Philosophy after Marx

677 Pages·2014·3.21 MB·English

by  Christoph Henning

Philosophy after Marx
Historical
Materialism
Book Series
Editorial Board
Sébastien Budgen, Paris – Steve Edwards, London
Marcel van der Linden, Amsterdam – Peter Thomas, London
VOLUME 65
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hm
Philosophy after Marx
100 Years of Misreadings and the
Normative Turn in Political Philosophy
By
Christoph Henning
Translated by
Max Henninger
LEidEN • BOSTON
2014
The translation of this work was funded by Geisteswissenschaften international – Translation Funding for
Humanities and Social Sciences from Germany, a joint initiative of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the German
Federal Foreign Office, the collecting society VG WORT and the Börsenverein des deutschen Buchhandels
(German Publishers & Booksellers Association), as well as by the Emil Zaugg-Fonds of the University of
St. Gallen, Switzerland.
Copyright 2005 Transcript Verlag, Bielefeld (German edition). Translated from German “Philosophie nach
Marx. 100 Jahre Marxrezeption und die normative Sozialphilosophie der Gegenwart in der Kritik”.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data
Henning, Christoph, 1973–
 [Philosophie nach Marx. English]
 Philosophy after Marx : 100 years of misreadings and the normative turn in political philosophy / by
Christoph Henning ; translated by Max Henninger.
  pages cm. — (Historical materialism, iSSN 1570-1522 ; VOLUME 65)
 includes bibliographical references and index.
 iSBN 978-90-04-22427-8 (hardback : alk. paper) — iSBN 978-90-04-27033-6 (e-book : alk. paper) 1. Marx, Karl,
1818–1883. 2. Philosophy, Modern. 3. Social sciences—Philosophy—History. i. Title.
 B3305.M74H33613 2014
 193—dc23
2014001330
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iSSN 1570-1522
iSBN 978-90-04-22427-8 (hardback)
iSBN 978-90-04-27033-6 (e-book)
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Contents
‘Sandblasting Marx’ – A Review by Fredric Jameson  .................................................... ix
1 introduction  ........................................................................................................................ 1
1.1 The problem  ............................................................................................................. 1
1.2 Retaining Marx? A preliminary account of his theory  ............................... 4
1.3 The lacuna in contemporary social theory  .................................................... 8
1.4 On the method employed in this study  .......................................................... 10
1.4.1 The choice to work with texts only  .................................................... 10
1.4.2 The focus on German-language texts  ................................................ 11
1.5 The structure of the study  ................................................................................... 13
2 Marx Yesterday: A Genealogy of Misconceptions  ................................................... 17
2.1 Marx in the theory of Social democracy  ........................................................ 21
2.1.1 The Erfurt Programme  ............................................................................ 21
2.1.2 Revisionism  ................................................................................................ 30
2.1.3 Neo-Kantianism: a fortunate coincidence  ........................................ 39
2.1.4 Orthodoxy  ................................................................................................... 42
2.1.5 Key elements of Marxian theory I: the schemes of reproduction  ... 50
2.1.6 Key elements of Marxian theory II: the falling rate of profit  ............ 67
2.2 Marx in the theory of communism  ................................................................... 78
2.2.1 The role of violence  ................................................................................. 79
2.2.2 The organisation of the party  ............................................................... 85
2.2.3 The dictatorship of the proletariat  ..................................................... 89
2.2.4 A creative evolution of Marxism?  ....................................................... 95
2.2.5 Trotskyism – a lesser evil?  ..................................................................... 102
2.2.6 Key elements of Marxian theory III: imperialism  .............................. 104
vi • Contents
2.3 Marx in economic theory  .................................................................................... 121
2.3.1 Marx between economic paradigms  .................................................. 121
2.3.2 Neoclassical refutations of Marx  ......................................................... 131
2.3.3 Adoption of the neoclassical approach by Marxists  ..................... 143
2.3.4 Diffusion of the paradigm into neighbouring sciences  ................ 158
2.3.5 Key elements of Marxian theory IV: the theory of money  ............... 160
2.4 Marx in (German) sociology  ............................................................................... 181
2.4.1 The division of the world into norm-free functions and
normative frames  ..................................................................................... 184
2.4.2 Whence the predominance of the neoclassical approach
in sociology?  ............................................................................................... 191
