linden on postone

7/27/2019 Linden on Postone

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REVIEW ESSAYThe Historical Limit of Workers' Protest: Moishe

Postone,Krisisand the Commodity LogicM A R C E L V A N D E R L I N D E N

KRISIS. Beitrage zur Kritik der Warengesellschaft. Bad Honnef: Horle-mann Verlag. ISSN 0944-6 575.POSTONE, MOISHE.Time, labor, and social domination. A reinterpretationof Marx's critical theory. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [etc.]1993.xii, 424 pp.Most labour historians have long tacitly shared assumptions that are onlynow becoming subjects of discussion. For over a century, the building ofserious theories of the working class and the workers' movement - whichbecame possible after the classical wage fund theory began to be discred-ited in the 1870s - proceeded along two competing paths. One was theliberal tradition, which reconstructed the development of labour move-ments as the history of the civil emancipation - and consequently theintegration - of the working class within capitalism. The other was thesocialist approach (embracing both moderates and radicals) that inter-preted labour history as a history of attempts to transcend capitalism.

When in the course of this century it became apparent that the effortsto abolish capitalism had produced entirely different results than antici-pated (e.g. the dictatorship in the Soviet Union), and that the workingclass in the highly developed countries was ceasing its pattern of rebellion,the first socialists spoke up who no longer expected that the proletariatwould evolve into a revolutionary Subject.This perspective was developed in some of erbertMarcuse's writings.1It seemed to collapse when the workers in many places all over the worldsuddenly made a forceful comeback in the late 1960s. The fading of thiswave of protest during the 1970s, the downfall of the movement of '68,and of course the definitive end of the so-called socialist countries,inspired new contemplation. In part, this reflection - along the lines ofMarcuse - resulted in a quest for another Subject, another social force thatmight bring about the good society.This article focuses on a second approach; this perspective is not theumpteenth proclamation of Marxism's 'death' but searches Marx's own

1 Herbert Marcuse,O ne-Dimen sional Man. Studies in the Ideology of Advanced IndustrialSociety (Boston, 1964); idem, Socialism in the Developed Countries , InternationalSocialistJournal 2:8 (19 65). Compare Paul Mattick, The Limits of Integration , in KurtH. Wolff and Barrington Moore, Jr (eds),T he CriticalSpirit.Essays in Honor of HerbertMarcuse (Boston, 1967).International Review of Social History 42 (1997), pp. 447-458


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448 Marcel van der Lindenwork for clues to a different historical location of the working class andthe labour movement. Its point of departure is the distinction betweenconcrete and abstract labour,2 which Marx uses to show that labour ingeneral (to be performed in all social formations) acquires a specific formin capitalism that is both particular (the production of a certain usefulcommodity) and socially general, an abstract activity to be performed asa means of obtaining other commodities.The labour movements and their theoreticians (social democrats, com-munists and others) have rarely if ever understood this particularity oflabour in capitalism and have consistently interpreted the movement'sactivities in terms of general, transhistoric labour. Even towards the late1960s, Lucio Coletti had good reason to assert that not only Marx'scritics, but indeed his own disciples and followers - and not only those ofthe Second International but also more recent ones, to this very day - haveall shown themselves incapable of understanding or fully realizing thesignificance ofthisconcept [i.e. abstractlabour] .3Given this background,the richly diverse cult of alienated labour repeatedly generated by theworkers movement is hardly surprising.Marx makes a rethinking of the workers' m ovements and their transhis-toric conceptualizations of labour possible because his theory contains aremarkable antinomy that has become apparent only recently due to thepressure of changed social and political relationships. Stefan Breuer wasprobably the first to address this matter. InKrise der Revolutionstheorie(1977), a critique of Herbert Marcuse's work, he identified two argumen-tative patterns in Marx, which he designated as the esoteric and exo-teric Marx:While - to maintain a distinction from the older Hegel interpretation - the eso-teric Marx revealed in a far more radical way than all other theoreticians theabstract-repressive nature of bourgeois socialization, which forcefully eliminatedall non-corresponding modes of life, distribution and production [ . . .] , the exo-teric Marx tended to revoke his insight that socialization of production withinthe capitalist mode of production necessarily means only abstract socialization.4To designate the proletariat as the driving force behind an upcomingrevolution, Marx abandons his own critique of political economy. Ratherthan esoterically regarding the working class as an expression, aspect,2 Karl Marx,Results oftheImm ediate Process of Production,trans. Rodney Livingstone,in Marx,Capital vo l. I, trans. Ben Fowkes (Harmondsworth, 1976), p. 992: labour mustbe broken down into its twofold form - on the one hand, into concrete labour in theuse-values of the commodity, and on the other hand, into socially necessary labour ascalculated in exchange-value .3 Lucio Colletti, Bernstein and the Marxism oftheSecond International (19 68), in idem,From Rousseau to Lenin. Studies in Ideology and Society, trans. John Merrington andJudith White (New York, 1972), p. 79.4 Stefan Breuer,Krise der Revolutionstheorie. Neg ativeVergesellschaftungun d Arbeitsme-taphysik bei Herbert Marcuse(Frankfurt/Main, 1977), p. 45 .


