I find the first claim in the essay, that capitalist society is the greatest fear of ancient peoples, completely ludicrous. A claim like this might hold water in literary circles, but it’s silly history.
The main thrust of the essay is that the state has solved capitalism’s problems. But the state arises on the economic foundations of the mode of production, and Marx’s analysis purports to demonstrate that the mode of production is impermanent. The state can delay the end of capitalism, but it is not a supra-historical force. What is most fundamental is the development of the productive forces, which must eventually dissolve the ability of the state to maintain the existing order.
You describe a historical logic toward the maximization of violence by the state: “Once the state forms, you quickly establish an arms race for the relative maximization of violence, that is, the maximization of the potential violence of the specialized armed men at the heart of the state, versus the violence of the population at large and versus other states.” But this ignores that the character of the state, and even the existence of the state, is historically contingent. You can’t just assume that the arms race is a universal of history.
The term “meta-stability” is misleading, as it suggests that capitalism is oscillating around some state of equilibrium. In fact, capitalism, like every historical society, is continually evolving, moving toward its own dissolution. The falling rate of profit is a quantitive expression of this. To describe social forms as local equilibria is to erase the fact that society has never yet been in a state of equilibrium, the reproduction of certain social forms notwithstanding.
You claim that capitalism has come up against its fetters but can survive this situation indefinitely: “The mistake of D&G is understanding fetters to mean an absolute limit to growth, rather than a relative limit. Growth, at an ever decreasing rate, is always possible… “Capitalism and the capitalist class have long made their peace with having hit these fetters, with secular stagnation, lower investment and atomized production… “So long as this new mode of production does not make an appearance, it can live up against the wall of its limits indefinitely.” These are very strong claims — essentially a repudiation of the materialist conception of history, with no support other than Deleuze’s gobbledygook. Growth, at an ever decreasing rate, is NOT necessarily possible. The rate of profit tending toward zero would be (is) existential for capitalism. An asymptote might be tolerated in theory but not in the real world.
You treat the appearance of a new mode of production as being entirely separate from the old mode of production coming up against its fetters, as though the former were only up to subjective or contingent factors. The starting point of both Deleuze and the perspective in your essay is the apparent stability of capitalism and the lack of a political movement against it. But this is impressionistic. It’s necessary to start from an analysis of capitalism’s historical development. By abandoning the notion of “fetters,” or rather rendering the term meaningless, you give up on any hope of conducting such an historical analysis, and instead substitute a conception of meta-stability.
Your talk of society and the state becoming “more correlated to their environment through adaptations” seems sufficiently vague that it could mean essentially anything we want it to. One needs to be very careful when talking about historical society in the terms of natural selection, as this is the favorite perspective these days of the bourgeois apologists. These philosophers start from the abstraction of natural selection and then dissolve all the complexity of the world into this abstraction, including, of course, the role of human agency.
After asserting that capitalism is stable and the working class can play no revolutionary role, you come up with the idea that the petty bourgeoise is a revolutionary class that can usher in socialism, a doubtful proposition.
Finally, you claim that “The logic of the state imposes a cruel irony onto history: the battle for freedom by a class is always rewarded with its unfreedom, even in victory.” Your explanation for this is that “the state is the reactive part of a feedback loop, attempting to manage any threat of violence and breakdown.” But WHY does the state play this role in the feedback loop? What enables it to get relative autonomy with respect to society, what drives it to attempt to manage breakdown, and what are the limits of its ability to do so? Without attempting to answer these questions, your analysis is bound to be ahistorical. We cannot just assume that the state will always play this role.
The charge that Marxism is teleological, that it “buries its bones right where it will later find them,” applies equally to any view of history as being lawful. It can equally be applied to capitalist apologetics that claim that the logic of history inexorably leads to capitalism and liberal democracy, or to the techno-futurists, or to the claim made here that history inexorably builds up the repressive powers of the state, or to the view that history has ordained an endless cycle of booms and busts, wars and revolutions. The only theory that this charge would not apply to is the theory that history is essentially random, that it obeys no laws, and hence a scientific study of it is impossible.
Another charge that is made along these lines is that Marx’s theory is only an attempt to provide a scientific justification for an essentially religious hope of paradise. The theory is said to mirror Christian theology, in which a savior (the working class rather than Jesus) delivers the world through an apocalypse (the collapse of capitalism) to a paradise. But again, one could level similar charges at ANY theory of social development. One can always find how any lawful view of history mirrors religious expectations.
But in practice, the charge of teleology is only leveled at theories that attempt to show that history allows for the improvement of the human condition. The alternative to "teleology" is to accept either that (a) history does not allow for any such improvement and hence social struggles should be abandoned or (b) that the whole thing is an inscrutable mystery that is beyond scientific inquiry. These are lazy attempts to refute Marx; they have no force at all, except to those who have already decided their conclusions in advance (i.e. buried their bones right where they wanted to find them). Making these charges is an admission of an inability to refute the content of Marx’s scientific claims, and the need to descend into silly speculations about Marx’s unconscious mind.
The teleology in history consists merely of this: that humanity is driven to develop production to satisfy its needs. Of course this imparts a direction to history. A directionless history could only come about if humans had NO role whatsoever in making history.
That there may be possibilities for human happiness that have not so far been realized should not strike us as all that strange. Human beings want a decent life, and though we are not the only force of importance in history, we have at least some influence in determining its course. If bourgeois ideologists want to call that teleology, let them have it. Those who are serious about finding whether alternatives might exist to the status quo will quickly see through this kind of ideological hackwork and turn to a serious study of history.
