Marx's Development Research Articles

That Hideous Pagan Idol: Marx, Fetishism and Graven Images

The importance of the idea of fetishism in Marx's work hardly needs to be argued, especially in light of the famous passage in Capital concerning commodities. However, the extent of Marx's engagement with fetishism has rarely been explored in full, nor has its complex relationship with the religious idea of idolatry. In order to explore both issues, this article is divided into two parts. The first traces Marx's initial encounter with the idea in the work of Charles de Brosses and then the various modifications of the idea in Marx's hands in order to provide new angles on alienation, labour, money, commodities and then capital as a whole. The second part picks up the persistent religious analogies in Marx's treatments of fetishism and then backtracks in order to uncover the connections with idolatry. We visit de Brosses once again, encounter Marx's Ethnological Notebooks, come across a striking connection the biblical critique of idolatry, and explore the way the new category of fetishism absorbs and transforms idolatry. This second part closes by critiquing the efforts by liberation theologians to appropriate Marx's use of fetishism for a renewed theological critique of idolatrous capitalism. Promising in some respects, what liberation theology misses is the sting in the tail of the Marx's development of fetishism.

Four Forms of Critical Theory- Some Theses On Marx's Development

Four Forms of Critical Theory- Some Theses On Marx's Development

Social Theory and Revolutionary Activity in Marx

Economic determinist attempts to deduce specific political conclusions or strategies from Marx's general theory do not jibe with Marx's own extensive political activity. Instead, Marx's development as a political theorist and organizer passed from observation of (French Revolution, Chartism) or participation in (1848, the International Workingmen's Association) existing radical movements to formulation of new theories and strategies, and then to application of these strategies in subsequent movements. In applying his general theory to formulating strategies and historical explanations, Marx utilized a framework of mainly political auxiliary statements to define the specific international and national historical setting. Faced with the defeat of a strategy or a tension between the strategy and an older theory, Marx reformulated his theory in different ways, sometimes altering these auxiliary statements rather than the general theory to explain unexpected events, more rarely changing the general theory itself. These new explanations reinforced his strategies. This impact of political experience on Marx's thinking illustrates his famous definition, drawn from Theses on Feuerbach, of revolution as a “practical-critical” activity. Taken as a whole, Marx's new explanations underline the role of politics in historical materialism and conflict with Marx's general expectation that economic oppression alone would ultimately drive the proletariat to make socialist revolution.

Marx on ideology, power and force

As Marx matured as a thinker, he became more acutely aware of the obstinate hold which capitalism exercised upon society. Consequently, he was forced to complement his theory of revolution with a theory of social structures. In this paper, I aim to explore Marx's ideas on this point as they emerge in three of his more mature works, i.e.,Capital, Grundrisse, and theTheories of Surplus Value. My enterprise is guided by my convictions that (i) the notions of ideology, power and force are still central to debates in modern social theory, and (ii) Marx's development of these notions has the intrinsic merit of providing a useful and sophisticated contribution to such debates.