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The Historical Limit ofW orkers'Protest 449or element of capitalism, he views this class as an external and hostilesocial group that is alien to capitalism - as an archimedean point [. .. ]that forms the basis for critiquing the capitalist mode of production andof which the existence guaranteed the emergence of a new, truly humanSubject .5The discovery of a different Marx - which in Breuer's work coin-cided with the assertion that transcending capitalism had become impos-sible - also appears in Moishe Postone's writings. This American philo-sopher with pronounced German influences (in the 1970s he belonged toa group of Marxists in Frankfurt/Main that focused on the critique of thecommodity logic6) asserted that the other Marx was actually the onlyMarx , and that the Marxists had continually misunderstood Marx thusfar. In 1974 and 1978, Postone published major programmatic contribu-tions,7recently followed by the monumental bookTime, Labor and SocialDomination(hereafterTLSD).Here, Postone abandons what he calls traditional Marxism (the lineof the exoteric Marx) and elaborates on the esoteric Marx. Postone viewstraditional Marxism essentially as a critique of capitalismfrom the stand-point of labor , while a critique of labor in capitalism is the issue{TLSD,pp. 5, 29, 277). Traditional Marxism considers labour exclusivelyas a purposive social activity which is indispensable for the reproductionof human society - as the universal condition for the metabolic interac-tion[Stojfwechsel] between man and nature .8Such a transhistoric notionof labour renders only labour's external characteristics (availability,duration, intensity, remuneration, etc.) as objects of political or economiccontention.9By leaving the intrinsic labour processes aside, a transhistoricinterpretation of technology is also implied: production techniques assuch are neither good nor bad from a proletarian point of view, onlytheir application may or may not serve the interests of the immediates ibid. p. 49.6 Postone's soulmates included Barbara Brick, Dan Diner, Helmut Reinicke and PeterSchmitt-Egner. See e.g. Reinicke, Ware und Dialektik (Darmstadt, 1974); Schmitt-Egner,Kolonialismusund Faschismus(Giessen/LoIIar, 1975); and Diner,IsraelinPalestlna. O berTausch und Gewalt im vorderen O rient (Konigstein/Taunus, 1980).7 Moishe Postone and Helmut Reinicke, O n Nicolaus 'Introductio n' to the Grundrisse ,Telos, 22 (Winter 1974-1975); Moishe Postone, Necessity, Labor, and T im e , SocialResearch, 45 (Winter 1978).8 Marx,Capital,I, p. 290.9 As early as 1976, Postone wrote: Th e ideas of the traditional working class movem ents,whether Social Democratic or Communist, arose at a time when the non-identical momentemerging out of capitalist society could not, even in its most militantly anti-capitalist form,encompass the idea of theAufltebungof capitalist labor. Questions of ownership of meansof production, of the mode of organization of existing labor, and of the distribution ofcapital and goods, could be placed on the agenda; not however the question of proletarianlaboritself. Moishe Postone, review of Helmut Reinicke'sRevolte im biirgcrlichen Erbc:Gebrauchswcrt und Mikrologie (Giessen/Lollar, 1975), inTelos, 29 (Fall 1976), p. 244.


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450 Marcel van der Lindenproducers.10 Thus, the traditional Marxist approach characterizes capital-ism in terms of the mode of distribution alone and locates the syste m 'sfundamental contradiction between the modes of distribution and produc-tion (TLSD, p. 123).

