The Value of Marx’s Capital - Marx’s Concept of Alienation

- I'm Paul North. I'm a professor in the German Department at Yale, and I'm not a TV personality or a producer. So we're just technologically. And in terms of this medium flying by the seat of our pants, our collective pants. So you'll forgive us if it isn't perfect. These are "The Franke Lectures in the Humanities" This series is called "The Value of Marx's Capital." You'll get a little bit of a play on words there. The series is a companion to an undergraduate seminar at Yale, which is on Marx's "Capital, Volume I." And it also is in conjunction with a new English translation of "Capital, Volume I" done by my colleague and collaborator on this Paul Reitter from OSU who's here. I'm co-editing it. But Paul is doing a really sparkling crisp and rigorous translation, which will be out with Princeton University Press in a couple of years. So we're taking the opportunity to work through the book with students and bring in luminaries to go through it with us. I have to give a couple of thanks. First, The Franke Lectures are made possible by the generosity of Richard and Barbara Franke and are intended to present important topics in the humanities to a wide in general audience. I'd like to thank Alice Kaplan the director of the Whitney Humanities Center who was behind this project from the beginning and is taking the center in amazing directions. Sandra Malan-Bowles who coordinates it from the Whitney. Leana Hirschfeld-Kroen who did all of the organizing work, I thank her. And Audrey Leak, who is our technical whiz kid. Let me say a couple of things about how the workshop will run for all of you here and also for those students in the seminar. Professor Musto will give a presentation with some breaks in it where we'll have some conversations. After that there'll be a Q&A starting with the students in the seminar just to give them a chance to get their questions in. And then we'll open up the floor to questions from anybody who has them. Let me ask you the not to post your questions until I give the signal they will simply get lost in the chat. So we'll ask you to put them in the chat in the Q&A I will give a signal first to the students in the seminar they can ask their questions and then I'll open it up and we'll try to get to all of your questions in the chat. If you need to leave, or you can't make another of these sessions that you're interested in, they're being recorded they will show up on the Whitney Humanities Center website. about two weeks after the workshop we hope. Also, I want to say just doing all this business that if you want to register for subsequent workshops you can only register the week before. So keep your eyes out for that. One important act today I think maybe the most important is to reassess our vocabulary of revolution. Marcello Musto has become the emcee of this reassessment, the ringmaster. I think I've been enormous and enormously careful returned to Marx's texts as sources for new understandings of vocabulary we think we understand. He's gonna talk about one of those words today. I want to start each of these with a quote from the author. Here's a quote from an article on communism, by Marcello Musto quote, "The alternative to capitalist alienation "was achievable only if the sub altern classes "became aware of their condition as new slaves "and embarked on a struggle "to radically transform the world "in which they were exploited, "their mobilization and active participation "in this process could not stop however, "on the day after the conquest of power, "it would have to continue "in order to avert any drift towards "the kind of state socialism "that Marx's always opposed "with the utmost tenacity and conviction." A moment of Musto's pros. Now I'd like to turn the microphone over to my collaborator, Paul Reitter, who's a professor of German at Ohio State who will intro introduce Professor Musto. - Thanks, Paul, and welcome Professor Musto. It's such a pleasure to welcome you to our series. Marcela Musto is a professor of sociology at York University in Toronto. One of his most recent publications is entitled "The Marx Revival" and interestingly subtitled a new concepts and interpretations or key concepts, excuse me, and interpretations and this speaks to what Paul was just saying about his interest in engaging very rigorously with particular categories today rereading them, reassessing them. And we see that in his work on "Alienation" as well. If you've read the article that was disseminated on "Alienation" you know that he writes with tremendous erudition and clarity, enviable really and to come back to this title that I just mentioned "The Marx Revival," there is a Marx revival and Professor Musto is doing truly more than any other scholar I can think of to advance it. He's in addition to the qualities that I just mentioned he's incredibly prolific. He's given over 50 interviews in recent years, written over 50 newspaper articles. And also his list of publications as much too long to go through in its entirety but to mention just a few things he's edited on anthologies on "Capital" 150 years later he has a massive anthology in the works on or handbook really on the global dissemination of capital and the history of translations of capital around the globe. He's also offered many books as well, most recently the single with many single authored books as well. Most recently, "The Last Years of Karl Marx," which just appeared in the spring I believe, and is really a marvel of compactness. It's a biography of Marx's last years. Archivally very rich, conceptually very interesting not very long either. Really it's a great deal for the reader. And I'd like to mention also that it was printed in Italian and came out in 2016. Just to round the time that the big wave of Marx's biographies was starting to really take shape and come at us. And it was translated very effectively. Let's not forget the translator here by Patrick Kamler into English. It's really wonderful to have Professor Musto here. The title of this presentation today is "Marx's Conception of Alienation." Thanks for being here. Thanks everybody. Good afternoon and good evening to for the people who are listening now. I am indeed very grateful for your invitation for your generous words. Very, very generous words. And I am very happy to be here with Professor North and Professor Reitter. I will call you Paul and Paul if I may even this is the first time that we talk to each other. I'm sure that we are going to talk about this later but I was extremely happy when I heard this fantastic news that "Capital" was going to have a new translation in English at this time, very important. And we had such a prestigious publishing house like Princeton we'll discuss this later but it was wonderful to have this news and to put together this to interest for Marx like the importance of reading Marx very carefully. My work has been as theological as possible but at the same time, trying to use what Marx rightful understanding our societies, our issues. It is also a very strange talk for me. And I will try to make some jokes. It is the first time in my life that I talk, not being standing like just sitting at the table because generally I to stand. And I also used to speak as a young activist at university in Naples. I'm Italian I was in Italy until then. I had to leave and go to Berlin to study English. And then I moved here in Toronto in 2009. I would like to start from a couple of biographical notes if my host allow me to do this is. Because perhaps it's useful is interesting for the many students or researchers will listen now. So we are in this period of rediscovery for Marx, and I will introduce a couple of topics that I hope I will be able to discuss with Paul North and Paul Reitter and then later with more people. But when I started to speak about Marx, I have another email now, can you hear me? - We hear you find Musto. - Somebody who turn the microphone on I saw another face. When I started to read Marx. So when I entered my PhD in 2002 in Italy, I was actually the first researcher. The first personal was going to defend the dissertation after so many years in such a big and important country for Marx's study like Italy. A dissertation in entirely on Marx. And later when I moved to Berlin, when I started to go there and I spent some time at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy, Friedrichswerder, which is the institute for social science where the new addition, the new critical additional, Marximum Engels writing it started in 1998. That's restarted. I remember that my perception of Marx changed dramatically. And one of the points that I would like to make today about "Capital", later we will discuss about this is that after the MEGA, after this enterprise, that I was present in a minute. Looking at "Capital' like a book of three volumes, this classic set that I had seen many times in my life and comparing these three volumes with 15 volumes and this huge critical apparatus. So every volume in the MEGA is 500, 700, 800 pages of apparatus so this is the second section of the MEGA which is called "Capital" in his preparatory manuscript, is a big change. It's a big change for us, for readers of Marx. I will go back to this point very soon for the moment I would like to discuss with you. I would like to discuss with Professor North, Professor Reitter, Paul and Paul. I would like to put a couple of cards on the table. And the first question is what kind of revival Paul just said that there is a revival of interest for Marx. We know this revival mostly because of what happened after 2008. After 2008, one more big economic and financial crisis. And Marx is back in Europe in North America, after 20 years of silence practically. So the Marx that we are reading is most of the Marx that could be the critique of political economy, the critique of capitalism and Marx was celebrated on many important newspaper, liberal conservative. It doesn't matter. Like the person who is still useful for us not to understand capitalism including publishing some wonderful articles that Marx wrote in 1857, 1858 at the time of another big financial crisis that started in New York 150 years before the crisis they're opted in 2008. I remember I was in Berlin buying the front foot that I'll get miner and being so shocked of seeing two full pages of