That’s a question I hope to post on soon-ish. I’m reading his History and Class Consciousness with some friends. I have apparently read the prefaces and the first few essays (those are my notes written there, in my hand) but fucked if I can remember it. I can remember things I’ve heard people say about Lukacs, but not Lukacs. How odd. I’ve only just started this reading and so will take a while (particularly because I think I’m catching another goddamn cold, probly from a wobbly since I spent all weekend in a training, thanks a lot you bunch of jerks).
In the meantime, NP over at Rough Theory has a series of posts on Marx that folk should check out. When I get time I’m going to try and write a post here replying, and I should start posting on Marx anyways since I’m reading v1 again (I’m teaching it). But no time…! As it happens, NP is also writing on Lukacs now as well, with a post on Lukacs on Marx. (Note to self: comment on the passage in the preface about ontology and materialism, it relates to the discussion on counterfactuals and history here.)
Now I have to go back to work, a burden lightened slightly by the lovely mix of Chicago rock I assembled recently, on which I shall also post later. (Current track = “Dayjob” by Oblivion, chorus = “you’ve forgotten how to smile since you got a day job”)
I forgot to bring my copy of the Lukacs home, but from the part of the 1967 preface I’ve read so far… (online here - http://marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/history/lukacs67.htm - including some links to further reading)
I think the early political Lukacs would be right up my alley - ultraleftist and syndicalist. On that, though, his remark that “the methodological cleavage in [his] thought [eventually] developed into a division between theory and practice” is interesting. He notes that he “continued to support ultra-left tendencies on the great international problems of revolution” but “as a member of the leadership of the Hungarian Party” he took different positions. That is, his ulta-leftism didn’t translate into his organizational activity. His ultra-leftism amounted to “theoretical support” for those positions and activity related to them, not practical support or advocacy for those actions. This relates to Lukacs’ I think correct remarks that emphasizing the concept of praxis does not automatically give one a practice, but can remain solely at the level of conceptual emphasis.
More importantly to my mind Lukacs notes that “the disappearance of the ontological objectivity of nature” in History and Class Consciousness “also means the disappearance of the interaction between labour as seen from a genuinely materialist standpoint and the evolution of the men who labour.” Lukacs then approvingly quotes “Marx’s great insight” on the point that “even production for the sake of production means nothing more than the development of the productive energies of man, and hence the development of the wealth of human nature as an end in itself.” Lukacs continues, noting that this means his book capitalism “thus loses its objective revolutionary aspect and there is a failure to grasp” that other ‘insight’ of Marx’s that “although this evolution of the species Man is accomplished at first at the expense of the majority of individual human beings and of certain human classes, it finally overcomes this antagonism and coincides with the evolution of the particular individual. Thus the higher development of individuality is only purchased by a historical process in which individuals are sacrificed.”
Nonsense, I say! And perniciously so. This connects to the comments on counterfactuals. Lukacs’ remarks are an implied apology for capitalism. So much the worse for Marx that Marx is quoted to support this. Lukacs, having failed to establish that capitalism has the role it has, is not able to establish here that his lack of grasping the ontological of nature has any cost. (His argument seems to me like a failed reductio argument - what the lack of ont. obj. entails rejecting seems to me fine to reject, such that it’s no argument against said lack.)
Comment by Nate — October 1, 2007 @ 6:24 pm
Yes, that’s a particularly ugly quote, as is the chapter on Luxemburg. Still, the chapter “Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat” is one of my favorite essays ever; absolutely crucial, I think, for understanding what an anti-capitalist philosophy has to overcome (in terms of all of the things, post-Kant, it gave up on). You’ll see, if you haven’t already, how the move at the end, against the immediacy of class consciousness (which is not the consciousness of being part of a class, but a entire class’ consc. of itself) will force a certain rigid top-down party structure.
Comment by Jasper — October 1, 2007 @ 7:10 pm
Nate - Too tired to comment seriously, but on Lukacs - yes. My sense (and I say this very gesturally, and without claiming I can really support this, but just in the spirit of tossing out a gut feel) with both Lukacs and the first generation Frankfurt School is that they were actually never operating on the terrain of what I would call “immanent critique” - no matter how often that sort of term is thrown around in their work. I think this leads to some systematic problems on both a theoretical and a practical level. Lukacs then compounds this with party orientations… Apologies if this makes no sense - can’t hear myself think this morning…
Comment by N. Pepperell — October 1, 2007 @ 7:50 pm
Hey Nate,
I also read Lukacs a while ago and have trouble remembering the details. Maybe will try and keep up with you guys, but not being a philosopher I have to admit finding the Hegel tough-going. I read the 1844 manuscripts at the weekend and found whole sections incomprehensible… Would like to get to know Hegel but it looks like a massive investment of effort I can’t really afford at the moment.
