In my view one should also disavow evolutionism, even where the evolutionary mechanisms identified are non teleological. There are no direct social or cultural equivalents to notions such as adaptation, mutation and so forth, central to biological evolution. Second, such a critical theory should be geared to an institutional analysis of modernity. As I try to make clear in this volume, modernity is not all of a piece institutionally: modern societies develop along a number of different, although connected, institu tional dimensions. The driving force of the expansion of modernity across the world is not, as Marx believed, simply or even primarily capitalistic competition. To the expansionist impetus of capitalism, ix x Preface to the Second Edition which is certainly important. we must add the impact of the global nation-state system and associated means of industrial, administrat ive and military power. Third, a reconstituted critical theory must grapple with what critique means, and how it might be justified, in a world precisely where 'history' has no teleology or overall dynamic form. Critical theory today must re.ject providentialism - the idea that 'history' creates problems for humanity, but at the same time generates solutions to those problems. Providentialism implies teleology, but is in principle separable from it: it really means the idea that everything has a silver lining. Thus, according to Marx, class struggle is both an expression of social exploitation and at the same time the source of its transcendence. Intellectually and politically there have been extraordinary changes since the time at which this volume was first published. Intellectually, Marxism was a far more prominent influence than it has since become. Those whom Merleau-Ponty called 'Western Marxists' had for a long while been very critical of Soviet Communism. Yet. deformed as it was perceived to he, the Soviet system appeared to provide at least some sort of concrete starting point for the development of a more valid form of socialism. The disintegration of Soviet Communism, anticipated neither hy Marxist critics nor hy even the most assiduous of Kremlin watchers, has removed that seeming 'solid ground'. The very idea of socialism, as Marx conceived of it at any rate, has been shown to be something of a historical dead-end. The strains to which 'welfare socialism' in Western Europe and elsewhere has hecome subject arc every bit as compromising for socialist theories as the dissolution of East European Communism. For a long while, welfare socialism in Europe for many was, as it were, the acceptahle face of socialism. In comhination with Keynesian demand management. the welfare state appeared to be a system in which economic effectiveness and social responsibility could he reconciled. Some followers of Marx who were hostile to 'actually existing socialism' helieved that the welfare society could provide the basis for a movement into an 'authentic' socialist system - above all in the well-developcd welfare states of the Scandinavian countries. Today, however. Keynesianism is more or less exhausted and the welfare state embattled: even those who continue to see welfare institutions as essential parts of a 'caring Preface to the Second Edition xi society' now feel themselves to be fighting a rear-guard action. The idea of a 'further push' into socialism now quite suddenly appears not just archaic but illogical. In these circumstances, do Marx's writings retain any interest at all? For in the wake of the events just described Marx and Marxism have become, to say the least, distinctly unpopular. Many of those who once chose to call themselves Marxists, both in the East and the West, have turned away sharply from such an intellectual and political affiliation. Soviet Marxism, of course, has collapsed completely, even if in China a certain version of Marxism/Leninism still forms the official ruling ethos. In Western Europe and elsewhere, morever, most parties which used to term themselves 'Communist' have now changed their official titles. Other intellectual standpoints have displaced Marxism as the dominant idea system followed by Left-leaning intellectuals. Some have renounced the Left altogether and turned instead towards the Right; in place of their old socialist views they have installed free market philosophies. Others have come to place their faith in different forms of radicalism, such as those associated with feminist or ecological movements. Some have moved from Marx to Foucault; yet others have embraced post-modernism in one of its v.arious versions. None of these various forms of radicalism stands at all close to Marx. For those who have made the switch from Left to Right, capitalism is to be admired rather than subjected to critique. The 'Right' in this sense has little in common with those conservative critiques of capitalism and markets upon which Marx drew. The alliance which some at one point sought to establish between feminism and Marxism has long since broken down; while ecological thought, although occasionally influenced by a few ideas found in Marx's early writings, essentially stands at arm's length from Marxism, since Marxism sees human prosperity as based upon the progressive expansion of the forces of production. In one respect, perverse though it appears on the surface, a move from Marxism to a free market outlook has a certain logic to it: for in both cases there is a belief in the indefinite expansion of material wealth, produced by industrialism; but while the Marxist believes that such an expansion can only be achieved by overcoming market forces, the Rightist. or neo-liberal, thinks the opposite.
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