Postone believes this approach has had distinct merits:The traditional position accords dignity to labor that is fragmented and alienated.It may very well be the case that such dignity, which is at the heart of classicalworking-class movements, has been important for workers' self-esteem and apowerful factor in the democratization and humanization of industrialized capital-ist societies(TLSD,p. 71].Capitalism's essence (alienated labour) exceeds the scope of this perspec-tive, since if labor is the standpoint of the critique, it is not and cannotbe its object (TLSD, p. 53). From the viewpoint of transhistoric labour,the critique of capitalism remains positive: a specific aspect of the socialformation (here: labour) provides the basis for critiquing a different aspectof the same social formation. Positive critique leads not to a critique ofpolitical economy but to a critical political economy (TLSD ,p . 69).Conversely, Postone aims to formulate a negative critique (i.e. animm anent social critique with emancipatory inten t , a critique no t under-taken on the basis of what is but of what could be, as a potential imm anentto the existent society (TLSD, p. 90)). This negative critique isbased on three ideas. First, Postone assumes that labour - though a neces-sary metabolic interaction between man and na ture in all societies -under capitalism differs fundamentally from labour in all other socialformations. Capitalist labour (wage labour) not only gives rise to indis-pensable use values but also expresses abstract social interdependences. Itis performed not to produce goods intended for personal consumption butto acquire an abstract medium (money) for appropriating other people'slabour products.Viewed from the perspective of society as a whole, the concrete labor of theindividual is particular and ispart of a qualitatively heterogeneous whole; asabstract labor, however, it is an individuated mom ntof a qualitatively homoge-neous, general social mediation constitutinga social totality.This duality of theconcrete and the abstract characterizes the capitalist social formation (TLSD,p.152).10

Among the many examples is Trotsky's ode to the conveyor belt, which is used incapitalism for higher and more perfected exploitation of the wo rke r , but which may alsoserve very different purpo ses, as this use of the conveyo r is connected with capitalism,not with the conveyoritself. [... ] A socialist organization of the economy m ust endeavorto bring about a reduction in the physiological load on each individual worker [ .. .] whilesafeguarding at the same time the coordination of the efforts of different workers. This willbe the significance of the socialist conveyor as distinct from the capitalist one : LeonTrotsky, Culture and Socialism (1926), in idem, Problems in Everyday Life and OtherWritings on Culture and Science(New York, 1973), pp. 241-242.


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The Historical Limit of Workers' Protest 451Second, Postone believes that capitalist labour's abstract character impliesthat intrinsic labour processes have changed (since their real subsumption). Industrialproduction is the materialization of capitaland, as such, is thematerialization of boththe forces and the relations of production in theirdynamic interaction (TLSD, p. 352). Production technology embodiesalienation. The problem does not lie in the application of the technologybut in the technology itself.Third, this perspective suggests that the overcoming of capitalismapparently involves a transformation not merely of the existing mode ofdistribution but also of the mode of production (TLSD,p. 23). Postonequotes from theGrundrisse,in which Marx writes that the complete devel-opment of individuals requires labour in which a human being does whata thing could do has ceased .

11And Postoneadds: Farfromentailing therealization of the proletariat, overcoming capitalism involves the materialabolition of proletarian labor. The emancipation of labor requires theemancipation from (alienated) labor (TLSD,p. 33).Postone uses these principles to conclude that the traditional labourmovement is not an antipole of capitalism but rather an expression of thissystem. Marx describes the conflict between capitalist and worker as theconflict between the purchaser and the seller of a commodity, with anopen outcome: There is here therefore an antinomy, ofrightagainst right,

both equally bearing the seal ofthelaw of exchange. Between equal rights,force decides. 12 Class conflict is a conflict between commodity owners,between buyers and sellers, and thus operates squarely within the capitalistframework. Although a driving element in the development of a com -modity economy, it is also embedded in the social forms of the commod-ity and capital (TLSD, p. 319). Class conflict [.. .] does not represent adisturbance in an otherwise harmonious system. On the contrary, it isinherent to a society constituted by the commodity as a totalizing andtotalized form {TLSD,p. 317).The antagonism between worker and capitalist has no intrinsicdynam ic pointing beyond capitalism:13[Working-class social and political actions] and what is usually referred to asworking-class consciousness, remain within the bounds of the capitalist socialformation - and not necessarily because workers have been materially and spiritu-ally corrupted, but because proletarian labor does not fundamentally contradictcapital. [.. .] How ever militant the actions and the forms of subjectivity associatedwith the proletariat asserting itself have been, though, they did not and do notpoint to the overcoming of capitalism. They represent capital-constituting, ratherthan capital-transcending, forms of action and consciousness (TLSD,P.371).11Karl Marx,Grimdrisse,trans. Martin Nicolaus (Harmondsworth, 1973), p. 325.12 Marx,Capital I, 344.13 Whereas an antagonistic social form can be static, the notion of contradiction necessar-ily implies an intrinsic dynamic (TLSD,p. 103).