reprinting of the famous article on the economic crisis that Marx wrote for the New York, New York Tribune in 1857. But in other parts of the world actually there was another reading of Marx or another interest of Marx. For example, in Latin America Marx was rediscovered a few years before the 2008 crisis. And the return to Marx was I would say more political than the one that we had in Europe and in North America, we got the contradictions we the problem, but it was a Marx that was alive and was perceived as something useful. Now, something that people will need. And if you ask me after this many years of work of collective work like trying to connect young researchers and institution universities and try to rediscover Marx, Paul North read this citation at the beginning. So it's clearly a Marx that is very different from the traditional Marxism-Leninism in the 20th century, et cetera. But if you ask me where I've seen the most interesting things in which country I will say that Brazil is definitely the place that caught my attention more than anywhere else. I remember some people will be surprised because today Brazil is not the place where there is the most progressive government or at the moment there are not very strong social movements like in the past couple of years, but the attention in the universities and in this research group that are not closed merrily to university, but they're open to look at the contradiction in our societies, the attention for Marx or for an author that I also very much like Antonio Gramsci, but let's just stay too Marx so there is really impressive. I don't wanna say, give wrong numbers, et cetera. But I think that there are at least 150 centers of research around Marx and Marx his studies in Brazilian universities. And when I went there to meet some of these scholars, I was impressed by the fact that many of them were extremely young. So they belong to a generation. It was actually younger than mine, and they had new demands that new enthusiasm and that new new topics. And I wanna return to this question, a new topic, because I believe that the Marx that is read now in the last two, three years and Paul Reitter was very generous when he described my book "The Last Years of Karl Marx." But my force in the publication of the book was trying to rediscover a Marx that is very different from the perception that we have of this author, a perception of an author who has dedicated his entire life merrily studying or fighting politically the contradiction between capital and labor. There is much, much more in Marx. And I am very happy to see that the majority I will say of the books of the studies published in the last two, three years are opening topics that neither were never or very rarely associated with Marx. For example, ecology, for example, gender emancipation for example, migration, nationalism, colonialism. I believe that there is a lot of Marx that must be discovered. And I believe that the last part of his life, the last 10, 15 years from the international 1864, 1872 to the year that Marx died in 1883, there is a lot that will be done there. And this is the task of a new generation of scholars or researchers of translators in particular of translator Paul Reitter, because there is very few of Marx that has been published in the period. And I hope that we can discuss this. I'm not lost in my talk, but I'm trying to follow what I promise. So this first group I prepared five and the first one will be a sort of the Marx survival today in the world. So I would like to say that I discovered also other kinds of revivals, for example, in China. It is impressive the amount of books that were translated in China in the past 15, 20 years, not only there is a new very scholarly vigorous and serious additional Marx and Engels writings that these translating also for the first time from German and not from Russian, some writings of Marx that before at legal circulation or translation are very ideological reading but in China that has been also a big opening to the so called Western Marxism. Or if you don't like this terminology too many European and North American authors. So there is a new generation of Chinese students in particular, in humanities a little bit in social science. And I will say my experience, not at all in the economics. So I know the paradox that is repeating now also in China, that is very interested in Marx and also in this new reading. So I've always seen China as a place to compete, as a possibility to enter and also listening to what these scholars are doing are saying. So I am the acquainted or over serious, that is called Marx-Engels, Marx's new dimension. And my most important at effort in terms of editor is translating from Spanish, from Brazil, Portuguese, sorry, from Chinese, from Japanese countries with a very strong and lively tradition in terms of Marxist studies translate this thing into English because sometimes this readings of Marx are different. And I find that interesting to discuss this different options these different ideas of Marx. I stop here on this point but if I ever please, two more minutes, three more minutes I will like to come back to the question of what kind of Marx is read today at university? I spend a lot of time looking at all the syllabus around the world, and unfortunately I'm not going to share good news with you. This is at least my understanding of the situation in my opinion. I've seen that the Marx at today's read in many department of politics, political sides in the world is the Marx of on the Jewish question which is a very brilliant actually writing. Unfortunately this writing, which is not called the Jewish question, but on the Jewish question, is reply to an article written by Bruno Bauer called "Jewish question" that was never translated into English. Well many times people do not understand what is the real polemic about. And then there is all the party in favor of Marx. The party against Marx. Marx is doing bad things. Marx is saying all with the perfect and the right things but this text, it is surely a text that is not representative allow me to do this provocation but I'm sure that my discuss some will understand it is not representative of Marx's politics. If you want to read Marx you have to read Marx at the time of the international and why the text is not there because Marx at the time of international is a very complicated a complex mix of writings, documents, declarations, speeches that he did with the exception of the civil war in France is not easy to combine and have a clear idea of Marx's positions. If you look at sociology in the department of sociology, a big majority of them they read the German ideology but today the German ideology you invited Terrell Carver last week perhaps he mentioned this, I'm not bothering you. I'm not taking time with this but today we know that the German ideology we know more than before is not a book is not the ideological Bible the four historical materialism that Soviet Union adorasky created the head of the institute for our Marx-Engels-Lenin in 1932. So if we read that the pages on the division of labor in the German ideology, we know that this is just the beginning of a very long journey and they cannot be compared with "Capital." But once again, "Capital" is a complicated, deep book and if you want to extract parts from there it is a difficult task. - [Paul] Can I ask you a couple of questions? It looks like he is spotlighted and I'm not showing up. I'm not sure this is a problem. Cause we wanna make sure that the people who ask questions.. Or do you all see me when I'm speaking? - I do. - Yeah. I just don't see myself. I want it to, well, first I wanted to thank you for the picture of a kind of textual international, which we hope proceeds the fifth or whatever international is coming a political international. It really is encouraging for people who read these things to know how much is going on. Also for the picture of a reconfiguration of the Corpus, which is an interesting phenomenon. And I think we all need to say where to start reading Marx where to go next. What for what pitfalls to ignore. I wanted to ask you though, in this world flowering of Marx studies and in the reconfiguration of the Corpus, what role does alienation play in that? You're gonna talk about alienation today. Is it a hot button issue? Is everyone worried about alienation? Where should it fit in the new program? - Thanks. And when I talk too much, like when I pass the 12 minutes and more or less we are located for each block, I will be very grateful if you or Paul Reitter you just stopped me very politely as you did, but you helped me to move forward. Surprisingly I want to discuss, I want to answer briefly shortly and then I will expand this. Surprisingly, even though alienation is a topic on which there were so many books written in the sixties in the seventies and alienation was I would say, as relevant as the topic globalization has been for us in the past two decades. Really everybody wrote about alienation and I can think in the sixties and in the seventies, in many disciplines in sociology, in politics, in psychology, literature few terms at the fortune of alienation and Marx alienation not conception of alienation, which is the title of my talk. My contribution today was the most important element of analysis. Despite this, when you publish on alienation today and when you put actually the word alienation in the title, I notice that there is an incredible interest, even more than usual. And there are many books many articles published on alienation or on fetishism. So in this rediscovery of Marx in this "Marx's Revival" I see that there is a lot about alienation and about fetishism. And let's try to discuss together. Please help me. I need your help. Why this is possible? I have an answer. I will try to provide my idea, my opinion and then we'll see what you two believe. And then there will be question criticism. So even though alienation for us is a classic in the Marxist thoughts. And if we look at the topics alienation is perhaps one of the top five topics like Marx's alienation is as important and Marx and communism and Marx and critical political economy. I want to say that this phenomenon is something very, very recent. And here I'm talking to the students who are listening. I will be a little bit boring for those who are big Marx experts. But