Work and Instrumental Action

Abstract

In recent discussions of historical materialism, the relationship of Marx's critique of political economy to a critical social theory directed toward political action has come into question. The thesis that there is a in the theory of indicates that the analysis of capital, the centerpiece of Marx's theoretical project, can no longer retain such a leading role in the determination of a critical social theory capable of offering a Praxis-oriented interpretation of the contemporary situation of late capitalism. The function of the critique of political economy in a theory of class struggle was always disputed in the history of Marxism, but it has never before been questioned to such a great extent. Although the fundamental methodological notion of the mutual translatability, if not the thematical convergence of the systematic analysis of capital and a Praxis-oriented theory of revolution forms the basis of the Marxian tradition, precisely this theoretical complementarity is currently in doubt. The categories of a crisis theory based on the analysis of capital are apparently no longer adequate to describe the altered crisis areas and conflict potentials of late capitalist society. This incongruity has come to dominate both the theoretical and the political sides of Marxist discussion. Marx's conception of work has taken on a central position among the theoretical doubts about the relevance of Marxism as a theory of human emancipation.' In its original form, the concept is a categorical connective between the critique of political economy and the materialist theory of revolution: the concept of work should not