Fetishism and Social Domination in Marx, Lukács, Adorno and

235 Pages·2013·1.26 MB·English

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Fetishism and Social
Domination in Marx, Lukács,
Adorno and Lefebvre

Chris O’Kane

Doctor of Philosophy

Centre for Social and Political Thought

UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX

March 2013
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Declaration

I, Chris O’Kane, hereby declare that this thesis has not been, and will not be,
submitted in whole or in part to another University for the award of any other degree.

Signature ............................................................ Date .......................
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UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Fetishism and Social Domination
in Marx, Lukács, Adorno and Lefebvre

Summary

This thesis presents a comparative account of the theory of fetishism and its
role in the social constitution and constituent properties of Marx’s, Lukács’, Adorno’s
and Lefebvre’s theories of social domination. It aims to bring this unduly neglected
aspect of fetishism to the fore and to stress its relevance for contemporary critical
theory.
The thesis begins with an introductory chapter that highlights the lack of a
satisfactory theory of fetishism and social domination in contemporary critical theory.
It also demonstrates how this notion of fetishism has been neglected in contemporary
critical theory and in studies of Marxian theory.
This frames the ensuing comparative, historical and theoretical study in the
substantive chapters of my thesis, which differentiates, reconstructs and critically
evaluates how Marx, Lukács, Adorno and Lefebvre utilize the theory of fetishism to
articulate their theories of the composition and characteristics of social domination.
Chapter 1 examines Marx’s theory of fetish-characteristic forms of value as a theory of
domination socially embedded in his account of the Trinity Formula. It also evaluates
the theoretical and sociological shortcomings of Capital. Chapter 2 focuses on how
Lukács’ double-faceted account of fetishism as reification articulates his Hegelian,
Marxian, Simmelian and Weberian account of dominating social mystification. Chapter
3 turns to Adorno’s theory of the fetish form of the exchange abstraction and unpacks
how it serves as a basis for his dialectical critical social theory of domination. Chapter
4 provides an account of how Lefebvre’s theory of fetishism as concrete abstraction
serves as the basis for a number of theories that attempt to socially embody an
account of domination that is not overly deterministic. The critical evaluations in
chapters 2-4 interrogate each thinker’s conception of fetishism and its role in their
accounts of the genesis and pervasiveness of social domination.
The conclusion of the thesis consists of three parts. In the first part, I
bring together and compare my analysis of Marx, Lukács, Adorno and Lefebvre. In part
two, I consider whether their respective theories provide a coherent and cohesive
critical social theory of fetishism and of the mode of constitution and the constituents
of social domination. In part three, I move toward a contemporary critical theory of
fetishism and social domination by synthesising elements of Lukács’, Adorno’s and
Lefebvre’s theories with a model of social constitution, reproduction and domination
modelled on Marx’s account of the Trinity Formula.
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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements 8

Introduction 10

1. Literature review 15
1.1 Conceptual Typologies of Fetishism 16
1.2 Fetishism as False Consciousness 18
1.3 Althusserian Conceptions of Fetishism 19
1.4 Fetishism as Reification 20
1.5 Fetishism as Alienation 22
1.6 Fetishism as Value
2. Conceptual Histories 24
2.1 Conceptual Continuity 24
2.2 Conceptual Discontinuity 30
3. Conclusion 33

1. Marx, the Fetish-characteristic Forms of Value and Abstract Social
Domination 37

1. The Young Marx and Social Domination 39
1.1 The Conceptual Structure of Marx’s Theory of Domination 40
1.2 Social Domination in the Theory of Alienation 41
2. The Critique of Political Economy 45
2.1 The Object of Capital 45
2.2 The method of Capital 46
2.3 Marx’s Theory of Value 47
3. Capital 49
3.1 The Form-Analysis 50
3.2 The General Formula of Capital, Surplus Value and the Class
Relation 54
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4. Fetishism 55
4.1 The Fetish Character of Commodities 56
4.2 The Fetish-Characteristic Form of Money 64
4.3 The Fetish-Characteristic Properties of Capital 67
4.4 The Trinity Formula 70
5. Conclusion 77
5.1 Summary 77
5.2 Evaluation 80

2. Lukács, Fetishism as Reification and his Social Theory of

Dominating Mystification 83

1. Literature on Lukács’ accounts of Fetishism as Reification 83
1.2 Continuity 84
1.3 Discontinuity 85
2. Historical Context 88
2.1 The Marxism of the 2nd International 88
2.2. The early Lukács’ Theory of Domination 89
3. Lukács’ Hegelian Marxism 91
3.1 Lukács’ Interpretation of Fetishism 92
A) Methodological Fetishism 93
B) Everyday Fetishism 94
4. Fetishism as Reification 98
4.1 Practical Reification 102
4.2 Theoretical Reification 107
4.3 Reification as Dominating Mystification 109
5. The Constitution of Reified Totality 112
6. Conclusion 116
6.1 Summary 116
6.2 Evaluation 117

3. Adorno, the Fetish-Form of the Exchange Abstraction and the
Critical Theory of Social Domination 123
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1. Literature Review 124
1.1 Adorno’s Theory of Social Domination as Equivalent to Lukács’
Theory of Reification 124
1.2 Adorno’s Theory of Social Domination as His Theory of
Reification 125
1.3 Value-Form Theory and Adorno 126
2. Adorno’s Marxism 127
2.1 Adorno’s Early Work: Natural History, Lukács, Benjamin and the
Commodity Form 128
2.2 Adorno’s Later Work: Adorno, Marx, Hegel and the Fetish-Form
of the Exchange Abstraction. The Hegel-Marx Analogy 132
2.3 The Fetish-Form of the Exchange Abstraction 134
3. Adorno’s Dialectical Social Theory of Domination 141
3.1 Objective Supra-Individual Domination 143
3.2 Subjective Domination 146
4. Conclusion 153
4.1 Summary 153
4.2 Critical Social Theory 153
4.3 Evaluation 155