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452 Marcel van der LindenTranscendence of capitalism would require a new type of movement. If a movement, concerned with workers, were to point beyond capitalism,it would both have to defend workers' interests and have to participate intheir transformation - for exam ple, by calling into question the givenstructure oflabor,not identifying people any longer in terms of that struc-ture, and participating in rethinking those interests (TLSD,pp. 371 -372 ).Overcoming capitalism, then, must also be understood in terms of theabolition of proletarian labor and, hence, the proletariat (TLSD,p. 371).Since the mid-1980s, a group of independent German (post) Marxists hasdeveloped an analysis that resembles Postone's work in many respects,despite the virtual absence of references to his work. The group's intellec-tual output was published in a periodical originally calledMarxistischeKritikand renamedKrisis in 1990. The group became more widely knownwhen the renowned man of letters Hans Magnus Enzensberger publisheda study by Robert Kurz, the collective's most influential thinker, in themonograph series he edits (the so-called Other Library ).14

Originally, the group defended the perspective of labour movementMarxism , although it tried to formulate a fundamental critique of thecommodity economy from the outset.15 Gradually, the group radicalizedits analysis and adopted the view that workers in their capacity as com-modity owners (i.e. as owners of labour power) constituted an integralpart of that same commodity economy. In the course of 1989, the groupaccepted the consequences and concluded that the wage-earning class was simply the opposite side of the capital relationship .16 This viewwas expressed in a text with the revealing title The class struggle fetish .In this essay, the authors, referring to Marx'sCapital, advocated theoret-ical relativization of the class struggle:Marx's major work is not entitled Class,nor does it open with this category.Rather, it begins with the category ofthecommodity: The wealth of societies inwhich the capitalist mode of production prevails appears as an 'immense collec-tion of commodities'; the individual commodity appears as its elementary form.Our investigation therefore begins with the analysis of the com modity. Instead,Capital ends with the systematic derivation of classes [...]. This place alreadyreveals: in Marx's theory the classes are thus ultimately a secondary, derivativecategory. Traditional marxism in all its varieties has theoretically reversed thisrelationship. Here, class is the final basis of society rather than the commodity. 1714Robert Kurz,DerKollaps derModernisierung. VomZusammenbruchdesKasernenso-zialismus zur Krise derWeltokonomie(Frankfurt/Main, 1991).15 See the crucial text Die Krise des Tauschwerts , Marxistische Kritik, 1 (1986).16 Ernst Lohoff, Staatskonsum und Staatsbankrott: Profitrate und Profitmasse , Marxisti-sche Kritik, 6(1989), p. 48.17 Robert Kurz andErnst Lohoff, Der Klassenkampf-Fetisch. Thesen zurEntmythologi-sierung des Marxismus , Marxistische Kritik, 7 (August 1989), p.10.


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The Historical Limit ofWorkers'Protest 453Unlike Postone, who claims that the mature Marx unequivocally cham-pioned the esoteric perspective(TLSD,p. 138), theKrisisgroup postulatesthat Marx was repeatedly torn between esoterism and exoterism until hisdeath. This ambivalence is visible in Marx's views on the end of thecapitalist society. In his major contribution to the critique of political eco -nomy, he defended the position that the capitalist accumulation processset its own objective frontier, or as he wrote in Volume HI of Capital: Thetrue barrier to capitalist production is capital itself: 18In the longrun, the advance of production technology would increasingly renderhuman labour superfluous: As soon as labour in the direct form hasceased to be the great well-spring of wealth, [ . . . the]surplus labour ofthe mass has ceased to be the condition for the development of generalwealth, just as thenon-labour of the few, for the development of the gen-eral powers of the human head. With that, production based on exchangevalue breaks down, and the direct, material production process is strippedof the form of penury and antithesis. 19Here, the tendentialdisappearanceof the working class marks capitalism's limit. Simultaneously, Marx firm lybelieved that the historical task of the working class involved theoverthrow of the capitalist mode of production and the final abolition ofall classes .20

The double Marx was an inevitable product of its day.21On the onehand, he focused on the incipient and promising workers' movement. Onthe other hand, he performed an abstract analysis of the emerging com-modity economy's objective boundaries. The trends that Marx optimistic-ally identified as symptoms of early agony were in fact merely growingpains.22The essential error in judgement that led to the confusion of theexoteric and the esoteric perspectives was the idea that the labourers wouldnever become more comfortable with the alienated relationships of thegeneralized commodity economy. Marx assumed that the owners of thecommodity labour power would at no time become full-fledged membersof the community of free and equal commodity owners.