I would like to spend a couple of minutes discussing this with students. I lost Paul North for the moment, but he's back now. So why alienation is something new? Alienation something because the text, which is not a book but it's a very, very first stage manuscript that Marx wrote for himself, the famous "Economical and Philosophic Manuscript of 1844," which is to complete what I was saying before the most important text in terms of philosophy. So what is read about Marx in the department of philosophy and not only they're all over the world, one of the most sold book in philosophy in the 20th century, this text was written by Marx in 1844, but was actually published in 1932. And the fortune of the "Concept of Alienation" is actually very much related to this text of Marx. Because when this book was publishing in 1932, now everybody would say, it was the beginning of alienation word. No, not at all. One year after Hitler took Germany and they were trying to burn Marx manuscript and the manuscript of Marx were sent to London and then Denmark and then they ended the majority of them in Amsterdam, in the beautiful Institute for International Institute for Social History. But before the end of World War II so and of the forties, second part of the forties, beginning of the fifties this texts, the "Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844" was not known. It was unknown. So the concept of alienation starts to have this important place in the tradition of Marxism, only after the publication of this text. And also the question of fetishism to go back to "Capital" because there is this famous section that I will try to discuss later when we approach the fourth point of our conversation today. But if you look at the debate in the second international in the third international, if you look at the books article written by Koski, Lenin, Ben Stein, Labriola, Sorel, they didn't write about alienation about fetishism, even do fetishism was published and was there since 1867 or actually Paul Reitter since 1872 because it only when Marx did that new German edition that fetishism appears in a better way. So I'm also asking your questions to my discussant. So alienation is a relevant place today because it is considered one of the main topics for Marx. This tradition started in the early fifties, like 70 years ago. And I will say most importantly than this because we never lived in such an alienated society like today, that's the most important answer for me like a researcher that is not only closed in this room office in the university. So I believe that Marx is relevant today. Of course many of his analysis must be updated, must be changed. There were many mistakes many Lehman's problems like every other thinkers but capitalism today is so spread so much globally in every region of the world and is so present in every aspect of our life that I cannot think about another concept that is as relevant as this one that can be used as this one. The question and I stop here and I pass the microphone to you. The question is to understand what Marx's really meant for alienation. Because there are many different ideas many different approaches. And I don't know if you want to go there now or if you want to wait a little bit more. So let's see what my discussant and also think. - Well, I think you do a very nice job of framing the some of these questions. I mean, you did a nice job here, but also in the article that that was circulated and there is a long running debate about the relationship between Marx's early views on alienation. Alienation as it's framed in the manuscripts that you were just talking about. And the way of talking about what is in effect alienation that Marx has in "Capital." And I was excited. I read your article really just before we started this event. And so I'm actively still processing it, but I was excited to see how you frame the fetishism section of "Capital" in the context of this discussion of alienation and this very artful genealogy of different ways that alienation has been picked up on reworked in the various traditions of Marxists theorizing. I mean, I think that with fetishism, the appeal of that section, I mean, it has multiple levels of appeal. One is that it's been influential in a certain kind of cultural theory that remains influential and people who come to Marx from that side of things or would those affinities will feel drawn to it. But I think that as capitalism expands becomes more complex I think there's a more pressing need or a more urgent desire to work through its mystifications. And this is as for me at least the most rhetorically powerful attempt in capital to formulate the mystifications of capital how capital as a system throws off false appearances and misleads people, and the role that these mystifications play in its ability to dominate them. That was more a comment than a, like a question exactly. - No, I actually, I like this very much because this is completing what I was trying to say before. And I also prepared something that unless you and Paul North disagree with me, so now I'm gonna share the PowerPoint a little bit a little PowerPoint that I prepared so that the students who are following are not scared about this big concept and definition that we provide, but perhaps they can read. So I have selected a couple of definition from the article that you just mentioned, and then we might want to go back on this topic later, but what you told me it's very useful for me because it helps me to move forward in this discussion about what kind of alienation are we reading. So that conception of fetishism, it was so powerful and it was already there from the very beginning but arrive as you said. But arrives to the attention of activists not only scholars but activists. Only after there is this big interest that is at the beginning of philosophical interest, I will say for, for alienation. I don't know if Paul North disagree with me, let's see what what he will say later. But in the fifties in this traditional French existentialism for example, or all this philosopher, or all these readers coming from different political and cultural traditions let's think for example, about the Jesuits in France and neither, also in Latin America, with liberation theology, very significant social movements and political ideologies of school of thoughts. I don't know how you wanna define this. They are actually making a choice. And the choice that they're making is that they are reading a particular Marx. And this Marx is the so-called young Marx which I believe is one of the biggest inventions in history of Marxists that is again another provocation from my discussant. So I never said Marx would have done this Marx would have said that, Marx's would have voted for this party, et cetera, et cetera. But one things that recently I allow myself to say and believe me, it's the only one is that I am strongly convinced that Marx's will be shocked if he will see how much attention the humanity has given to this manuscript that he wrote when he was only 25n 26 years old. This beautiful, wonderful manuscript. I want to say that I wrote my dissertation on the "Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844." I love them. I don't believe to them who say this is not Marx. But we cannot overestimate the importance of this manuscript and do not study what just a Reitter said, fetishism in capital and also old the making of the concept of alienation and fetishism and reification as I will show later by using the terminology of Lukacs that started in 1867 with the "Grundrisse" said. I prepared something so I don't wanna intervene on this point now. But what I want to say is that unfortunately and I will use this a word in this big debate about alienation and about Marx's "Capital" was lost in many countries and in many political translation. And there was a very significant portion, portion of readers or the interpreters of Marx who decided that the economical manuscript over 1844 was the most relevant place. I believe that this is wrong because this was the idea that "Capital" belonged to Soviet Union. And that's dogmatic economist the reading of "Capital" was the correct reading of "Capital." But I just want to say that "Capital" was Marx's life because Marx's wrote "Capital" from 1857 from the introduction that he wrote in July of 57. Exactly at the same time that the crisis started that the crisis that I mentioned before in New York because he said, "Engels, I no longer have time to play "the revolution is coming now "and I must have my book out." As always, he was wrong. The revolution didn't come but at least this was a first push to have the first draft of copy down the "Grundrisse" this eight notebooks that he wrote in only a six months and then this draft for "Capital" they just ended in 1881 at the very end when Marx was extremely tired extremely old, but I have no time to talk about this unless you don't ask me to do it but I wanna go back on this division on this distinction between the early writings and "Capital." And this was around the concept of alienation. So the concept of alienation was the key concept in this vision of schools of interpretation, many people they belong to different parties, different cultures, different traditions, different countries, different fields. They decided that the "Economic and Philosophic Manuscript of 1844" was the most important text ever written by Marx. And that the conception of alienation that was there was the most relevant one. I believe that this interpretation, as I just said is wrong but also the second party that is the party of after sale. That is the party of the Institute in Moscow and many other people that were more or less closer to the dogmatic traditional Marxism they refused the Marx of 1844. And they even said that that Marx was not Marxism, and that actually Marxism started in 1845 with the German ideology, with a book that now we know, as I just said that did not exist. So there is a problem also in this other reading the reading of the epistemological break. If you wanna use a very famous expression. And then in my division of this three families of these three categories there is a third one, which is the party of the continuity between the early writings and "Capital." And this is where I will co-locate myself. I will go there if I have to decide in which of these three