This dissertation aims to analyze, clarify, and reconstruct the concept of class consciousness by developing a dialectical account of political agency at work in the concept. I defend a dialectical account of agency, that includes both the way in which individuals come together to form groups, but also the capacity of a collective to transform social conditions. I argue that this account of political agency is necessary in order to understand the possibility of social transformation or change. I (...) trace the development of the relationship between consciousness and agency in the early tradition of Western Marxism, focusing primarily on the account of class consciousness given by Georg Lukács in History and Class Consciousness. Against his account of the world historical agency of a unified proletariat, however, I defend Theodor Adorno’s insistence on nonidentity, and the importance of unreconciled groups in capitalist society. In order to understand these groups, such as the vanguard, party, or proletariat, we must understand the way in which individuals form groups, as well as their inherent collectivity. -/- My account of the political agency at work in the concept of class consciousness is broadly speaking pluralist. I argue that a multiplicity of methodologies is needed in order to arrive at a complete picture of the concept. I defend an account of class consciousness that is neither reductive nor deflationary with respect to other dimensions of social domination. This class forward approach seeks to build intersectional political coalitions in order to undertake revolutionary action. Successful revolutionary social transformation is never guaranteed in advance; however, the concept of class consciousness, reconstructed through the lens of political agency, offers conceptual resources to address the problems of today, for the sake of a better tomorrow. (shrink)

A series of essays treating, among other topics, the definition of orthodox Marxism, the question of legality and illegality, Rosa Luxemburg as a Marxist, the changing function of Historic Marxism, class consciousness, and the ...

Abstract The Marxian vulgate, which long dominated the historiography of the French Revolution, and which was broadly accepted in the social sciences, is no longer sustainable. But newer attempts to frame the issue of class in entirely linguistic terms, producing the claim that France had no bourgeoisie because few people explicitly described themselves as ?bourgeois,? are not entirely convincing. The Revolution brought into being, and helped to sustain, a new social group: the ?state bourgeoisie,? which defined itself by its (...) education and by state service, and which was socially cohesive and exclusive. Thus, the Revolution can be seen as ?bourgeois? not in the sense of having been caused by a rising bourgeoisie, but in the sense that it caused one to rise. (shrink)

Class consciousness and reification -- Historical necessity as self-activity -- The concept of imputed class consciousness -- Common sense and market rationality in sociological studies of class -- Being determines consciousness -- Consciousness overemphasized? -- Class experience, substitution, and false consciousness -- Imputed class consciousness in the development of the individual.

According to the prevailing scholarly view, made popular by Neil Harding, Lenin is said to have derived his well-known theory of working-class consciousness in What Is To Be Done? from G. V. Plekhanov, the father of Russian Marxism. Is this article I demonstrate, however, that Plekhanov and Lenin disagreed quite sharply on this question. Plekhanov did not believe that workers would fail to develop a socialist consciousness in the absence of external intervention. Indeed, Plekhanov was a thorough-going (...) optimist about proletarian capacities, and while he did assign an important role to the intelligentsia in the process of consciousness-raising, that role was carefully circumscribed. An exhaustive review of Plekhanov's writings before November 1903, when he broke with Lenin, reveals just how unorthodox Lenin's most famous argument was in the context of Russian Social-Democratic theory. (shrink)

Interest in The German Ideology has largely focused on the ‘chapter’ on Feuerbach—invariably the focus of the various abridgements in which the work is usually read. But this does not reflect the weighting of the text itself, which is dominated by Marx and Engels's critique of the radical egoist philosopher Max Stirner. Which begs the question: just why did they spend so much time and effort writing about Stirner? In this paper, I will provide an answer—which comes down to three (...) related points. The first concerns the critique of reason; the second, egoistic self-interest. On both of these two points, Stirner makes a novel contribution—contributions which Marx and Engels feel clear affinities with. However, Stirner can ultimately be seen to get these two points, as it were, the wrong way around. This then leads to the third point: Stirner's misunderstanding of the nature of Communism. To clarify the nature of Communism, then, Marx and Engels were compelled to turn Stirner on his head. (shrink)

This article explores the link between Winstanley's analysis of the broken promises of the English Revolution and his attempt to mobilize the class- consciousness of the labouring poor. It suggests that his communalist reading of the promises made by Parliament to the people of England, and especially his interpretation of the Solemn League and Covenant, stretched the boundaries of language and logic to breaking point. It argues, however, that Winstanley's peculiar interpretation of the Covenant was significant because it (...) enabled him to incorporate a concrete empirical referent into his otherwise eschatological historical schema, and this he considered essential if the labouring poor were to be persuaded to take the risk of their lives and join the digging venture on George Hill. (shrink)

The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria, was founded during the period of détente in 1972 to bring scientists from East and West together to research shared problems and thus to build a “bridge” between the two opposed systems. The underlying image of knowledge at the institute was in stark contrast to the intellectual culture established in East Germany. Contributing to our understanding of the history of Cold War knowledge transfer, this essay reconstructs East Germany’s ambivalent (...) and complex role at IIASA. Even if participation was considered important for displaying East German science, the essay argues that East Germany’s contribution was caught up in the perception of the Western scholar as a class enemy. It illustrates this by examining the best-documented case: that of Harry Maier, a social scientist who spent two years at IIASA between 1978 and 1980 and then, in 1986, used a conference visit to escape from East Germany. (shrink)