Peter Klein is the member of the Krisis group who has studied thisaspect intensively. In his bookDie Illusion von 1917 (1992), he followsMarx and Pashukanis by concentrating on the voluntary relationshipestablished between two independent commodity owners when theydecide to exchange their commodities. Marx considered such a voluntary18 K ar l M arx , Capital, vo l . I l l , t rans . D a v i d Fernbach (H arm ondsw ort h , 198 1) , p . 35 8 .19 M a r x , Gnmdrissc, p p . 7 0 5 - 7 0 6 .20 M a r x , P o s t f a c e t o t h e S e c o n d E d i t i o n ( 1 8 7 3 ) , Capital, I , p . 98 .21 R ober t K urz , D e r dopp e l t e M a rx , in H e i n z E i d a m a n d W o l f d i e t r ic h S c h m i e d -K o w a r z i k ( e d s ) , Kritische Philosophic gesellschaftlicher Praxis ( W U rzburg, 199 5) ; Fe -t i s ch A rbe i t , inH el m ut F l e i scher ( ed . ) , Der Marxismus in seinem Zeitalter ( L e i p z i g ,1 9 9 4 ) ; Pos t m arx i sm us und A rbe i t s f e t is ch , Krisis. 1 5 ( 1 9 9 5 ) .22 Ernst L o h o f f , D a s E n d e d e s Prole tar ia ts a l sA n f a n g d e r R e v o l u t i o n , Krisis, 1 0(January 1 9 9 1 ) , p . 8 3 .


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454 Marcel van der Lindenrelationship the core of all thought about freedom and equality: theexchange of exchange values is the productive, real basis of allequalityand freedom. As pure ideas they are merely the idealized expressions ofthis basis. 23 Exchange is a great equalizer. If individuals A and B wishto do business because A supplies a commodity for which B is willing topay, A and B will need to acknowledge one another as equal partners, asowners of private property, each with his or her own free will. Accord-ingly, freedom and equality are structural elements in exchange processesbetween commodity owners.24Of course, an extended historical tradition of commodities exchangewas necessary for the principles associated with the exchange to becomevalid in their own right - first in philosophy and theology, then in legalcircles, and eventually in politics. With the rise of capitalism over thepast two centuries, freedom and equality have finally become generallyaccepted in a manner that all people, when speaking about themselves ashuman beings, consistently associate humanity with these principles andplace them in the context of the normative and legal framework based onthese principles. 25Including the workers in the community of equals - of people - requiredredefining private ownership. As long as the workers were consideredpropertyless, they did not count as full-fledged citizens. The workers'movements attempted such a redefinition. From their perspective, wageearners also owned property, namely their labour power.26Emancipatingthe workers into full-fledged citizens was thus a political generalizationof the commodity logic. The same holds true for women's emancipation,althoughKrisishas tended to overlook this aspect until lately.27The gender issue was neglected into the 1990s. In 1992, however, thegroup published a major document by Roswitha Scholz, presenting theso-called separation theorem. According to this theorem, commodificationis possible only because of the simultaneous existence of social spheres23 M a r x , Grundrisse, p . 2 4 5 .24 E v g e n y P a s h u k a n i s , T h e G e n e r a l T h e o r y o f L a w a n d M a r x i s m ( 1 9 2 4 ) , i n P i e r s B e i m ea n d R o b e r t S h a r le t ( e d s ) , Pashukan is: Selected Writings onMarxism and Law ( L o n d o n[etc.], 1980), esp. pp. 74-9 0.25 P e t e r K l e i n , Die Illusion von 1917. Diealte Arbeiterbewegu ng als Entwicklun gshelferinder modernen Demokratie (B a d Ho n n e f , 1 9 9 2 ) , p . 2 9 .26 Ibid., p . 5 1 . T h i s l in e o fthough t mig ht lea d to a r e c o n s id e r a t io n o fthe propertyi nsk i l l o f ten inv ok ed in the past by art isans and sk i l le d work ers to leg i t im ize the ir ac t i ons .27