4. Lefebvre, Fetishism as Concrete Abstraction and Socially
Embodied Domination 161

1. Literature Review 161
1.1 Domination as Alienation 162
1.2 Specific Studies of Lefebvre 163
2. Lefebvre’s non-systematic Marxism 165
2.1 Fetishism as Concrete Abstraction 167
3. The Critique of Everyday Life 173
3.1 Notes for a Critique of Everyday Life 173
3.2 The Critique of Everyday Life 174
4. The Critique of Everyday Life in the 1960s 178
4.1 Critique of Everyday Life: Volume II 178
4.2 Everyday Life in the Modern World 181
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5. Fetishism and Social Domination in Cities and Space 184
5.1 The Urban Form 184
5.2 Space 187
6. Conclusion 193
6.1 Summary 193
6.2 Evaluation 194

Conclusion 198

1. Comparing Fetishism and Social Domination in Marx, Lukács, Adorno and
Lefebvre 201
2. Evaluating Fetishism and Social Domination in Marx, Lukács, Adorno and
Lefebvre 206
3. Towards a Contemporary Critical Theory of Fetishism and Social
Domination 209

Bibliography 217
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Acknowledgements

I had the idea for the topic of this thesis in 2007 in the middle of an
unsatistfying year of studying Political Science at a different academic institution. What
developed over the course of four years of research would not have been possible
without the myriad influences I was exposed to in the unique research environment of
the Centre for Social and Political Thought at the University of Sussex. Thanks to the
support staff, faculty, students and adminstrators who continue to fund, support and
perpetuate the Centre is these difficult times.
I was also fortunate to befriend a number of colleagues over the last four years
who include Tom Bunyard, Phil Homburg, Rob Lucas, Zoe Sutherland, Nick Gray, Sam
Dolbear, Hannah Proctor, John Clegg, Nils Turnbull, Sami Khatib, Sebastian
Truskolaski, Lawrence Sussex, Ben Seymour, Jacob Blumenfeld, Bender, Elena Louisa
Lange, Stefano Ludovisi, Chris Allsobrook, Simon Mussell, Tim Carter, HM, the
Adornbros, the Benjamen, Principia Dialectica, other members of various reading
groups and commentators at conferences and blogs who have been instrumental in the
process of researching and writing this thesis. Their support and criticism on drafts
and conference papers have also proven invaluable. Further thanks are due to Verena
Erlenbusch for translating Backhaus’ notes on Adorno and Sami Khatib and Alex
Locascio for help on translation issues.
I have also been lucky to have engaged or solicited advice from two of the
leading figures in Marxist scholarship. Chris Arthur’s generous participation in our
value-form theory reading group helped me grapple with many of the obtuse ideas that
have become important to the thesis. Michael Heinrich, through the intermediary
work of Alex Locascio, was kind enough to answer textual questions about
untranslated MEGA manuscripts and let me read unpublished translations of his work.
In addition, my two supervisors, Darrow Schecter and Gordon Finlayson,
deserve special thanks for their unyielding support and constructive criticism. Along
with my two copy-editors, Tom Bunyard and Georgios Daremas, I would also like to
thank them for their patience with my grammatical and stylistic blunders.
Finally, I have immeasurable gratitude for my friends from the BBB, Olympia
and Brighton especially Aaron Tuller, Andrew Daily, Tobi Vail, PDC, Jon Slade,
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Stephanie Goodman, Steve Dore, Alan Hay, and Laura Dawkins. Along with my family
they have given me immeasurable support, and they have shared with me a type of
kindness, patience and good times the world could do with more.
Whilst what follows could not have come to fruition without the above, it goes
without saying the mistakes that follow, grammatical, theoretical or otherwise, are all
my own as are the ideas that will hopefully develop out of them.
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Introduction

The Marxian theory of fetishism is certainly capable of describing the current
economic and social crisis: volatile world markets and the sovereign debt crises have
acted like autonomous entities, and their social repercussions possess the character of
inverted forms of domination in which these collectively constructed social entities
have turned back on the individuals who have constituted them. These circumstances
are reflected in Marx’s famous statement that ‘magnitudes of value vary continually,
independently of the foreknowledge and action of exchangers. Their own movement
within society has for them the form of a movement made by things, and these things,
far from being under their control, in fact control them.’1 Yet much contemporary
critical social theory, despite the degree to which it now finds itself ill-suited to
describe and understand the present socio-economic crisis, has moved away from
drawing on Marx’s theory of fetishism and social domination or subsequent Marxian
social theories that utilised feithism in their theories of social domination, diminishing
the relevance such critical theory has to our present day.
Whilst on the whole it is surprising that the recent social and economic crisis
has not contributed to reconsidering the relationship of critical theories to Marx2, the
recent work of two of the leading figures of contemporary critical social theory might
be seen as countervailing examples of this tendency. Both Axel Honneth and Moishe

1 Marx (1992, 176)
2 This can be seen in the astonishing fact that neither of the three leading critical
theory journals—Constellations, Telos and Thesis Eleven—have any articles on the social
and economic crisis or its relation to critical theory in the period of 2008-2013.
Furthermore, (1) the recent special issue of Constellations volume 19 issue 3 on
‘rethinking critical theory’ did not have any articles re-assessing the Marxian legacy of
critical theory (2) the two recent issues of Telos (Winter 2009 and Summer 2011) on
Adorno did not discuss Adorno’s relation to Marx, political economy or domination.
(3) As survey articles on contemporary critical theory by (Brincbat 2012) and (Piá Lara
2008) point out contemporary critical theory is not engaged with these theoretical
approaches or questions.