Russell Rockwell
"Marcuse's Hegelian Marxism, Marx's Grundrisse, Hegel's Dialectic" (First published in Radical Philosophy Review", Volume 16, No. 1, 2013)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1EMkTi7WgJIbjVCcUtidkhQTVE/edit?usp=sharing
Saturday, June 14, 2014
June 2014 Conference on Karel Kosik's Dialectics of the Concrete, Prague, Czech Republic
http://web.flu.cas.cz/kosik/
Russell Rockwell, "The Freedom and Necessity Dialectic: Marcuse, Kosik, and Today"
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1EMkTi7WgJIZEFYQU5NbThfQ1k/edit?usp=sharing
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Baran/Marcuse in current Monthly Review: Fromm's "boot-licking", or critique of 1950s Marcuse's Hegel interpretations?
Monthly Review this month published some of the 1950s-60s correspondence between Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse and Left economist, Paul Baran.
The following quotes a passage from one of Bran's letters to Marcuse, which trashes Erich Fromm's 1961 Marx's Concept of Man. This is followed by Russell Rockwell's contrasting interpretation of Fromm's work, explaining his implicit harsh critique of Marcuse's recent interpretations of Hegel.
From March 1, 2014 Monthly Review
Baran/Marcuse Correspondence
July 11, 1961
Big Sur, California
Dear Herbert,
...Your remark that even the most ossified Marxism is these days a fountain of truth
compared with what parades as social science and philosophy was to me a particularly à
compared with what parades as social science and philosophy was to me a particularly à
propos since I had just finished reading the Introduction by Fromm to a paperback edition
of Marx’s Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (Marx’s Concept of Man, New York,
1961).14 You must have a look at this thing, if you haven’t yet. This outpouring of
Fromm’s setzt wirklich dem Fass die Krone [really tops it all off]. After Mr. Strachey and
Co. have turned the old man into a meritorious—if somewhat confused—predecessor of
Keynes and Gaitskill, Mr. Fromm promotes him to a follower of Meister Eckhart and to a
Zen Buddhist thus providing him with the distinction of having anticipated no less a figure
than Erich Fromm himself.15 On all of the 80 pages of the rubbish that he wrote about
Marx—in order to acquaint the American public with thoughts of “that great thinker”—
Fromm managed not to mention once the class struggle, not to use once the word
revolution, not to say anything about the development of the forces of production, about
antagonistic interests. I don’t think that I have ever read anything as scandalous and at
the same time as manifestly dishonest. The fellow falsifies outright, misquotes, garbles.
Even by the current standards the whole thing is an absolute outrage. By the way, since
he finds it expedient to lick your boots on a couple of occasions, it would be most
desirable if you reviewed this thing somewhere. Rejecting positivism is one thing,
sinking into the mud of mysticism is another. And surely there is nothing that is more
conducive to discrediting Marx in the eyes of such young people who at least potentially
might begin to understand something than exposing them to the gibberish that Mr. Fromm
has the temerity to call Marxism.
From Russell Rockwell, Presentation at November 2013 International Marcuse Conference, Lexington, KY.
It
is well-known that in an appendix to his work Eros and Civilization, Marcuse launched a polemic against Fromm’s
theory development, including works Fromm had written while both he and Marcuse
were still members of the ISR. For
example, Marcuse cites the article, “The Social Conditions of Psychoanalytical
Therapy”, Fromm published in the ISR journal in 1935.[1] Marcuse
suggests that Fromm begins to argue that happiness can be found within the
given society, hence conflating Critical Theory and social conformity. Since
the social relevance of Critical Theory resided in its ability to sharpen the
edges of psychology and sociology to enhance their critical function, this was
indeed a stinging assertion. What might be less well-known is that Marcuse
offers high praise for earlier articles Fromm published in 1932-1934. Marcuse
argues that there is a fundamental distinction between Fromm’s earlier and
later articles. In the earlier ones Fromm demonstrated the “explosive”
potential of instinctual structures defined by Freud: when social conditions
change to undermine the “patricentric, acquisitive culture”, the functions of
instinctual structures change as well—“they cease to be the cement and instead
become the dynamite”. [2]
Yet,
Marcuse’s critique of the social relevance and trajectory of Fromm’s theory may
have served to divert attention from a major change in the trajectory and
social relevance of his own theory. And Fromm was eventually to bring this to
the attention of his readers in his 1961 work, “Marx’s Concept of Man”. [3] Marcuse’s
early 1930s work and many of his writings through Reason and Revolution (where an entire section on the “abolition of
labor” was included) clearly suggested the need for a serious reexamination of
Hegel’s philosophy. This was in the context of unanswered questions concerning
revolutionary praxis, principally labor.