Oth e r a r e a s to b e c o n s id e r e d in th i s c o n te x t a r e r a c i s m a n d c o lo n ia l i s m . D id h i s to r i c a ll in k s e x i s t b e tw e e n th e c o m m o d i ty l o g i c a n d th e t e n d e n c y (o n th e p a r t o fth e b o u r g e o i se l i t e a n d la r g e s e g m e n t s o f th e m e tr o p o l i ta n la b o u r m o v e m e n ts ) t o l o o k d o w n o n p e o p lef r o m th e c o lo n ie s ? Krisis d id n o t a d d r e s s th i s i s s u e . N e v e r th e l e s s , ap r e l im in a r y a n a ly s i sa p p e a r s in P e te r S c h m i t t -E g n e r , W e r tg e s e t z u n d R a s s i s m u s , Gesellschaft: Beitrdge zurMarxschen Theorie, 8 - 9 (1 9 7 6 ) . T h e r a d ica l im p l i c a t io n s o f th e c r i tiq u e o f th e c o m m o d i t ylo g i c h a v e to s o m e e x te n t e s c a p e d th e a t t e n tio n o f EH Z a r e t s k y ; s e e h i s A M a r x fo r Ou rT i m e ? M o i s h e P o s t o n e ' s R e a d i n g o f Capital , Philosophy andSocial Criticism, 2 2 , 2(1996).


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The Historical Limit of Workers' Protest 455that while excluded from the commodification process are inextricablylinked with it. Individual private consumption is one such pivotal condi-tion:it exceeds the scope of the commodity economy but is neverthelessindispensable. Production and distribution of commodities would lose theirsignificance without consumption. Consumption is the necessary anti-pole - an essential Other - to the commodity. Such separated spheres(which include human care, consideration, or eroticism) are ordinarily per-ceived as feminine , whereas the calculating, rational world of com -modities is view ed as masculine . All efforts to emancipate wom en byapplying masculine standards (e.g. by demanding wages for housekeep-ing work) therefore generalize the commodity logic.28According toKrisis,patriarchal capitalism is driven by one force alone,namely capital, the automatic subject . The generalized commodity ec -onomy is basically subjectless, i.e. the bearers of authority are notself-conscious subjects but act according to an historical frame of sociality con-stituted without any consciousness .29Capital's objective tendency towardsself-exhaustion can lead to a new society only if new subjects deliberatelycreate themselves, beyond the purely immanent 'class struggle', along thecrisis-ridden fault lines of commodified socialization .30

While Postone's contributions and theKrisisgroup may emphasize differ-ent aspects, their areas of resemblance are remarkable. The critique of thecommodity logic establishes an original link between previously dividedtheory fragments, such as Lukacs's analysis of the relation between com-modification and class struggle, Adorno's remarks about the metaphysicsof labour , Panzieri's insight into the capitalist nature of modern tech-nology, and Debord's critique of the spectacle.31The new theory seems compatible with historical experience: theworkers' movement is the instrument for wage earners to acquire full-

fledged citizenship within the commodity economy rather than a meanstowards abolishing that economy. Generally, workers' protest radicalizesand becomes anti-capitalist under conditions where capitalist distribu-tion is not or not yet operative, and the commodity economy does not deliver the goods . The so-called socialist societies emerging from such28 R o s w i t h a S c h o lz , D e r W e r t i s t d e r M a n n , Krisis, 1 2 ( 1 9 9 2 ) . A l s o s e e R o b e r t K u r z , G e s c h l e c h t s f e t i s c h i s m u s , ibid.29 S c h o l z , D e r W e r t i s t d e r M a n n , p .2 2 ; c o m p a r e R o b e r t Ku r z , S u b je k t lo s e He r r -s c h a f t , Krisis, 1 3 ( 1 9 9 3 ) .30 U d o W in k e l , M a r x h a t u n s im v o r a u s U b e r h o lt , Krisis, 1 5 ( 1 9 9 5 ) , p . 1 3 4 .31 G e o r g L u k a c s , History and Class Consciousness ( 1 9 2 3 ) , t ra n s. R o d n e y L i v i n g s t o n e(L o n d o n , 1 9 7 1 ) ; T h e o d o r W . A d o m o , M e ta k r i t ik d e r E r k e n n tn i s th e o r ie : D r e i S tu d ie n z uH e g e l ( 1 9 5 6 ) , i n i d e m , Gesammelte Schriften, v o l . 5 (1 9 7 1 ) ; R a n ic r o P a n z ie r i , S u l l 'u s oc a p i t al i s ti c o d e l l e m a c c h i n e n e l n e o c a p i t a l i s m o ( 1 9 6 1 ) , i n i d e m , Spontaneita e organizza-zione. Cli anni dei Quaderni rossi 1959-1964, e d . S t e fa n o M e r l i (P i s a , 1 9 9 4 ) ; Gu yD e b o r d , Society of the Spectacle ( 1 9 6 7 ) ( N e w Y o r k , 1 9 9 5 ) .