Some thoughts , I like your thoughts on this a ton. http://farmingthedirt.com/posts/pettybourgeoisie/
Brilliant essay !!
I find the first claim in the essay, that capitalist society is the greatest fear of ancient peoples, completely ludicrous. A claim like this might hold water in literary circles, but it’s silly history.
The main thrust of the essay is that the state has solved capitalism’s problems. But the state arises on the economic foundations of the mode of production, and Marx’s analysis purports to demonstrate that the mode of production is impermanent. The state can delay the end of capitalism, but it is not a supra-historical force. What is most fundamental is the development of the productive forces, which must eventually dissolve the ability of the state to maintain the existing order.
You describe a historical logic toward the maximization of violence by the state: “Once the state forms, you quickly establish an arms race for the relative maximization of violence, that is, the maximization of the potential violence of the specialized armed men at the heart of the state, versus the violence of the population at large and versus other states.” But this ignores that the character of the state, and even the existence of the state, is historically contingent. You can’t just assume that the arms race is a universal of history.
The term “meta-stability” is misleading, as it suggests that capitalism is oscillating around some state of equilibrium. In fact, capitalism, like every historical society, is continually evolving, moving toward its own dissolution. The falling rate of profit is a quantitive expression of this. To describe social forms as local equilibria is to erase the fact that society has never yet been in a state of equilibrium, the reproduction of certain social forms notwithstanding.
You claim that capitalism has come up against its fetters but can survive this situation indefinitely: “The mistake of D&G is understanding fetters to mean an absolute limit to growth, rather than a relative limit. Growth, at an ever decreasing rate, is always possible… “Capitalism and the capitalist class have long made their peace with having hit these fetters, with secular stagnation, lower investment and atomized production… “So long as this new mode of production does not make an appearance, it can live up against the wall of its limits indefinitely.” These are very strong claims — essentially a repudiation of the materialist conception of history, with no support other than Deleuze’s gobbledygook. Growth, at an ever decreasing rate, is NOT necessarily possible. The rate of profit tending toward zero would be (is) existential for capitalism. An asymptote might be tolerated in theory but not in the real world.
You treat the appearance of a new mode of production as being entirely separate from the old mode of production coming up against its fetters, as though the former were only up to subjective or contingent factors. The starting point of both Deleuze and the perspective in your essay is the apparent stability of capitalism and the lack of a political movement against it. But this is impressionistic. It’s necessary to start from an analysis of capitalism’s historical development. By abandoning the notion of “fetters,” or rather rendering the term meaningless, you give up on any hope of conducting such an historical analysis, and instead substitute a conception of meta-stability.
Your talk of society and the state becoming “more correlated to their environment through adaptations” seems sufficiently vague that it could mean essentially anything we want it to. One needs to be very careful when talking about historical society in the terms of natural selection, as this is the favorite perspective these days of the bourgeois apologists. These philosophers start from the abstraction of natural selection and then dissolve all the complexity of the world into this abstraction, including, of course, the role of human agency.
After asserting that capitalism is stable and the working class can play no revolutionary role, you come up with the idea that the petty bourgeoise is a revolutionary class that can usher in socialism, a doubtful proposition.
Finally, you claim that “The logic of the state imposes a cruel irony onto history: the battle for freedom by a class is always rewarded with its unfreedom, even in victory.” Your explanation for this is that “the state is the reactive part of a feedback loop, attempting to manage any threat of violence and breakdown.” But WHY does the state play this role in the feedback loop? What enables it to get relative autonomy with respect to society, what drives it to attempt to manage breakdown, and what are the limits of its ability to do so? Without attempting to answer these questions, your analysis is bound to be ahistorical. We cannot just assume that the state will always play this role.
The charge that Marxism is teleological, that it “buries its bones right where it will later find them,” applies equally to any view of history as being lawful. It can equally be applied to capitalist apologetics that claim that the logic of history inexorably leads to capitalism and liberal democracy, or to the techno-futurists, or to the claim made here that history inexorably builds up the repressive powers of the state, or to the view that history has ordained an endless cycle of booms and busts, wars and revolutions. The only theory that this charge would not apply to is the theory that history is essentially random, that it obeys no laws, and hence a scientific study of it is impossible.
Another charge that is made along these lines is that Marx’s theory is only an attempt to provide a scientific justification for an essentially religious hope of paradise. The theory is said to mirror Christian theology, in which a savior (the working class rather than Jesus) delivers the world through an apocalypse (the collapse of capitalism) to a paradise. But again, one could level similar charges at ANY theory of social development. One can always find how any lawful view of history mirrors religious expectations.
But in practice, the charge of teleology is only leveled at theories that attempt to show that history allows for the improvement of the human condition. The alternative to "teleology" is to accept either that (a) history does not allow for any such improvement and hence social struggles should be abandoned or (b) that the whole thing is an inscrutable mystery that is beyond scientific inquiry. These are lazy attempts to refute Marx; they have no force at all, except to those who have already decided their conclusions in advance (i.e. buried their bones right where they wanted to find them). Making these charges is an admission of an inability to refute the content of Marx’s scientific claims, and the need to descend into silly speculations about Marx’s unconscious mind.
The teleology in history consists merely of this: that humanity is driven to develop production to satisfy its needs. Of course this imparts a direction to history. A directionless history could only come about if humans had NO role whatsoever in making history.
That there may be possibilities for human happiness that have not so far been realized should not strike us as all that strange. Human beings want a decent life, and though we are not the only force of importance in history, we have at least some influence in determining its course. If bourgeois ideologists want to call that teleology, let them have it. Those who are serious about finding whether alternatives might exist to the status quo will quickly see through this kind of ideological hackwork and turn to a serious study of history.