Marcuse’s
Eros and Civilization chapter, titled
“Philosophical Interlude”, suggested something different. [4]
Marcuse indicated Hegel’s continuity with the development of Western philosophy
generally, rather than the incorporation and transcendence of this tradition
associated with Hegelian-Marxian dialectic. Marcuse, much more so than in his
earlier works, conceived Hegel’s Logic
as continuous in essential ways with the logic of domination that evolved
slowly since Aristotle. [5] In
Eros and Civilization, in the context
of his development of Freud’s analysis of Western civilization, especially his
concepts of the performance and pleasure principles, Marcuse analyzed the
evolving idea of reason as historically and increasingly antagonistic to those,
“faculties and attitudes that are receptive rather than productive”. [6] Marcuse
wrote:
Reason
is to ensure, through the ever more effective transformation and exploitation
of nature, the fulfillment of human potentialities. But in the process, the
ends seem to recede before the means: the time devoted to alienated labor
absorbs the time for individual needs—and define the needs themselves. The
logos shows forth as the logic of domination…Hegel’s presentation of his system
in his Encyclopedia ends on the word
‘enjoys’. The philosophy of western
civilization culminates in the idea that the truth lies in the negation of the
principle that governs this civilization—negation in the twofold sense that
freedom appears as real only in the idea,
and that the endlessly projecting and transcending productivity of being comes to fruition in the perpetual peace of
self-conscious receptivity.” [7]
A section of Fromm‘s 1961 work, Marx’s Concept of Man might be understood as a response to this
shift in Marcuse’s theoretical trajectory. It represents a turn-about in the
question of the social relevance of Critical Theory, this time of Marcuse’s in
place of Fromm’s. In Marx’s Concept of
Man (“The Nature of Man”, Part 2 on “Man’s Self-Activity”), Fromm begins by
stating that Marx’s concept of man is
rooted in Hegel’s thinking. [8]
But instead of elaborating on this thought himself, Fromm quotes at length from
Marcuse’s Reason and Revolution on
Hegel’s Science of Logic, where
Marcuse wrote that the task of the dialectical thinker is to, “distinguish the
essential from the apparent process of reality and to grasp their relation…the
world is an estranged and untrue world so long as man does not destroy its dead
objectivity and recognize himself and his own life ‘behind’ the fixed form of
things and laws. When he finally wins this self-consciousness, he is on his way
not only to the truth of himself, but also of his world. And with the
recognition goes the doing. He will try to put this truth into action and make the world what it essentially is, namely, the fulfillment
of man’s self-consciousness.” [9]
Thus
an interesting aspect of Fromm’s analysis of Hegel’s philosophy in Marx’s Concept of Man is that it refers
several times to Marcuse’s Reason and
Revolution to support his own versus Marcuse’s position in their debate
over Freud’s theories and psychoanalysis at the time of publication of
Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization. For
example, Fromm interprets the passage (quoted above) from Marcuse in the
following: “For Hegel the development of individual powers, capacities and
potentialities is possible only by continuous action, never by sheer
contemplation or receptivity…In as much as man is not productive, in as much as
he is receptive and passive, he is nothing, he is dead. In this productive
process, man realizes his own essence, he returns to his own essence.” [10]
[1]
Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, A
Philosophical Inquiry into Freud, 1st Vintage ed. (1955; repr.; New York: Vintage,
1962), 222.
[2]
Ibid., 221.
[3] Erich
Fromm, Marx’s Concept of Man (1961;
repr., New York: Continuum, 1961).
[4]
Marcuse, Eros and Civilization,
96-114.
[5]
Ibid., 102-103.
[6]
Ibid., 101.
[7]
Ibid., 101, 105. Compare Marcuse’s analysis of the final paragraph of Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind here with Hegel’s
introduction to the Philosophy of Mind,
which covers the same ground, though in much more detail. (We analyzed this
part of the Introduction in the section above, “Genesis or Dawn—What Happens
After?”). In the first of the two paragraphs that comprise the “Subdivision” of
the Introduction (385 and 386), Hegel summarizes Mind as Subjective (freedom),
Objective (necessity), and Absolute (unity of freedom and necessity). In the
final paragraph 386, Hegel intimates that Subjective and Objective Mind (taken
up in paragraph 385) are both merely “finite”, and only Absolute Mind is
“infinite”. No stronger case can be made than Hegel makes himself here, that he
did not ultimately confine “liberation” to thought alone. Rather, he demonstrated that any theory (and
practice) short of freedom’s social realization merely reflects, “A rigid
application of finitude by the abstract logician…in dealing with Mind and
reason…it is held not a mere matter of logic, but treated also as a moral and
religious concern, to adhere to the point of finitude, and the wish to go
further is reckoned a mark of audacity, in not of insanity, of
thought…philosophy for the concrete forms, has merely to show that the finite is not, i.e. is not the truth, but
merely a transition and an emergence to something higher” .
[8]
Fromm, Marx’s Concept of Man, 26.
[9]
Ibid;, 26-27.
[10]
Ibid;, 29-30.