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456 Marcel van der Lindenanti-capitalist reversals were unable to escape the global logic of accumu-lation; they did not rise above the commodity economy but merely becameits replacement.32 Little wonder, therefore, that the workers' councils -the most radical political expression of workers' protest - never arose inconsolidated parliamentary democracies and always rapidly turned intosubstitute parliaments.33Even the most radical unions - the revolutionarysyndicalist ones - focused on changes in the distribution sector and wereno match for the lure of advanced capitalism.34 According to Jean-MarieVincent, the traditional workers' movement neither understood nor ana-lysed in depth the sequence and inescapable logic in the relationshipsspecific to capitalist society. On the contrary , people believed they could separate the irrationality of the global methods of organization -in need of transformation - from a largely intangible daily and individualworld .35 In this light, the critique of the commodity logic enables us torethink the historical significance of workers' movements. The result is acritical synthesis of the old liberal and socialist views. On the one hand,the liberal and socialist interpretations are both clearly based on a transhis-toric conception of labour; on the other hand, the critique of the commod-ity logic correlates with socialism in its fundamental criticism of capital-ism (and even radicalizes this criticism by focusing on labour as such)and joins liberalism in viewing the workers' movement as an integral andnecessary component of capitalist society.Even if we accept this vision, objections and problems remain. BothPostone andKrisis make absolute the contrast between the standpoint oflabour and the critique of labour. Chris Arthur has rightly postulated thatthis position might be misleading: In so far as labour grasps itself as theground of its own oppression it undertakes aself-critique ,and this could32 B o t h P o s t o n e a n d t h e Krisis g r o u p c h a r a c t e r iz e t h ef o r m e r S o v i e t - t y p e s o c i e t i e s a sc a p i t a l i s t b e c a u s e o f t h e d o m i n a n c e o f a b s t r a c t l a b o u r t h e r e .Ic o n s i d e r t h i s a s s u m p t i o n a l lt o o e a s y . E a r l i e r ,Ia r g u e d t h a t c o m p e t i t i o n f o r p r of i t b e t w e e n c a p i t a l s i s e s s e n t i a l f o r c a p i -t a l i s m ( s e e M a r x , Grundrisse p . 6 5 0 : F r e e c o m p e t i t i o n i st h e re a l d e v e l o p m e n t o f c a p -i t a l ; a l s o Capital I I I , p . 1 2 7 ) , a n d t h a t s u c h c o m p e t i t i o n e x i s t e d n e i t h e r i n s i d e t h e S o v i e tU n i o n b e t w e e n e n t e r p r i s e s n o r b e t w e e n t h e S o v i e t U n i o n a n d W e s t e r n c a p i t a l i s m . I f a v o u rr eg ard in g S o v i e t - t y p e s o c i e t i e s a s n o n - c a p i t a l i s t ( a n d , o f c o u r s e , n o n - s o c i a l i s t ) m o d e r n i z a -t i o n d i c t a t o r s h i p s a n d t h e i r c o m p e t i t i o n w i t h c a p i t a l i s m a ss t a t e - c e n t r e d . T h e l a b o u r p r o -c e s s e s re ma in ed m e d i a t e d a n d a b s t r a c t , g i v e n t h e s e re la tio nsh ip s: M a r c e l v a n d e r L i n d e n ,Von derOktoberrevo lution zur Perestroika: Der westliche M arxismus und die Sowjetunion( F r an k f u rt /M a i n , 1 9 9 2 ) , p p . 2 1 2 - 2 1 3 , 2 2 7 - 2 4 5 .33

