Marx’s conflation of exploitation with systemic differentiation led him to overpromise communism’s restorative power.
Evidence
Marx lumped together two different kinds of phenomena which at least we ought to keep separate: exploitation, pauperization and degradation of the working class, the dehumanization of work and the lack of democratic control of the economy, on the one hand, and the emergence of formal law based on universalist principles of human right together with the functional and systemic differentia tion of modern societies, on the other. Because in his critique of alienation, Marx lumped together these two different types of phenomena, he could believe that the abolition of capitalist proper ty was sufficient to clear the road not only for an abolition of the inhuman features of modern industrial societies, but also for an abolition of all the functional differentiations and the systemic complexities which had come with it - and therefore for the recovery of an immediate unity and solidarity among human beings in a communist society. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 397
Categorization
- XREF: This is a direct challenge to the Marxist tradition the reader is reading against — the idea that Marx conflated distinct phenomena (Wellmer’s critique, which Habermas endorses) is a significant counterpoint to orthodox Marxist readings. — connects to: Marx overemphasized economics while neglecting power and technical detail — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 2847; Marx’s novelty lay in siding with the proletariat, not in analyzing exploitation
- QUESTION: Worth checking whether Jameson’s ‘cognitive mapping’ and totality claims are vulnerable to the same conflation Wellmer diagnoses in Marx.
- DEEPTHINKING: A genuinely paradigm-shifting claim for a Marxist reader: the critique of alienation is said to have been mis-framed from the start, conjoining two separable phenomena whose disentangling changes what communism could promise.
Broader Connections
- Marx’s novelty lay in siding with the proletariat, not in analyzing exploitation
#complicates(0.80) - Marx overemphasized economics while neglecting power and technical detail
#expands(0.75) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 2847