ounces, I'm going to live. But in this part of the continuity I have a many problems with actually the majority of scholars who belong to this interpretation because I strongly believe that there is a huge difference between the analysis of 1844 and the analysis that starts with the "Grundrisse" that the analysis of alienation the analysis of an initial that you read in the "Grundrisse" that you read in the "Theories of Surplus Values." In many of the manuscript, preparatory manuscript of "Capital" that today we can read thanks to the MEGA. And then this question of fetishism that was publishing in "Capital." Well, this is a much stronger analysis. There is a much stronger understanding of the social economical issues in the society. And I'm done Paul. I see that you wanna intervene. And there is also political. There is also political experience that was done by Marx. So Marx is not only learning from this book but he's also learning from this eight years that he spent in international and you learn many things. So when he's posing this question to him itself, these are also questions that are related to the organization of the society. And that's why I've decided to dedicate the last part of this contribution to the question of the alienation and communism. Because I believe that there is a strong connection between this free society, the contortions of this free society and Marx's ideas of post-capitalism. - It's terrific, I feel like we're getting a view of this one figure alienation and how the streams of Marx's own development and reception and the reinvestment in Marx's form whirlpools around this term. I'm kind of cut to the chase kind of person sometimes. And I wonder if we can say a little more what was alienation in the manuscripts? What was alienation and "Capital"? Why do you think those other terms like fetish or objectification reification are translations of it or take up some of its work? Maybe this is one of the parts of your presentation, which is terrific. - Yes. And as I said before to Paul Reitter, I will just like to share if you agree, because I believe it's better for the students who are listening, unless you tell me that I better read a couple of definitions, but let's see if this works and I'm going to share my screen here. So hopefully you can see it. Can you confirm? - Yeah, we see it very well. - Thanks. So I will go back to this question later. So to something that is related to alienation Marx where, because I said that is not only or merrily or the most important in 1844. So I would like to discuss with you where we see the alienation but let's go to this question of the terminology. It is very complicated because if we go into the question of, I'm just seeing Paul North now because I have to read from my PowerPoint. But if we go into this analysis the etymology of the word early enough for late in et cetera, or the ward that alienation was used I don't know in the traditional political economy like selling, this will take a lot of time. So I'm not going to do this, but I will. I wanted to say something about Hegel, because Hagel is of course very relevant for Marx in particular and not only for this Marx or 1844. So the students who are listening to us and now they are reading this, they see that I am referencing to "The Phenomenology of Spirit" which Hegel published in 1807, wrote in 1807. If you want to wrote if you want to know what is "The Phenomenology of Spirit" for Marx, you have to know two things. Number one is something they are wonderful and fascinating and Marx said such a big respect for this work. But number two, Marx said many times in a couple of letters, this is worse than going to the dentist. Something like this. If you wanna read it if you won't understand, it's extremely difficult. So in this book, you find this terminology "Entausserung" which is literally self-externalization or actually renunciation and "Entfremdung" estrangement. And Hegel is talking about the spirit becoming other than itself in the realm of objectivity. I am actually more familiar with the debate about how to translate alienation in Italian, Spanish, et cetera, and my English, not only my thick accent is not the best but we will discuss later. And I will be learned from Paul Reitter. And we will, I mean, you decide if we want to discuss this more. What is important for Marx is the category of alienated labor. That is entfremdete Arbeit, which is what you find more often in the EPM of 1844. So Marx is here expanding the problematic of alienation. So the problematic of alienation is not only related to philosophy to religion. When I say religion, you have to consider that Marx was part of this group, the Left Hegelian and they were trying to criticize Hegel. And there is this famous philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach he's writing about religion. So this is the beginning of the tradition of materialism but what is beautiful, really unique, wonderful about this manuscript is the fact that there is a mix of philosophy and economics. Sometimes a Paul North I can only see you but Raymond Aron the conservative French sociologist. He wasn't making fun of all this left this in the sixties, in Paris, reading the EPM over 1844, there are very brilliant quotations. And you know, this is the kind of text it was said that you use when you want to impress your boyfriend or girlfriend when you wanna play the part of the intellectual right full of this wonderful quotation, Hegel's mean et cetera. It is when Marx actually fall in love with political economy because Marx's read the political economist in October, 1843 for the first time. And by the way, thanks to Engels because it was Engels who was before Marx's traveling to England, looking at the contradiction of capitalism and then reading the classics. In any case alienation is presented as the phenomenon through which the labor product confront labor. And here's the quotation "as something alien as a power independent "of the producer from the producer." So for Marx entails the role of the worker in his product means not only that his labor becomes an object and external existence but they did exist outside in independently and something alien to him. And then it becomes a power and Hegel's on confronting him. It means that the life which he had comfort on the object confronts him, her and something hostile and alien. I don't wanna make this extremely boring. But there are four ways in which Marx define alienation in the "Economic and Philosophic Manuscript." And there is a lot of attention that has been paid to this question of immaterial alienation. So not only alienation is the process in the factory of the workers, et cetera, but also that you are alienated from your species-being right from all the humans. There is, in my opinion too much of this in many philosophical interpretation in psychology, we can discuss about this later if you want. Or when we open the floor to question. As I was saying before, I'll initial into "Grundrisse" and all the preparatory manuscript. I can not do quotations here because it will be too long. But I would like to take two more minutes to show you where I find many alienation in Marx. So here is enriched by a greater understanding of economic categories. Because Marx's had just started, Marx's was not even reading Ricardo and Smith in English. Since we are discussing translation a lot here he was reading them through French translation and eco goes back to them in English only later in the fifties when he's doing the famous Londoner notebooks. And there is also a more rigorous social analysis as I was saying before. Perhaps I will say social and also political analysis. So this book written by Lukacs, "History and Class Consciousness" was very important as it was very relevant. Another book written by Rubin about fetishism. There's some political economists because these two scholars even do the mode right of alienation hadn't started yet. This big mode that I tried to discuss at the beginning with Paul North when we say that the sixties and the seventies writing of alienation was almost a must if you were in a department of philosophy or political science without this Gyorgy Lukacs in 1923, he introduced another term which is very relevant for Marxist tradition. The term of reification. (speaking in foreign language) is the thing. So this is the term to describe the phenomenon whereby labor activities come from human beings as something objective and independent dominating them through externals autonomous law. This is interesting. This is a remarkable but something that many people don't know is that Lukacs was actually used later by those scholars and professors, intellectuals that I mentioned before. Those who believe that alienation in 1844 is the most relevant conception of an initial made by Marx. It was use my them because in this book written in 1923, Lukacs is still sharing the idea of Hegel that every objectification is alienation. It means that every society, it doesn't matter if there is a mode of production that is a capitalist model production or is a collective socialist model production you will have alienation there. So Lukacs is very angry where they are translating this book in the sixties in French, and it's also writing a special new preface for "History and Class Consciousness" and his saying, "I was to a Hegelian at the time. "Now I change my position." We can go back to this later and also I want to dedicate one minute to this question of the alienation in so-called actually existing socialism in the final part of my presentation. Here is what the Paul Reitter told us before. So "The Fetishism of Commodity and its Secret" this is the section in volume one of "Capital" where Marx showed that in capitalist society people are dominated by the product they have created. Here the relation among them appear not "as direct social relation "between person and social, sorry, "social relation between person, "but rather as material relation 'between person and social relation between things." So fetishism is the name given to the attributions to things, commodities, of what are in fact social relations. So let's say that there is any inversion process that affect people in the capitalist system. And this is similar to the phenomenon of religious fetishism. There is a normal social religion and they're replaced by relation between