Poland still celebrates the euphoric weeks of 1980 when a huge strike threatened to bring down the Communist government. While the euphoria is long gone, the strike's importance is unmistakable, marking as it did the beginning of the only political movement in the Eastern Bloc that was not defeated in a few days. Defying the Polish regime for a decade, even while outlawed under martial law, the movement was spearheaded by an organization without historical analogue. Solidarity styled itself as a (...) trade union, challenging the Party-State's prerogative to shape industrial relations and wriggling out concessions for labor. Yet the putative…. (shrink)

Both the music and subculture of punk historically arose from disaffected working-class youth. This socio-economic starting point was absolutely crucial for making punk what it is. However, along with this standpoint came various levels of class consciousness that we can see evidence of in the lyrics and in various practices of people within the scene itself. I divide this consciousness into 3 specific levels of structural understanding and agency. Inspired by Georg Lukacs' analysis of class (...) consciousness and Antonio Gramsci's theory of hegemony, I demonstrate how punk as a subculture and musical art form is a notable demonstration of "proletarian culture". But just as the revolutionary potential of the proletariat hinges on a unified ideology and consolidated and consistent praxis, so too does the revolutionary potential of punk. [This text was written for a non-academic, general audience] . (shrink)

At long last, this seminal work is available in English. Originally published in German in 1923, it became almost immediately a center of interest and stormy controversy in both Marxist and non-Marxist circles. With the passage of time, the controversy has abated somewhat, the interest has heightened, and Lukács has become recognized generally as one of the most influential and creative Marxists of the post-World War I world. The tour de force in History and Class Consciousness is its (...) insistence on the indissoluble link between Hegel and Marx and on the centrality of the concept of alienation in Marx's thought--an insistence which was dramatically verified nine years later with the publication of Marx's Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts and again in 1939 with the appearance of Marx's Grundrisse der Kritik der politischen Ökonomie. Of perhaps more lasting value are the dazzling expositions on the nature and role of class consciousness, on the open-endedness of history, on the dialectical method as the essence of authentic and orthodox marxism, on the concept of totality, and on fetishism and reification as the inevitable consequences of commodity production relations. Lukács might have rested his laurels on these features of the book and basked in the glory of their popularity. Instead, he chose to emphasize the negative features which he feared might lead the unwary reader down an un-Marxist or anti-Marxist path. Accordingly, he refused to permit republication or translation and those who wanted to read the work had to resort to mimeographed or photographic reproductions, or "pirate" editions. Despite these difficulties, the book managed to circulate widely among serious Marxists and students of Marxism and to exercise an influence which continues to this day. Both critics and admirers of Lukács considered his ban on the book to be "tactical" and his criticisms of it to be tongue-in-cheek, or opportunistic. But when Lukács finally authorized a new edition in 1967 and wrote a new preface for it, there could no longer be any doubt that he truly believed that the book contained grievous failings and that it was these failings which accounted for the book's popularity. Being still in transition from Hegel to Marx, Lukács had not succeeded in wholly reconstructing Hegel along revolutionary materialist lines, as Marx himself had succeeded in doing. In particular, Lukács had succumbed to the identical subject-object relation, which distorted his view of the relationship of man to nature, destroyed the basis for a solid Marxist ontology in which work mediated between man and nature, and disrupted the unity of theory and practice. From the standpoint of Marxism, Lukács' criticisms are unassailable, but this, by no means, entails that his evaluation of the book as a whole has to be accepted. It remains an impressive attempt, during a revolutionary period, to select those elements in Marxism which serve as effective theoretical tools to guide the revolution along a truly socialist path.--H. B. (shrink)

The underlying assumption of Lukács’ History and Class Consciousness is that “history” can be understood as a unified and meaningful meta-narrative, which can be read along the lines of a realist novel. Although the future is not guaranteed, the present contains “objective possibilities” which can be identified and realized through activist intervention in the world by those who are destined to “make” history, the proletariat. In the intervening century since the Russian Revolution, it has become impossible to read (...) “history” as a singular, triumphalist story leading to human emancipation or identify any one group as its subjective agent. To salvage the revolutionary potential of Lukács’ work, it has been read instead in terms of “fidelity to the Event” by such latter-day Leninists as Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek. But their recourse to a meta-historical notion of pre-figuration and future realization is itself no less beholden to a literary or rhetorical device, that of figura, which was traced by Erich Auerbach in originally religious terms. (shrink)

Some of the important conceptual debates between different approaches to class analysis can be interpreted as reflecting different ways of linking temporality to class structure. In particular, processual concepts of class can be viewed as linking class to the past whereas structural concepts link class to the future. This contrast in the temporality of class concepts in turn is grounded in distinct intuitions about why class is explanatory of social conflict and social change. (...) Processural approaches to class see its explanatory power as deriving from the way meanings and identities are linked to class via a history of experiences; structural approaches, in contrast, emphasize the linkage between class and perceived interests via the objective possibilities facing people in different class locations. This paper tries to integrate these two temporalities by exploring the ways in which trajectories of class experience intersect structures of objective possibility in shaping different dimensions of class consciousness. (shrink)