2.4.3 Normativity as a placeholder for incomplete worldviews  ........... 194
2.4.4 The flaws are projected onto the symbolic figure Marx  .............. 201
2.4.5 Critique of the technocracy-hypothesis and of industrial
sociology  ...................................................................................................... 205
2.4.6 The sociological approach to social classes  ..................................... 214
Key elements of Marxian theory V: classes  ......................................... 215
Classes (and more) in Max Weber  ...................................................... 220
Classes in Helmut Schelsky  ................................................................... 227
Classes in Luhmann  ................................................................................. 236
2.5 ‘From Marx to Heidegger’: Social Philosophy  ................................................ 242
2.5.1 A categorisation attempt by René König  .......................................... 244
2.5.2 Confronting the philosophical history of idealism  ........................ 249
The influence of Fichte  ........................................................................... 249
The influence of Nietzsche  .................................................................... 253
The influence of Hegel  ............................................................................ 255
Vitalism and the philosophy of Weltanschauung  ........................... 258
2.5.3 Rudolf Eucken as precursor  .................................................................. 267
2.5.4 Georg Lukács as mediator  ..................................................................... 277
2.5.5 Martin Heidegger as offshoot  ............................................................... 294
Heidegger and Marx  ................................................................................ 295
Heidegger and nihilism  .......................................................................... 304
2.5.6 Niklas Luhmann’s philosophy of systems  ......................................... 313
2.5.7 Key elements of Marxian theory VI: Marx and Hegel  ..................... 319
Marx as a critic of Hegel  ........................................................................ 320
Hegelian Marxism: semantic displacements  ................................... 327
2.6 Critical theory or the dissolution of critique in religion  ............................ 335
2.6.1 Horkheimer’s vitalism  ............................................................................. 336
2.6.2 Pollock’s hermetic analysis of state capitalism  ............................... 341
2.6.3 Adorno’s quietist utopianism  ............................................................... 347
Contents • vii
2.6.4 Key elements of Marxian theory VII: Marx’s critique of
religion  ......................................................................................................... 353
2.6.5 The critique of religion as a political issue  ...................................... 364
2.6.6 Four theological views of Marx  ............................................................ 367
Rejection of ‘atheism’  .............................................................................. 367
Tolerance in spite of ‘atheism’  ............................................................. 369
Religious socialism  ................................................................................... 371
Excursus: critique of the theory of secularisation  .......................... 375
The separation of religion and politics  .............................................. 388
2.6.7 Walter Benjamin’s political theology  ................................................. 391
3 Marx Today: Critique of Contemporary Philosophy  .............................................. 403
3.1 Jürgen Habermas or the return of the philosophy of law  ......................... 406
3.1.1 Anthropological beginnings  .................................................................. 408
3.1.2 Transformation into rationality types  ................................................ 413
3.1.3 The myth of ‘normative foundations’  ................................................ 416
3.1.4 Key elements of Marxian theory VIII: Marx and ethics  .................. 422
3.1.5 Procedural structures  .............................................................................. 430
3.1.6 Key elements of Marxian theory IX: Marx and law  ......................... 446
3.2 John Rawls or the apotheosis of ignorance  .................................................... 453
3.2.1 John Rawls as a neoclassical theorist  ................................................. 454
3.2.2 Justifying Stakhanov  ................................................................................ 461
3.2.3 The communitarian response ............................................................... 463
3.2.4 Responses within post-1989 German philosophy  ........................... 472
Otfried Höffe  .............................................................................................. 473
Wolfgang Kersting  .................................................................................... 475
Axel Honneth  ............................................................................................ 476
3.3 Business ethics: a ‘normatively substantial’ social theory?  ....................... 482