things. This is what Marx wants to say here not opening the big discussion about fetishism in religion and the contribution of Marcel Mauss in 1907 after criticizing what De Brosses wrote about fetishism which was a book that Marx read when he was very very young at the time of the university. I'm skipping-- - Marcello, can I ask you a question in the middle? - Yes, you can. I just wanna say that I'm skipping this part but this is the famous definition that Paul was, rephrasing in a very brilliant way before and that we know. So now I stop sharing my screen and I'm back. Please confirm that you can see me. - We see you. - Thank you. - This is a quick question but it's really what's most on my mind. I feel like the danger of the word alienation in existentialism in other discourses is that it'd be taken as a psychological state, a mood and affect with which to see the world or live your life that colors the way things are. It seems to me that you're saying as you line it up fetishism and objectification, that it isn't a mood that it isn't something an individual feels. And in a sense this is what Hegel said. It's a part of a process of constructing the self in which the self confirms that there's something other than it by separating itself from itself. But what do you think the non psychological reading of alienation is for Marx in "Capital"? Where does it hit us? Is it a matter of power and control? Is it, are we supposed to think about how we react to a certain situation or is it a structural issue? - Thanks. Any remark question or criticism from Paul Reitter? Or can I go ahead with this one and then there is more later? - My dogs are barking right now so I'm gonna leave it at that. - Thanks. It was nice. Yes, there's a period in which we had something that might be called the sort of irresistible fascination of the theory of alienation. It was the age of initial to core. There was a a real bog and the alienation just to read a quotation from this article that I shared with you from various political background and academic disciplines, they identified alienation the causes of alienation is "commodification "overspecialization, anomie, "bureaucratization, conformism, consumerism, "loss of a sense of self aiming new technologies, "personal isolation, apathy, "social or ethical imagination, "environmental pollution." So really this word alienation didn't mean anything in the end. And I also want to add one more point before trying to answer to the lady short but extremely difficult question that Paul made. That also in sociology alienation completely changed the meaning. Perhaps not in this sense of looking at the individual but in the sense that allegation became something positive. So four Marx alienation is clear is always a negative phenomenon that we have to try to fight. Not to overcome forever with just a revolution. I will go back to this point later, but to make it smaller, less and Marx is also suggesting something at least I will try to provide some ideas in the final part of the talk. In sociology and the country in North America, mainstream sociology they treated our alienation as a positive things. And the question of how you look at this concept, this is completely different for Marx. It is always the question of the individual. I'm thinking there's no because I'm trying to borrow time from the question of Paul, but because actually I'm trying to answer to this question in a, perhaps a more difficult way. So the individual is the center for me means that the individual must conform, must change. So it is not the question of social relations of the society that must change. It is a question of adaptation of the individual. It is a question that you are not looking for solution general changes but you're looking for solution of the individual of their capacity to adjust the capacity to accept the existing order and the practice of our society. Now, why Marx is writing about this? And what is the understanding of Marx? What is the meaning of what is doing? Well first of all, I will say that in "Capital" he is doing this because he wants to understand the society. So this concept is useful for us, like many other concepts that you will discuss in this extremely brilliant and wonderful seminar that you organized. Like, for example, the question of money. That it's so relevant for our life, but it's so difficult to define and to understand, and this one too, how was it possible that our relations is not a direct relation but actually we interact with each other through these commodities, through these things. So Marx is trying to understand the society is trying to describe the society. And he's also using this religious as he wrote here. I call this fetishism, which attach itself to the product of labor as soon as they are produced as commodity, and is therefore inseparable from the production of commodities. It is not hitting this quotation. And in order to find an analogy we must take flight into the mysterious realm of religion. And this is what I wanted to mention before but there is one point that is very relevant for me. And here you I have a very reading of mass conception of alienation. I don't know if you agree with this, but the difference between this pages of Marx when he wrote for himself as I will tell you later, or when he wrote for an audience, because he wanted to publish because he published the book that he was writing like in the case of "Capital" when we say the manuscript that he wrote for himself. Well, I read in this pages a theory that is a theory to understand the society but also a theory to shake the society to change the society. So not only a coherent theoretic theoretical basis for understanding capitalism and alienation but also an anti-capitalist ideological platform. Like when I write in this article alienation left the books of the philosopher alienation is no longer a debate, even though brilliant and fascinating that this young, progressive left again and we're having in Berlin after Hegel died. So it's not something that takes place only in the lecture hall of university but it's something that must go to the street, must go to social movements, to trade unions, to political parties. And in my opinion business also why this concept at such a strong fortune at least in, I always think with my European eyes. I see with my European eyes in the sixties in the seventies, because there was a fantastic political and social movement that exploded in those years and these books of Marx, even though they were written in such a difficult and complicated way. Paul Reitter is lucky because he's really translating "Capital, Volume I" and not the "Grundrisse" that would be perhaps even more complicated. I don't know. I'm just also joking that even the "Grundrisse" is so difficult they could see that there, that interpretational Marx those ideas of Marx are also something that belonged to their life or useful for their life and this is why they were so used and circulated the words for many decades. - That's terrific. I think now we've set the stage for the alienation and hopefully what comes after it or what might come after it, communism, would you like to jump to that part? - Yes, can I be so impolite to take one more minute and to go back to something in my PowerPoint that I think is useful for the youngest. Can you see my PowerPoint here? Thanks to the students who are here. This is something that I've been editing. It's ontology. I don't wanna do advertisement but it's a book that would come out in December. And I would like to tell you the work that I've done in putting together this ontology. So "Alienation in Marx: Where?" Okay, this is my question. I wanted to reestablish the relevance of economic writings and of this better major understanding of capitalism. I don't like to use young major this word, but at least we understand each other by saving time. I believe that we must concentrate our attention when we talk about alienation Marx on the most relevant pages of Marx later economic writing. So not only the economic or philosophical writings of 1844. And I had to divide the book in three parts for editorial reasons. This is my research that I wanna share with you. Hopefully it's not too boring but I want to try to explain this. So when we look at this early philosophical writings or to what Marx wrote in the fifties. There is not very much about alienation after the 1844. So this is "Notes on James Mill" they were written at the same time of the "Economic and Philosophic Manuscript." For me, actually they belong to the "Economic and Philosophic Manuscript" because Marx is just writing these things for himself. And there is a lot of about alienation that is writing because he is stimulated by this book, "Elements of Political Economy." After this big analysis and putting together a philosophy with political economy, the concept disappears. There are just few references in the only family, "The German Ideology." But actually this is something that is very small and Marx's, sorry, know there is more. Something that Marx is very critical of this. Is very critical because Marx's is now speaking to an audience that is no longer the audience of this brilliant, but very few philosophers in Berlin, no Marx is in the political fights. He is an activist in Paris. He was exports from France, from Belgium. Then he goes back to France in 1848, who was talking to workers and it will tell them, you are alienated. You are in estranged, you are reificated. There is a fetish even do Marx didn't know didn't use this expression at the time with relation to political economy. Look what happened here. So when Marx is starting to write "Capital", the first so-called draft of "Capital." The "Grundrisse" the "Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy." I found 11,000 words. So I found a lot because this is what Marx is writing for himself. So when we talk about Marx, I'm sorry that you can not see me Paul you tell me if I have to put the PowerPoint down or if more useful to show you this but I will try to stop share, and then I will come back. So you can see me. It is very relevant for us to understand that there is a difference between what Marx wrote to publish, "Capital." And then there is the problem of what Marx wanted to change because Marx changed "Capital, Volume I" in a couple of occasions, and you will have done even more. So not