Critical Social Theory

“People with opinions. Where do they come from. These days it seems like a natural fact.

What we think changes how we act”The Gang of Four

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Two conceptions of ideology

“The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness” (‘Preface’ 45)

“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas … [Each ruling class] present its interests as the common interest of all the members of society” (German Ideology 47-48).

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Marx and Engels: ideology

Both conception share the following features: 1) “The premises from which we start are not

arbitrary; they are no dogmas … They are the real individuals, their actions and their material conditions of life. … The first fact to be established, then, is the physical organization of these individuals” (German Ideology 107)

What is the significance of this starting point for analysis compared with that of Kant and other philosophers?

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Marx and Engels: ideology

The starting point for Marx’s analysis is with the given material conditions (natural bases) and work through the modifications resulting from man’s actions.

Contrast with the philosophical analyses offered by Marx and Engels’ contemporaries:

“In direct contrast to German Philosophy, which descends from heaven to earth, here one ascends from earth to heaven. … One does not set out from what men say, imagine or conceive nor from man as he is … imagined” (111-112)

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Marx and Engels: ideology

2) Both conception of ideology are committed to the view that it is the material base that conditions the superstructure.

Superstructure (legal, political, religious)

↑ Base (relations of production)

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Philosophical Implications

Consider the first conception of ideology: “Conceiving, thinking …appear here as the direct result of their material behaviour” (German Ideology, 111)

Does this view commit us to the position that for each mode of man’s material behaviour there is a corresponding set of beliefs, which may not be ‘true’ in a different mode of material behaviour?

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Ideology and relativism

So in the case of ideology, under one mode of material behaviour, the proposition “there are natural slaves” is held true but is held to be false under another mode.

The above view is a form of relativism How plausible is relativism?

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Relativism

What is relativism? Relativism (roughly): there are no objective

truths Argument:

1. X believes that S is true

2. Y believes that S is false

3. Therefore, there is no objective way to decide whether S is true or false

Is this argument valid?

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Philosophical Implications: ideology

In each epoch, beliefs about values, and social relations appear like natural facts.

These beliefs systematically misrepresent social reality—the analogy to an upside down image in a camera obscura (German Ideology, 111)

How does ideology, which distort social reality, affect the autonomy of individuals?

Undermines the autonomy of individuals

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Philosophical Implications: ideology and the ‘correct’ view

Second, if it is the case that for each historical period, there is one set of dominant beliefs, and those beliefs systematically distort social reality, can we ever get to social reality as it really is?

Marx and the end of ideology: “This whole appearance, that the rule of a certain class is only the rule of certain ideas, comes to a natural end, of course, as soon as class rule in general ceases to be the form in which society is organized” (49)

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Analysis of Commodity as ideology critique

It is the task of criticism to reveal the real relations—ideology critique

What is a commodity? “The commodity is, first of all, an external

object, a thing which through its qualities satisfies human needs of whatever kind” (Capital 220)

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Commodity

Commodities are also exchanged What property do commodities have that allow

them to be exchanged? Value, which belongs to the thing. What is this ‘value’?

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Commodity

For Marx, what needs examination is precisely why commodities appear to us to have ‘value’—which is not part of its physical properties—and also as things that have independent existence.

In other words, what is the ‘reality’ of commodity exchange?

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Commodity

Key terms: use-value, exchange-value, labour, qualitative, quantitative

Use-value (220-221): individuals find in objects various features which satisfy their needs.

These physical features are the bases of use-value.

Use-values are realised, emerge, in use or in consumption

As use values, commodities are qualitative different (222)

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Commodity

Exchange value: central feature of commodities. “If commodities could speak, they would say this:

our use value may interest men, but it does not belong to us as objects. What does belong to us as objects, however, is our value. Our own intercourse as commodities proves it. We relate to each other merely as exchange-values” (Capital 243).

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Commodity

Commodities can be exchanged for one another; the value of the exchange is quantitative—5 bushels of wheat for 3 chords of wood.

Exchange value render diverse things equivalent.

What makes such diverse things equivalent? The labour that went into producing the

different objects.

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Commodity and Labour

But isn’t the labour that went into the production of these objects as diverse as the objects themselves? Consider the labour of a tailor and a watch maker. Are they not different?

So what allows for the exchange of commodities? “Human labour in the abstract” (222) or

“homogeneous human labour” (223)—an abstract notion and not specific productive activities

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Commodity and Labour

If labour is the value-forming substance, then it should be the case that the more labour required (the more labour-time required), then the article should be more valuable. But is that so?

Marx and the idea of ‘productivity’: one has to consider “the conditions of production normal for a given period with average degree of skill and intensity of labour prevalent in the society” (223). That is, the labour time “socially necessary” for the production of the commodity (224).

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Summary and Implications of Marx’s analysis

1) What is the substance of value of a commodity?

2) What is the measure of its magnitude?

Answers:1) labour; 2) labour-time

1) Use-value: an item can be a use-value without being a value. Why?

2) An article can be a use-value without being a commodity. Why?

Answers: 1) no labour involved—natural resources; 2) no social use value (225), i.e. not exchanged

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Commodity exchange

The exchange relation then consists of the exchange of different articles that relate to one another in a quantitative manner.

These relations between commodities appear to be independent of us; they appear to have a life of its own.

That’s the next step.