C o m p a r e P e r r y A n d e r s o n ' s o b s e r v a t i o n th a t a l l t h e e x a m p l e s o f S o v ie t s o r c o u n c i l ss of a r h a v e e m e r g e d o u t o fd i s i n t e g r a t i n g a u t o c r a c i e s ( R u s s i a , H u n g a r y , A u s t r i a ) , d e f e a t e dm i l i t a r y reg im es ( G e r m a n y ) , a s c e n d a n t o r o v e r t u r n e d f a s c is t s t a t e s ( S p a i n , P o r t u g a l ) :Argum ents within English Marxism ( L o n d o n , 1 9 8 0 ) , p . 1 9 6 . O n t h e p a r l i a m e n t a r i z a t i o n o fw o r k e r s ' c o u n c i l s , s e e T i m W o h l f o r t h , T r a n s i t i o n t ot h e T r a n s i t i o n , NewLeft Review1 3 0 ( 1 9 8 1 ) .34 M a r c e l v a n d e r L i n d e n an d W a y n e T h o r p e( e d s ) , Revolutionary Syndicalism: An Interna-tional Perspective ( A l d e r s h o t , 1 9 9 0 ) .35 J e a n - M a r i e V i n c e n t , Critique dutravail ( P a r i s , 1 9 8 7 ) , p . 6 3 .


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The Historical Limit of Workers' Protest 457give rise to a self-transcending movement .36 While this possibilityseems logical, it is equally conceivable that the crisis-ridden fault linesof commodified socialization appear not in the labour sector but, forexample, in consumption. At any rate, the critique of the commodity logicsuggests that social historians should double their efforts to investigate theappearance of such fault lines in the past and the role of workers in thisprocess. One example of a topic that could be addressed is given in EricRothenbuhler's case study of the textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts,in 1912. In the resulting liminal situation , the commodity logic beganto lose its grip on people:As long as workers strike about wages, they accept the myth of the labor marketwhich gives meaning to their behavior within the industrial social structure.

As soon as strikers behave as if not motivated by wages, their behavior cannotbe made meaningful within the social structure and it becomes a threat to thatstructure.37Such liminal situations are possible only because workers aresimulta-neously subjects and objects, commodities and commodity owners. Post-one is somewhat aware of this fact (TLSD,pp. 275 -27 7) but perceives noconsequences for his analysis. In a sense, this outlook typifies theapproaches of most authors discussed here. As soon as abstract analysisneeds to be linked with the surface of concrete historical, social andpolitical processes, Postone and theKrisis group tend to proclaim viewsnot based on sound research but manifesting a sensitivity to the spirit ofthe times. In the early 1970s, when he first formulated the contours of thecritique of the commodity logic, Postone described the working class as the not-yet-Subject - that which constitutes the alienated Subject(Capital) and which becomes Subject by overthrowing capital and in theprocess abolishing that labor, essential to capital, which defines the prole-tariatitself .38Two decades later, however, Postone views the proletariatas an integral element of capitalism rather than as the embodiment of itsnegation (TLSD, p. 389).39 This unsubstantiated shift in position lackscredibility. After all, even if the class struggle within capitalism is anantagonism rather than a contradiction, the continuing reconfirmation,36 C h r i s A r th u r , r e v i e w o f P o s to n e ' s Time, Labor and Social Domination, in Capital andClass,54 (Autumn 1994), p. 150.37

Eric W . Roth enbu hler , Th e Lim inal F ight: M as s Str ikes as R itua l and Interpretat ion ,in J e f f r e y C . A le x a n d e r ( e d . ) , Durklieim ian Sociology: Cultural Studies ( C a m b r i d g e [ e t c . ] ,1988), p. 73 .38 P o s to n e a n d R e in ic k e , On N i c o l a u s , p . 1 4 4 .39 S o m e m e m b e r s o f t h e Krisis grou p g o ev en further and assert that the o ld c las s s tru gglela c k s a n y h i s to r i c a l p e r s p e c t iv e , s in c e p r o le ta r ia n e m a n c ip a t io n i sirrevers ib le : Ku rz andL o h o f f , D e r Kla s s e n k a m p f fe t i s c h , p . 3 6 . T h i s v i e w i s d a n g e r o u s n o t o n ly b e c a u s e i r re -vers ib le a t ta inments do not ex is t but a lso because o fits c la ss i c Eurocentr ic v is i on pre-tending that metropol i tan a t ta inments automat ica l ly apply a l l over the wor ld .


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458 Marcel van der Lindenmaintenance, and, where possible, expansion of proletarian emancipationis a prerequisite for transforming labour as such. And in this respect, the old-fashioned workers' movement - stripped of any illusion - stillappears indispensable.

linden on postone

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