only you have to know what is the difference between what Marx wrote a very few project compared to the many projects that yet were completed my Marx and they were published. I'm exaggerating a little bit but we can count them. Then there are the manuscript that Marx wrote for himself. Like for example, the "Grundrisse" self clarification, selfish standing or preparatory writing that Marx is drafting and no, he's not satisfied and move forward and forward. Then there is journalism. Then there is the correspondence with all the people, which was essential for the political propaganda and then the very relevant manuscript note books in which Marx was studying and was taking notes. So when Marx is writing the second category of writings that I just mentioned now, the manuscript preparatory manuscript, you will find a lot. This text number eight, this is called the urtext. So this is the preparatory texts for the first book of political economy that Marx published in 1859, "Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy." So you see that there is not very much there but look Marx's is writing about alienation extensively not only in the "Grundrisse" but also in a draft that is only partially translated into English. That in the MEGA is called manuscript 1861, 1863. The MEGA is the German edition historical critical edition. And then in the "Theories of Surplus-Value" that Marx brought between 62 and 63. There is a lot. So I learn a lot when I read this texts. I understand alienation but actually more than understanding alienation, I understand capitalism much better than when I read the texts of 1844. And then the final part here, "Capital." This really when Marx is writing "Capital." So these are not manuscript written for himself. This is a very important for us. The so called "Unpublished Chapter VI." Marx's returning on this question with very brilliant, beautiful way. These are all the places where you find the ideas that "Capital" is bombarded. Mistaking the blood of leaving labor, et cetera. And then this is what Paul Reitter mentioned at the beginning, the famous section of volume one and there is also chapter "Capital, Volume III." Okay. So there is a lot of "Capital" that is a lot of alienation that you find. And the part that you find in the early writings is a very minoritarian and perhaps not even the most important one. - Thank you, Marcello. This is such a gift to have all of this laid out for us. I feel like we should open up to everyone's questions. They've been thinking this through with you very soon. I'm not sure if you want to give an abbreviated version of the, how to de-alienate and is this how to, do we have a recipe for de-alienating? - I would like to leave the recipe for the end in case somebody is asking for a recipe, let's see what happened. Because the possible that discussion would go there. - Perfect. That's great. - Ask you Paul if it's possible? that I answer two to three questions together not one by one. So we get more chances to answer two more question. I might be able to combine them if I can. - Okay, thank you very much. This would be a moment in which there would be thunderous applause if we were in a flashy setting. So we can all thank you for this. It represents many years of work and a couple of decades of working through Marx. - And you said that the volume on alienation this anthology is going to be out in December. - Yes, it's going to be published on December the eighth. - December 8th, excellent. Well, congratulations on that. - What I'd like to do is ask for questions from the students in the seminar. This is not a two tiered system, but they're young and they're just working through Marx. So I wanna give them kind of first opportunity to articulate their questions. And then we will turn to anybody and everybody who's here who has questions. So if the students would put their questions in the chat, then we will try to unmute the asker and have them ask their question. And we'll do a couple of them as Marcello asks. Don't make me take away from your grades students if you don't ask questions. That's all right, I'm not gonna do that. Maybe we'll take some time for them to. - I see many many questions here, many interventions but we are starting with the student as you say. - Let's start with Ali. Audrey if you're there. Would you unmute Ali? - Yep. They are unmuted. - [Ali] Hi, thank you very much for your lecture. I think it was really insightful. My question refers to the initial remark that you had about the revival of Marxist reading following the 2008 crisis and especially the political revival in Latin America. I wonder what you make of the revival in Trotskyist's mobilization as well significantly in Argentina. Do you think it's a reaction to the failed Bolshevik 'cause or is it a sign of certain kind of yearning for an internationalist approach, a symptom of a methodology called vacuum that we face right now or more as a general question, can revolution be alienated on inside ideological grounds as well? Just like to labor? I don't know if it was, if that was clear but... - You said can any revolution be alienated, right? - [Ali] Yes, or as the revolution and in its imagined forms? - [Musto] Thank you. - You're muted. Maybe we'll take a couple of the other questions that are in here. Can we go back to Liz Kinnamon or Kinnamon. And would someone unmute her and ask her to read her question. This is complicated to do, but I prefer to hear everyone's voice or see their face when they're asking. I think that's. - Can you guys hear me? - Yes. - [Liz] So I actually made a comment, which in a question. So the question was Marcello, are you saying that the concept of alienation as it appeared in the 1844 manuscripts, that it kind of fractured into multiple different, more precise concepts like mystification or commodity fetishism? Is that, is that kind of your argument about what happens to alienation as it goes on? - Thank you, and the remark? And also, can you repeat your name please? - [Liz] My name is Liz Kinnaman. - Liz, right? Liz? - Liz. - Yup. - Okay, let's go from there to one more. We're already moved out of the realm of the students who obviously all fail. But that's okay, you're thinking people, the students in this course are really putting their best brain cells into this. So it is true that it takes some time. Could we open up the voice and picture of Baruc Jimenez Contrera who has comments and questions? - [Baruc] Hi, I am interesting in the topic of alienation and I have... (internet connection distorts the speech) I identify that before in the manuscript of 1844, they are another perfect tip of alienation in economic history ideas and specifically in other manuscript. Why do you think that Marx does not refer to discovery in his work? - Thank you, Marcello. - I had problem in understanding, would it be so kind to repeat please. (Paul speaking in foreign language) (Musto speaking in foreign language) (Baruc speaking in foreign language) (Musto speaking in foreign language) - Okay Marcello, this is three do you wanna go ahead and respond? - I think one more if you can, but if there are no other question I'm ready to answer. - We have a student showing up. Can we unmute Lawrence Lu, please? - Sorry, I'm in midst of eating an orange. I was really surprised by your comments at the beginning, when you were discussing like the sort of different national revivals of Marx's readings, and you said that sort of Chinese students ended up and by that, I mean, students in China ended up focusing on certain issues and not others and it made me think of the sort of communist party push right now for what they call like socialism with Chinese characteristics and the sort of increasing pressure that's being reported on academics to sort of shore up China's sort of brand of development, like state and private development. And sort of emergence of a new international class, of like Chinese political theorists who are trying to like justify like Xi Jinping's rule. And so I was just wondering how you see a relationship between Chinese politics today and the sort of new, the new sorts of readings of Marx that are coming out? - Okay, Marcello your on. - [Musto] You know the name of the last student Lawrence right? It was nice to see Lawrence because I can see also his face. So there are four questions. And as I suspected, and as I said to Paul North and Paul Reitter there is a lot of interest for the "Marx Revival." So I'm happy to hear about this. I will start from this two questions the last Lawrence and the first Ali, because in my opinion they are connected. So Lawrence, I have, as I'm sure that you are have understood for my presentation, I don't share this reading of a Marx's the Marxist Leninist, the tradition in Soviet Union imaging China today. So I'm not saying that, like some older scholars that Marx's ideas are reviving in China, et cetera. What I was trying to say is that I was led to see and I look at this phenomenon with a lot of interest that in some of the main university that I visited, University of Nanjing when I work as a visiting professor, Fudan University in Shangai even in Beijing, even doing a little bit more complicated. I saw many people engaged in translating and bringing new readings but only of Marx. Marx's tradition and also, philosophy for example the author alters into Chinese. And what I said, perhaps I was talking too fast or with my poor English, that I was looking at this in a positive way. Like I was looking at this as the possibility to interact with a new generation of students of scholars also trying to listen to what they do. It took me some time but I found very interesting partners. And now they're writing articles and books and chapters that I have to publish or include in my edited volumes or in the journal I collaborate with or in my series. I think it's very good. So I went to that university and Nanjing, and I saw for example that they have an institute where they translate Freda James on right. And I'm was surprised there is a lot of interest for that. Recently there were some problems because also some of this authors that are translated sometimes they signed petition against oppressive political decision of the regime. And that's why they were also cuts in the last year and a half, two years. But I was just mentioning the fact that it is good, that this is possible now and I