Democracy, Dialectics, and Difference: Hegel, Marx, and 21st Century Social Movements by Brian C Lovato

Author:Brian C Lovato [Lovato, Brian C]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780815370628
Google: NVOntAEACAAJ
Goodreads: 39218988
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Hegelian Influence on Marx: The 1844 Manuscripts and the Grundrisse

Marx’s early writings were key for Marcuse’s understanding of the relationship between Marxism and Hegelianism. It is important to remember that the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 were not published, even in Russia, until 1927 (and a German edition was not published until 1932), meaning that Marcuse was one of the first writers to deal explicitly with these texts. Furthermore, during their correspondence in the years between 1954 and 1979, Marcuse and Dunayevskaya engaged in a discussion of the importance of the Hegelian dialectic in the formation of Marx’s argument in Capital (as evidenced by Marx’s own remarks regarding Hegelian philosophy as he was writing the Grundrisse [1858]) (K. Anderson 1990). The Grundrisse was not published until 1939, and it served as a major influence in Dunayevskaya’s interpretation of Capital in Marxism and Freedom.14 It is the publication of these works that provided the crucial link between the early Critical Marxism of Lukács and the Marxist Humanism of Dunayevskaya.

However, even with the publication of these previously ignored writings, some Marxist theorists insisted that the Hegelian influence on Marx is either minimal or non-existent. These claims have largely come from Scientific Marxists wishing to maintain Marxism as a science free of subjectivism, a position that sometimes approaches positivism. Since the 1960s, Louis Althusser has become the most important proponent of this view, as seen in his For Marx ([1965] 1969). In the essays contained in this book, Althusser argues against reading the philosophical leanings of Marx’s early writings into his more economically oriented, mature writings. While this may be a valid point to make if there were a clear distinction between his early and later writings, the conversations between Marcuse and Dunayevskaya regarding the Hegelian influence visible in the Grundrisse— and many other sources—have severely undermined, if not refuted, the notion that Marx abandoned the orientation that is explicitly present in his early writings.15

Furthermore, as was touched on earlier, Althusser makes the claim that socialism is a scientific concept while humanism remains in the realm of ideology for Marx (Althusser 1969, 223). Marcuse argues exactly the opposite when he states, in the preface to Dunayevskaya’s Marxism and Freedom, that Marx “accepts ‘humanism’ not as a philosophy among others but as a historical fact or rather historical possibility” (Dunayevskaya [1958] 2000, xxii). This ought to remind the reader of Marcuse’s discussion of possibility, actualization, and essence in Reason and Revolution. Throughout this discussion, Marcuse elides the distinction between ideology or philosophy and science in Marx’s thought. In this way, one can see the impact of the Hegelian dialectic on Marx’s thought. Not only is Marx’s humanism clearly reminiscent of Hegel’s search for human emancipation and the journey out of alienation in the Phenomenology, but his very method of conceiving of this humanism depends upon a notion of possibility and reality that is explicitly Hegelian. This alone is not reason enough to dismiss the Althusserian idea of an epistemological break in Marx’s

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.