The critique of political economy as a critical social theory

Abstract

Werner Bonefeld Critical Theory and the Critique of Political Economy: On Subversion and Negative Reason, Bloomsbury: London, 2014; 246pp: 9781441161390, 63 [pounds sterling] (hbk) In the tradition of the best critical and Marxist theory, this brilliant, vital book encompasses and challenges everything. Marx and Adorno are present not only theoretically, as implied in the book's title, but also stylistically. The experience of reading Bonefeld's prose is a rare one, outside these earlier paragons. It is audacious, breathtaking and exciting in a way unmatched in most academic' writing. The book offers valuable resources for thinking and acting within, against and beyond capital. But it is from the contemporary relevancy of its critical targets that the book derives urgency. Nationalist 'hardworking families' rhetoric. Left anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism. Idiotic conspiracy theories and morbid fascination with 'greedy bankers'. Leftish support for religious fascists and misguided anti-imperialism. Leninism. Keynesianism. Calls for state regulation against 'neoliberalism'. A whole litany of dead-ends and misdeeds face Bonefeld's withering critique. A veritable who's who of the UK left would profit from a copy, gratis. But of paramount Marxological significance is Bonefeld's critique of the new reading of Marx (henceforth 'NRM'), otherwise known as the Neue Marx-Lekture (see Bellofiore & Riva 2015 for a recent summary--here, I use Bonefeld's own terminology throughout). It is this that I will focus on in this review, as well as the political implications that follow. The aim of the book is to present the 'critique of political economy as a critical social theory' (Bonefeld 2014: 3). The critique centres upon economic objectivity and the political form of capitalist society. It exposes their imbrication in the relationship of class antagonism upon which capitalism rests. In the introduction to Part 1, Bonefeld outlines his conceptualisation of the critique of political economy. Chapter 2 explores the social constitution of economic categories, drawing upon Marx and the NRM. Chapter 3 uses Adorno to further explore the social practices that undergird this constitution. Part 2 of the book focuses upon the antagonistic social relations that sustain the law of value. It discusses their absence in the NRM, and attributes this to the NRM's interpretation of the 'logical' rather than historical exposition Marx employs in Capital (1990). Chapter 4 restates the importance of the separation of workers from their means of subsistence in the development of capitalism. It features a critique of the NRM on this point. Chapter 5 elaborates the significance of class as a key element of the capitalist form of wealth. Chapter 6 examines the relationship between classed labour and its expression as abstract labour in exchange. It draws upon an enlightening debate held in the pages of Capital & Class between Bonefeld and Axel Kicillof and Guido Starosta (see Kicillof & Starosta 2007, 2011; Bonefeld 2010. See also Carchedi 2011). This chapter and the earlier exchanges from which it derives are an unparalleled introduction to current disputes in Marxian value theory. Part 3 conceptualises the critique of political economy as the critique of the political form of capitalist society, the state. The state and the rule of law guarantee by force the law of value and the appearance of equal exchange upon which it depends. Thus, the latter is not a general, objective economic relation. Its preconditions must be reproduced, continually and politically. The two chapters in Part 3 focus on two aspects of this political basis. Chapter 7 theorises the world market as both a corollary of the law of value and a means for the coercion of labour. Rather than undermining them, the world market implies the existence of national states. Chapter 8 casts the state as the vehicle for the depoliticisation of exchange relations that is necessary to ensure the illusion of equivalence. …