see that the students in China are also very hungry thirsty. They want to read, they want to learn or they want to interact. So this is a good. To Ali, I wanna talk about Argentina and my experiences in Argentina. They were two conferences in 2018 in Argentina. One was the Bicentenary of Marx, so they were doing this kind of big conference and they were able to get there was a very conservative government at the time. One of the most conservative in South America they got in the end the big, the biggest role, the biggest venue which was the museum all of the library of the museum. I don't remember the name now. And they were expecting a very big success. They were expecting 500 people there. When your organizer we're walking that morning and they came out from the subway and look at the number of people went in line. They could not believe that there were thousands of people. And most of them were young people many young women, many young students they were there because they wanted to learn about Marx. And they didn't even have an impressive international program with big names like Nancy Fraser, David Darby. They were just there because on Marx they were just there because it was a curiosity of Marx. Myself I went to Argentina the same year for an event. And Paul you allow me, if I can be a little bit biographical and make it a little bit lighter at this point of the conversation. The same here there was the CLACSO. They had the conference. CLACSO is the organization for social science in Latin America and the Caribbean. And it's about many things, many topics. There are generally 40,000 people who attend this event just coming from outside your organizing country. I was one of the guests in the lecture about Marx. There were two other guests. One is Cinzia Arruzza that you are inviting here in a few weeks. And the other one is as we this professor who was a sociologist at Cambridge, and his name is Goran Therborn. And the three of us were actually impressed because we were hostages in a very big room which was packed, like in a way that I never seen before. And I was surprised to see the bedroom was for Marx. It was not from Diego Pavarotti. One of my favorite Argentina actors who was giving a presentation in the room after. So I went to the other presentation but then realizes Marx was the place with more people waiting on the line outside. So this is the kind of enthusiasm that Marx is creating in some parts of the world. There are parts of the world where you can not mention the name of Marx. And one of the geographical areas where there are more problems is for example, Eastern Europe because they associate Marx to that kind of communism. So you will not see there. Like, for example, Marx has not been read in North Korea for at least the last 30 years by anybody even though they say Marxism is what you see in North Korea. So the party in Argentina, which is a party that I know very well comes from this Trotsky's tradition was the organization that existed in Argentina was the most structured one. And they were very successful in responding to this demand. So they entered in parliament, elected many members of parliament, they are active. They give her a good contribution. And if I may say one more thing the most beautiful thing that I've seen in Argentina is this social movement about the question of feminism, this new generation of activism. And they are also trying to interrogate Marx. I think that math will have to learn a lot from them if he was alive, but that kind of approach that they have, the kind of look at the society. I found it very close to many things that Marx wrote. I see that Paul wants to intervene. - No, just a small comment. I worry that with so many people going to conferences on Marx's works that they'll miss the revolution if it actually happens. You have a couple more there and we have two more. I'm just conscious of people's time. So you have two more questions to respond to maybe, and then we'll take two more that are in the chat. - That's a possibility in any case, I am very happy to stay here for all the questions and to respond to all the students. But I wanna force my chair to be there for the end of the night. So you decide. Baruc, Marx didn't analyze Smith because as I mentioned at the beginning, and surely I was not clear the concept of alienation that you see in this Smith, the problematic that you see in "The Wealth of Nations" is very different from the way Marx's is using that word. So the word alienation is something that is more about selling. If I understand your question correctly. Why Marx is using alienation as one of the main category in order to explain to workers because "Capital" was written for workers, how crazy our society is, our inverted are our religions. Our social relations in capitalist is mode of production. And then Liz, the last question, the second. It was a very good one. Yes, I think this is the most difficult question so far even more than one that Paul asked me at the beginning and I don't need enough time to discuss this but Liz is asking are you saying that what we read in 1844 is fractured in a more concept later? Well, I will say that what that definition of alienation is illustrating is for the point of view of human relations, the worker in the factory, the worker with the other worker, the worker with himself, or in the relationship with the object in the division of labor. Then there is a concept of alienation, which is what we discussed before. Thanks for what Paul Reitter said, fetishism. That is a concept that is alienation in relation to the commodity. So I don't have time to see exactly fractured at each other, but they are different angles. One is the angles of the human relation and the other one is the angle of the commodity. Then there is the big question of the society. And perhaps if I have time I will go back to, to something that I prepared, but let's see what are your other question and where we are going. - Terrific, I'm going to there's two that seemed to lead from one to the other. So I'm going to read for Félix Buquat, whose microphone is not working. His question in the chat, the commodity fetishism is generally seen as a defining characteristic of the capitalist mode of production. However, Marx does discussion of the commodity fetishism and capital proceeds has shifted from exchange to production and the introduction of the class relation between capital and labor. What do you make of the argument of George Henderson and others that the commodity fetishism is consequently applicable beyond capitalism due to its basis in exchange and not production? A technical question, but and then if you want to Alexander Kolokotronis. Pardon my horrible pronunciation asks, does Marx see the alienation is something that can be total. Is it a constant process? And that gives you a chance to tell us what you think that is. - Yeah. I would like to share my email address. I don't know if it appeared on the presentation of the lecture. In any case it's my website is my name and my surname marcellomusto.org and people, students can write me. Hopefully I'm not going to get 15, 20 emails but I will be very happy to discuss this question that Félix is asking. Paul helped me, I don't know how I can do this without, I don't know taking 10, 15 minutes and saying goodbye to the end of the conversation. So I opted Felixs is not angry at me if I will be in touch with him separately, because this is related to a very specific things and interpretation or government another. And I might also provide a couple of readings. - As I ask along that line do you have just a quick answer to the question? Is there non alienated labor or is there non alienated, non alienated sociality? - That's one of the most interesting point for me and I will try to argue to answer to this one in connection with the other question, just please Paul as admin. Your question is how much does the alienator really on fetishism on subjectivity honest? Is that one? - That's one of them. Yes. And then there's Alexander's - Because I see Alexander there. Okay Alexander, does Marx see alienation is something that can be total or the alienation is a constant process. Good. So I will try to discuss these things. There is a very nice quotation from, and he's talking about the fact that at some point in Soviet Union they did not want to hear the question alienation. They not want to discuss alienation because they were responding simply like we have socialism therefore we no longer have alienation. So alienation cooled and must no longer be an issue for them. I had the same kind of answer in China. And I had a couple of a brilliant professor who were hosting me, the conversation went to a social work and the making of this new department of social work, by the way daily mainstream, and American approach to social work. And there is not enough political in their social workers. Work in Brazil is one of the most progressive disciplines. And it was also essential the contribution that they had for meeting people needed an activist against a dictatorship. So they said, "Why do you want social work? "We have socialism." So there was this idea that socialism is the end of the contradiction. You find this kind of approaches also in authors from Europe, so called Western authors for example, Lucianne Goldberg. Lucianne Goldberg wrote about this. And he said that it is possible to overcome alienation definitely overcome alienation in the social economic condition of the time. And he's actually writing that alienation. I'm reading the quotation here from is a dialectical research 1959. Very important moment for the alienation debate is in fact a phenomenal, closely one up with the absence of planning and weed production for the market. He said that Soviet socialism in the East and Keynesian policies in the West were resulting in the first case elimination of verification. And in the second case in a progressive weakening of alienation while I believe that history has demonstrated the faultiness of this predictions. And this is not the position of Marx even do Marx have been read and described by this teleology and this position and easterly et cetera, which is something that you find in Marx. There are three, four passages in which he's writing that way, but sometimes these are political passages so you have to be careful what text you're reading sometimes