3.3.1 Reasons for the rise of this discipline  ................................................ 482
3.3.2 Theological business ethics  ................................................................... 485
3.3.3 Managerial business ethics  .................................................................... 492
3.3.4 Historicist business ethics  ..................................................................... 500
3.3.5 The Hegelianism of business ethics  .................................................... 507
3.3.6 The critique of globalisation as a placeholder  ................................ 510
3.4 Neo-pragmatism or the persistence of Hegel  ................................................ 513
3.4.1 The German reception of pragmatism as the index of a
problem  ....................................................................................................... 514
3.4.2 A transformation of German idealism?  ............................................. 518
3.4.3 Neo-pragmatism and Marxism as hostile brothers  ........................ 525
3.4.4 The conservation of rationality and normativity in Marx  ........... 530
viii • Contents
4 Conclusion: What Philosophy after Marx?  ................................................................ 535
4.1 The reality check as a philosophical litmus test  .......................................... 536
4.2 Topology of social philosophy  ............................................................................ 541
4.2.1 Kant’s philosophical topology  .............................................................. 541
4.2.2 The overcoming of dualism in Hegel  ................................................. 542
4.2.3 The transformation of (Hegelian) philosophy in Marx  ................ 543
4.2.4 The transformation of (Hegelian) philosophy in pragmatism ..... 546
4.2.5 Supernormativism: Philosophy twice transformed ........................ 547
4.3 The function and scope of theory after Marx  ............................................... 549
4.3.1 The avoidance of theory in critiques of Marx  ................................. 550
4.3.2 Marx’s theory is not a determinism  ................................................... 551
4.3.3 Marx’s topic is civil society  ................................................................... 552
4.3.4 Neoclassical redeployments within economic theory  .................. 553
4.3.5 The side-play of dialectics as discursive displacement  ................ 554
4.3.6 The task of a critique of normative social philosophy  ................. 555
4.4 Normative theory: ethics as a surrogate for explanation  ........................... 557
Afterword to the English Translation  ................................................................................. 563
References  ................................................................................................................................... 565
Person index  ............................................................................................................................... 657
Sandblasting Marx
By Fredric Jameson. This review of the German original of the present volume appeared in
New Left Review, II/55.
A Marx revival seems to be under way, predating the current disarray on Wall Street, even
though no clear-cut political options yet seem to propose themselves. Sensible oppor-
tunists have welcomed any sign of sympathy for Marxian positions, without wanting to
alienate the new converts (or returning fellow-travellers). The big ideological issues –
anarchism, the party, economic planning, social classes – are still mainly avoided, on the
grounds that they remind too many people of Communist propaganda. Such a reminder
is unwanted, not so much because it is accompanied by the memory of deaths and vio-
lence (memory is fragile in postmodernity) as simply and less dramatically because such
topics now appear boring.
On the face of it, then, it does not seem plausible to welcome a book which, some-
what in the Althusserian vein of yesteryear, implacably denounces the idealistic devia-
tions and doctrinal errors, the ideological misappropriations and misguided revisions
of thinkers widely supposed to have some Marxian pedigree or relevance for younger
would-be Marxists today. Christoph Henning’s Philosophie nach Marx is a comprehen-
sive, six-hundred page indictment of everyone from Kautsky to present-day left liberals
of Habermasian or Rawlsian stripe, and it is well worth standing up to its innumerable
provocations. it is a tireless catalogue of what i will call Marx-avoidance, which for all
its unremitting zeal remains oddly non-partisan. Henning does not seem to speak from
any easily identifiable political or ideological position, although his philosophical bias
would seem to be a kind of Wittgensteinian Kantianism, appropriate enough for this
intellectual operation.
The reader needs to be warned, however, that the word ‘theory’, now generally taken,
at least in the West, to signify post-structuralism or Frankfurt School Hegelianism and
quizzed for its exhaustion or demise, or attacked for its perniciously elitist abstraction,
is used quite differently here, as a term for Marx’s work itself, whose object according to
Henning was bürgerliche Gesellschaft – by which he means not civil society (that fatigued
war-horse to which left liberals and radical democrats alike still appeal), but rather capi-
talism as such: a system to be confronted in its totality, rather than from any purely