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
2014 Article in Counterpunch on International Marcuse Society Conference, Lexington, KY
DECEMBER 16, 2013
The Concrete Distress of Human Existence
Herbert Marcuse and Absolute Struggle in 2013
“One can delineate the domain of philosophy however one likes, but in its search for truth, philosophy is always concerned with human existence. Authentic philosophizing refuses to remain at the stage of knowledge […]. Care for human existence and its truth makes philosophy a ‘practical science’ in the deepest sense, and it also leads philosophy—and this is the crucial point—into the concrete distress of human existence.”– Herbert Marcuse, “On Concrete Philosophy” (1929)
According to Wolin, Marcuse must have felt the risks of such a dictatorship to be less than those associated with liberal or Stalinist regimes; the speaker even cited Marcuse’s declaration in Eros and Civilization that, “From Plato to Rousseau, the only honest answer is the idea of an educational dictatorship, exercised by those who are supposed to have acquired knowledge of the real Good.” Curiously, though, Wolin failed to include Marcuse’s next sentence in his comments refuting the idea: “The answer has since become obsolete: knowledge of the available means for creating a humane existence for all is no longer confined to a privileged elite.”
During the afternoon of the conference’s second day, I attended a panel on “Marcuse, Marx, and Marxisms,”... Russell Rockwell, co-editor of the recently published Dunayevskaya-Marcuse-Fromm Correspondence, 1954-1978 (2013), presented on the trajectories and intersections of the Marxisms advanced by Marcuse and critical psychoanalyst Erich Fromm respectively. Against established trends which would largely suppress consideration of Fromm’s significant contributions to the nascent Institute for Social Research, Rockwell explained how Fromm felt psychoanalysis could productively serve as a complement to Marxian economism, and he mentioned Fromm’s 1929 lecture to the Institute of Psychoanalysis which cited Marx favorably. He also brought up Fromm’s 1929 psychological study of workers in Weimar Germany, which was rejected for publication with the Institute for Social Research for practical political considerations—it held that some three-quarters of the German working population would not resist Hitler if he seized power, while only an estimated 15 percent had personality structures which Fromm felt would lead them to actively resist him. Indeed, the work did not see the light of day for over five decades. Rockwell stressed that both Fromm and Marcuse shared an interest in the humanism of the young Marx, unlike most of the rest of the theorists associated with the Frankfurt School.
HTTP://WWW.COUNTERPUNCH.ORG/2013/12/16/HERBERT-MARCUSE-AND-ABSOLUTE-STRUGGLE-IN-2013/
Monday, December 23, 2013
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Automation Targeting Even Low-Wage Jobs
This past summer, David H. Autor, professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and David Dorn, assistant professor of economics at the Center for Monetary and Financial Studies in Madrid, wrote an article in the New York Times, "How Technology Wrecks the Middle Class". Autor has been a primary figure in promoting the thesis that technological changes in the economy are responsible for job market "polarization"-- as employment in routine jobs has ebbed, employment has risen both in high-wage managerial, professional and technical occupations and in low-wage, in-person service occupations:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/how-technology-wrecks-the-middle-class/?smid=pl-share
So computerization is not reducing the quantity of jobs, but rather degrading the quality of jobs for a significant subset of workers. Demand for highly educated workers who excel in abstract tasks is robust, but the middle of the labor market, where the routine task-intensive jobs lie, is sagging. Workers without college education therefore concentrate in manual task-intensive jobs — like food services, cleaning and security — which are numerous but offer low wages, precarious job security and few prospects for upward mobility. This bifurcation of job opportunities has contributed to the historic rise in income inequality.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/how-technology-wrecks-the-middle-class/?smid=pl-share
But in a report in the 11/29/13 NYT, " Coming Soon, a Night Watchman With Wheels", science writer John Markoff, writes:
A company in California has developed a mobile robot, known as the K5Autonomous Data Machine, as a safety and security tool for corporations, as well as for schools and neighborhoods...The night watchman of the future is 5 feet tall, weighs 300 pounds and looks a lot like R2-D2 – without the whimsy. And will work for $6.25 an hour.
And the addition of such a machine to the labor market could force David Autor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist, to rethink his theory about how technology wrecks the middle class.
The minimum wage in the United States is $7.25, and $8 in California. Coming in substantially under those costs, Knightscope’s robot watchman service raises questions about whether artificial intelligence and robotics technologies are beginning to assault both the top and the bottom of the work force as well.
Over all, there are about 1.3 million private security guards in the United States, and they are low paid for the most part, averaging about $23,000 a year, according to the Service Employees International Union. Most are not unionized, so they are vulnerable to low-cost automation alternatives.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/03/science/coming-soon-a-night-watchman-with-wheels.html?smid=pl-share
Monday, November 11, 2013
Presentation at 2013 International Herbert Marcuse Conference, Lexington, Kentucky
Herbert Marcuse and Erich Fromm's Marxism: Their Trajectories, Intersections, and Social Relevance
http://www.scribd.com/doc/183425104/Marcuse-and-Fromm-s-Marxism-2013-International-Herbert-Marcuse-Kentucky-Conference-pdf
http://www.scribd.com/doc/183425104/Marcuse-and-Fromm-s-Marxism-2013-International-Herbert-Marcuse-Kentucky-Conference-pdf
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