Species Being in the Twenty-First Century

ABSTRACT

In this article, I focus on what is implicitly the more humanist aspect of Marx’s work. That is, species being and alienation. I do so informed by a commitment to pluralism and based on a background in social ontology. I argue that species being and alienation continue to provide insight into the nature of the modern world. They are integral components to Marx’s exploration and constructive critique of capitalism and help to make sense of how potential is shaped for a social entity who can be harmed and who can flourish. However, the way in which one relates to Marx as still relevant regarding these matters can cover a range. I then set out how species being provides useful insight in the twenty-first century at a time of anticipated major social and economic change.

KEYWORDS:

• Fourth industrial revolution
• species being
• Marx

JEL CODES:

• A11
• B51
• J50
• P1

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Andrew Brown, Steve Fleetwood and Bob Jessop for valuable comments on an extended version of this paper. Thanks also to anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 He lived in an age before disciplines were crystallized and in which philosophy was coextensive with science, especially in its German variant. Marx refers to Capital as a triumph of German Wissenschaft.

2 Gramsci provides a useful set of considerations on how to read Marx (Gramsci 1971, 382–386).

3 For a range of contexts in which Marx addresses the agent-structure problem see Jessop (2002).

4 As with much else, the broad claim is disputable if one means more than a tendency since Marx also notes in the Grundrisse that there is a need to create more demand for commodities and to stimulate working class consumption, and that a new middle class arises as society develops.

5 Whether this implies political factors rather than a political economy are responsible for the rise in working class consumption is a point of dispute (contrast Postone 2017 with the translator of Grundrisse, Nicolaus 1967, 1968)

6 Drawing attention to the social or state categorisation of the middle class here is not intended to divert attention away from the economic categorisation of a working class, but rather to note one of the major recognized trends in modern developed capitalist countries.

7 Though one must also acknowledge that there is legitimate debate regarding this, since it is not difficult to select quotes from Marx that are ambiguous or from which one might infer determinism – notably in terms of structure (base) and superstructure; for example, in the opening passages of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (Marx [1859] 1971). However, one should also note that the introduction to the Critique was not the original intended version but a compromise to pass the Prussian censors (for context see Carver 2015).

8 This is different than comprehending the human objectively where one is able to abstractly conceive of the social world as a consequence of human labour – the subjectivity of the objective (Marx [1844/1927] 1981, 132, 136).

9 In the introduction to the new edition Foster responds to the critique, emphasising that Braverman’s argument is not intended to reduce to a simple claim that deskilling and degradation are always and everywhere the case (Foster in Braverman [1974] 1998).

10 ‘[and where] when reality is depicted, philosophy as an independent branch of knowledge loses its medium of existence,’ (Marx and Engels [1845/1932] 1965, 36).

11 Marx states in Capital: ‘Labour is in the first place, a process in which both man and Nature participate … He opposes himself to Nature as one of her own forces … By this acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature … [In general he engages in] human action with a view to the production of use-values, appropriation of natural substances to human requirements; it is the necessary condition for effecting exchange of matter between man and nature; it is the everlasting Nature-imposed condition of human existence, and therefore is independent of every social phase of that existence, or rather, is common to every such phase … As the taste of porridge does not tell you who grew the oats, no more does this simple process tell you of itself what are the social conditions under which it is taking place [these need to be set out and explored]’ (Marx [1867] 1954, 183–188). Note Mulhall also links species being to Kant (Mulhall 1998a, 1998b, 1998c).

12 It is perhaps worth noting that this implicitly takes Capital to be the interpretive hinge for everything else and its significance. This is an ‘all roads lead to Capital’ convergence point of view that tends to colour how all other works are judged.

13 As Walton and Gamble (1972) note, in early Marx economic and political categories are philosophical whilst in Capital, philosophical categories are economic and political. However, unless one defaults to alienation as an absolute term capitalism is still subject to variation in states (there are varieties of capitalism and mixes of cooperatives, types of corporations, social democracy, relational goods, etc.).