Re: That quote you cite. I take Lukacs to mean that previously (before reading the 1844 manuscripts) he saw nothing but alienation in capitalism, nothing but exploitation of man by man. Later he came to accept Marx’s position that capitalism had a progressive aspect in developing humanity’s productivity. I guess this is related to what Lukacs says later in the Preface about realising the distinction between ‘alienation’ and ‘objectification’, whereby the objectification of nature (and of each person by other people) is inevitable, whereas ‘alienation’ is sociologically/historically specific.
This seems to be an obscure way of saying something I don’t disagree with - that capitalism is progressive in that it has developed the ‘productive forces’ and makes socialism possible, which Marx says throughout his writing. Marx puts it in less Hegelian a fashion later on in his political economic work (with which I’m much more comfortable than with this Hegel stuff!). I think that particular quote Lukacs uses on “the development of the wealth of human nature” actually comes from a defence of political economists against moralising critics, in Theories of Surplus Value or the Grundrisse. (I tried googling it but the only match is in Lukacs itself so it must be an unusual translation).
Like I said in the ‘counterfactual’ thread, I don’t really have a problem with such an apology for capitalism, vis-a-vis what came before, and I think ‘so much the worse for Marx’ if he _didn’t_ make this argument. I wonder if your dislike of this kind of argument is related to you liking his ‘ultraleft’ period and looking down on the political strategising. Not that I would want to defend where Lukacs went!
Comment by Mike Beggs — October 1, 2007 @ 11:39 pm
hey Mike,
I think there are two possible ways to cash out proximity to socialism. One is “humanity got closer under X era.” Another is “humanity couldn’t have gotten closer without X era” (ie, X era - capitalism, whatever - is a necessary precondition for socialism). The former is fine. I think medical advances, for instance, will make society better after capitalism, I’m glad those advances happened. The latter is nonsense. It’s not at all a testable assertion and it does no positive work. It’d be like saying “these medical advances could only have occurred in a capitalist framework.” That doesn’t make any sense to me, it requires much more complicated arguments to hold to thing like that, and I don’t see what’s gained by those sorts of assertions.
Re: political strategizing, I’m not actually looking down on Lukacs for that. I’m noting that he was a theoretical ultraleftist and in practice was something else. I think that divide’s a problem, and I think it’s worth very little to be theoretically X while practically Y (that is, being theoretically X doesn’t mean much, it’s what one is - or rather what one does - practically that is more meaningful). In that sense, Lukacs is I think saying he wasn’t really an ultraleftist during that era. He was something other than an ultraleftist, he just happened to talk like an ultraleftist when he was in conversations about international politics. That’s not to say he was wrong in his practical decisions, I don’t know any of the historical situation and the events he references don’t mean anything to me (that reminds me, I need to look them up) - maybe his ultraleft talk was wrong at the time, I don’t know. In most situations (any I’ve ever been in) the best option is far from perfect. I don’t fault people for taking less than perfect options, especially if they do so knowingly. If Lukacs was doing something like that - saying “I’m a council communist but I can’t see a really workable councilist organizational solution to this mess, so I’ll go with the best other option I can think of” - then more power to him. I’m all for that kind of strategizing (and I think necessitarian arguments might inhibit that) so I definitely didn’t intend to fault Lukacs for politicking and activity which wasn’t a perfect instantiation of his views/principles. I more intended to use Lukacs to note that views and principles that aren’t in operation other than theoretically are views and principles which are ineffectual.
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — October 2, 2007 @ 12:23 am
Nate - By the way, just on the historical counterfactual question: have you by any chance read Alfred Schmidt’s The Concept of Nature in Marx? I’m reading it now, and I don’t entirely agree with the reading of Marx it presents (among other things, it takes certain passages in Capital out of context from my perspective, and also tends to smash together things Marx write very early and very late…), but it offers a sustained reflection around the sort of questions you’re asking. I can’t really say yet what I think of those reflections, as I’m just beginning the book - but reading it was making me think of your questions. (If you have read it, can you remember what you thought of its argument?)
Comment by N. Pepperell — October 2, 2007 @ 1:16 am
hey NP,
No I don’t know that book. I’ll take a look if it’s in the library soon, thanks for the reference.
take care,
Nate
Note to self - these two posts on Thompson are relevant I think:
http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2007/05/07/did-it-take-me-so-long-to-read-ep-thompson-for/
http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2007/01/31/did-ep-thompson-think-of-marxist-theory/
Comment by Nate — October 2, 2007 @ 2:21 am
P.S. Just a twinge, in case my recommendation above is misleading: I should indicate that the book is for the most part not asking the sorts of political questions you ask - but it is, among other things, trying to unravel what Marx thinks about the “necessity” of earlier periods of history, if that makes sense? (I always get nervous that I’ll recommend something - particularly when, as here, I haven’t finished it myself and don’t really know whether I “like” the book - and someone will pick up the book and kinda go WTF?? ;-P So caveat lector, or something like that… ;-P)
Comment by N. Pepperell — October 2, 2007 @ 3:10 am