is also the fact that Marx wrote thousands of pages. And so you can find many things sometimes because Marx was wrong. So there are different answers and options to this, but his ideas is not that you do the revolution. You put a red star at the top of a building and there is no longer alienation in that society. And naturally these actually existing socialism society they prove to go in the opposite direction. Like for example when the workers in Berlin, in the so-called East Berlin they were struggling against one of the first measure that was taken by the government which was not the reduction of the working day but it was the increase of the working day. So you find this kind of things. I would like to share once again the PowerPoint, if I'm allowed. And I would like to say what Marx wrote about this. I don't know if at some point we can make this PowerPoint available. You can read this one. So I believe that the question of the alienation the writing of alienation are useful for the research that the Marx did on communist society the description of post-capitalism society. And I had prepared this question that are essential question for Marx, I can only list them. Paul, don't be worried just 30 more seconds, very quickly. The essential topic for Marx. A dealinated society, a communist society as a society in which there is an association of few human beings full and free development of every individual. This is what Marx's looking at. Marx is also talking about social character of the production. So I wanna make this clear because I don't wanna be misunderstood. I'm answering to the question. I'm trying to answer to the question. I'm trying to leave essential elements in an organization on a society, political, economical, social elements that four Marx will make a significant difference compared to capitalism. This does not mean for Marx that this is the end of alienation but this means that onc society is introducing this elements there is an improvement and there are less chances for workers to leave in the terrible condition that we experienced under capitalism. This question of the social character of the production is one of them, because Marx said that in socialism in what do you call the associate motor production? You see this general product from the beginning, not only in the end, after decades of the market and of the capitalist production there is a log about "planned corporation." Marx is talking about this in volume one. I'm sure that you will go back to this with other guests in the coming weeks. Marx is talking about record in advance, how much labor or many means of production and means of subsistence. Subsistence can be expand, et cetera. I have no time, but surely the idea of Marx is to contrasting this free competition. This idea of freedom of individualism that is into capitalism. Marx is in favor of the individual. Marx consider the individual as an essential element to alienate the alienated the society so that the individual they have space to produce, to think, to interact freely. But his conception of a freedom is different from those of a capitalist. "Individuals are subsumed "under social production" in capitalism wage labor. So for Marx, the essential question is the change of the production and not only on distribution. The society will be much less, significantly less alienated if there is a change in the production. And I provide a thumb, definition in the article on the communism that is, has been recently published in the "Marx Revival" that Paul North was so kind to site at the beginning of this lecture. "Time and reduction of the working day" is another essential element Alexander of the alienation. So the society should go in that direction. The direction that labor is liberated is free not for the copy that is to exploit us more. So, but for us to live in a better, have a better life to be educated. And there is ownership of the means of production for Marx means change the lifetime of society. And this is what we are talking when we talk about the alienation is not the philosophical formula. So non-alienated society is free development. I don't have time to talk about this but there is this famous quotation of volume three of "Capital" when Marx is talking about the realm of freedom. - I think it really couldn't talk about this if you want to Marcello, we have 10 minutes in the allotted time and-- - I was so worried, and I can not see how many questions are there. - A lot of questions and very good ones. We might not get to all of them, I'll try to save them and send them to you. But this seems like an important topic. - Thanks. I was just trying to drink a little bit. So I'm gonna spend just two minutes about this. I wanna return on this question which is I'm still creating problems, in my opinion in many contemporary political readings of Marx. So what is freedom for Marx? Marx wrote about this. I find a lot of this in the preparatory manuscript, and sometimes also in the letter, even though there are all other treasures in notebooks in the excerpts that is what I use for the analysis of the last Marx. But this will be the topic of another conversation that we will let in the future. So if we focus on non-alienated society, so Marx is writing about this question of individual freedom, living in a non-alienated society meant building a social organization in which a fundamental value was given to individuals freedom. This is me writing. Now I'm going to quote from the "Grundrisse" because Marx in the "Grundrisse" and not only there are several manuscript in the late fifties which Marx is very angry about the foolishness of those socialists Marx here is thinking about French socialists in particular and his contemporaries like Proudhon, not Saint-Simon and Fourier. Marx had a tremendous respect for them like for Robert Owen. These French socialist contemporary two Marx the false brother of socialism and Marx called them in "Grundrisse." They want to depict socialism as the realization of the ideas of bourgeois society articulated by the French revolution, who demonstrated that exchange and exchange value, et cetera, were good at the beginning. But they were perverted later by capital. It is just a question of capital, it is just the question of distribution. These are so important political questions. The international is the beating about this a lot. The difference between Marx and Proudhon is not about misery or philosophy, poverty of philosophy, philosophy of poverty. This is the 1847 polemics. If you want to understand the difference between Marx and Proudhon you have to go to this manuscript of the 50th board of them. And then the political struggle that is up in India International when there are two different conception about out organized and normally unaided society. One is looking at distribution, Proudhon. One is looking at the change on the production, Marx. So Marx is writing into "Grundisse" "free development under the domination of capital "was the most weeping abolition "of all individual freedom "and the complete subjugation "of individual two social condition, "which assumed the form of objective powers "indeed of overpowering objects "independent of the individuals relating to one another." You see that the concept is there. The idea is there and is developing this. Now "Capital, Volume III" which was written by Marx before "Capital, Volume I." Because the main draft belongs to 1865. So this is the famous quotation that I don't want to read. When Marx is talking about the realm of freedom is, I just got this quotation here. I will just call your attention on this very, very short part because generally it's quoted it's 500 words. It's one full page. "The realm of freedom really begins "only where labor determined by necessity "and external expediency ends. "Freedom can consist only in this, "that socialized human, "the associate producer, "govern the human metabolism "with nature in a rational way." By the way, there is so much ecological Marx in this manuscript, preparatory manuscript of "Capital." As my colleague Kohei Saito has demonstrated recently, after a lot of good scholarship on the topic. And, "accomplishing it "with the least expenditure "of energy and in conditions most worthy "and appropriate for the human nature." So this is the quotation in which alienation the end of alienation, the real conception of freedom and the reduction of the working day is they are altogether. So this is a very well known alienation. I end by saying this, that this post capitalist society of production together with all the progress of technology, the reduction of the working day they create the possibility is not guaranteed. It's not a necessity is never the end because the contradiction will start once again. But there is a possibility for a new social formation in which the cohesive alienate the labor imposed by capital. We're talking about wage labor of course, and subject to it's laws is gradually replaced with something that Marx called sometimes a conscious creative activity beyond necessity. And this is what Marx's called is the real realm of freedom the genuine realm of human freedom which is very different from the realm of freedom for capital that we have in our society. You should see me should be able to see me if I'm not wrong. - [Paul] Thanks. There's so much to say we're just getting started. You're right that you need an all night seminar on alienation. I think what we should do is thank the people who came and asked questions. There are some still littering the chat filling the chat that are really quite good. How would you conceptualize the relationship between alienation and abstract labor? There are questions about Michael Heinrich. An important about Feuerbach and the development of the idea of species-being. But I really do think we need to leave it here. - I have a good answer to this. And the answer is that your organize the seminar with 12 lectures and there is a lot of room and food for thought for the colleagues that will come after me. - Thank you very much. We really appreciate your time and all of this wonderful work.

Channel: Yale University

Views: 18,095

Keywords: Franke Lectures, Marcello Musto, Marx’s Concept of Alienatio, Marx, The Value of Marx’s Capital, Paul North, Yale

Id: tyv3VzkI5nY

Length: 110min 14sec (6614 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 12 2020