Notes on Fetishism, History and Uncertainty: Beyond the Critique of Austerity

Authors

  • Werner Bonefeld University of York

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3989/isegoria.2014.050.18

Keywords:

Adorno, Benjamin, Marx, History, Negativity, Now-Time, Social Reproduction

Abstract


We are in the middle of huge wave of uprisings, of massive, multitudinous refusals to accept the contemporary conditions. The article asks what it means to say NO in a society in which the poor and miserable are required to subsidise the financial system for the sake of sustaining the illusion of abstract wealth. This subsidy is necessary in existing society, to secure its wealth and prevent its implosion. Capitalist society cannot be fought in a direct and immediate manner - what really does it mean to struggle against money, resist the movement of coins, combat the movement of interest rates, fight price movements, and resist poverty in a mode of social reproduction that entails the pauper in its concept of wealth? The refusal to sanction things as they are is entirely negative of the existing conditions of social reproduction. It demands that their further progress comes to a standstill.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Adorno, T. (1962) Einleitung zur Musiksoziologie, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt.

Adorno, TW. (1969) 'Marginalien zu Theorie und Praxis', in Stichworte Kritische Modelle 2, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt.

Adorno, TW. (1970), Ästhetische Theorie, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt.

Adorno,TW. (1972), Soziologische Schriften I, in Gesammelte Werke, vol. 8, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt.

Adorno, TW. (1973) Negative Dialectics, Routledge, London.

Adorno, TW. (1975) Gesellschaftstheorie und Kulturkritik, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt.

Adorno, TW. (1978) Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life, Verso, London.

Adorno, T. (1993a), 'Einleitung', Der Positivismusstreit in der deutschen Soziologie, dtv, Munich.

Adorno, T. (1993b), 'Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften', inDer Positivismusstreit in der deutschen Soziologie, dtv, Munich.

Adorno, TW. (2008a) Lectures on History and Freedom, Polity, Cambridge.

Adorno, TW. (2008b) Lectures on Negative Dialectics, Polity, Cambridge.

Adorno, TW. and M. Horkheimer (2011) Towards a New Manifesto, Verso, London.

Backhaus, H.G. (1992), 'Between Philosophy and Science: Marxian Social Economy as Critical Theory', in Bonefeld, W. R. Gunn and K. Psychopedis (eds.) Open Marxism, vol. I, Pluto, London.

Benjamin,W. (1999) Illuminations, Pimlico, London.

Bonefeld,W. (2000) 'Die Betroffenheit und die Vernunft der Kritik', in Bruhn J, M Dahlmann, and C Nachmann (eds) Kritik der Politik, Ca Ira, Freiburg.

Bonefeld, W. (2004) 'Uncertainty and Social Autonomy', The Commoner no 8, Winter 2004, pp. 1-6.

Bonefeld,W. (2010a) 'History and Human Emancipation', Critique, 38/1, pp. 61-73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03017600903454397

Bonefeld, W. (2010b) 'Abstract Labour: Against its Nature and on its Time', Capital & Class, vol. 34/2, pp. 257-276. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0309816810367769

Bonefeld, W. (2012), Negative Dialectics in Miserable Times: Notes on Adorno and Social Praxis', in Journal of Classical Sociology 12 (1), pp. 122-34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1468795X11433701

Brendel, C. (2002) 'Kronstadt: Proletarian Spin-Off of the Russian Revolution', in Bonefeld W. and S. Tischler (eds) What is to be Done?, Aldershot: Ashgate.

Clarke, S. (1992) Marx, Marginalism and Modern Sociology, 2nd ed., Palgrave, London.

Gambino, F. (2003), 'A Critique of the Fordism of the Regulation School', in W. Bonefeld (ed.), Revolutionary Writing, Autonomedia, New York, 2003.

Holloway, J. (2010), Crack Capitalism, Pluto, London.

Horkheimer,M. (1985) The Eclipse of Reason, Continuum, New York.

Horkheimer, M. and TW. Adorno (1972) Dialectics of Enlightenment, Verso, London.

Marcuse H (1958) Soviet Marxism: A Critical Analysis, Roudledge & Kegan Paul, London.

Marcuse, H. (1964) One Dimensional Man, Roudledge & Kegan Paul, London.

Marcuse, H. (1988), 'Philosophy and Critical Theory', in ibid. Negations, Free Association Press, London.

Marx, K. (1970) Critique of the Gotha Programme, in Marx/Engels Selected Works, vol. 3, Progress Publishers, Moscow.

Marx, K. (1972) Theorien des Mehrwerts, MEW 26.3, Dietz, Berlin.

Marx, K. (1973), Grundrisse, Penguin, London.

Marx, K. (1975), Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's 'Philosophy of Right'. Introduction, in Collected Works, vol. 3, Lawrence & Wishart, London.

Marx, K. (1966), Capital, vol. III, Lawrence & Wishart, London.

Marx, K. (1979), Das Kapital, MEW 23, Dietz, Berlin.

Marx, K. (1980), Die heilige Familie, in MEW 2, Dietz, Berlin.

Marx, K. (1983) Capital, vol. I, Lawrence & Wishart, London.

Marx, K. and F. Engels (1996) The Communist Manifesto, Pluto, London.

Marx, K. and F. Engels (1976) The German Ideology, in Collected Works, vol 5, International Publishers, New York.

Pinkus, T. (ed.) (1975) Conversations with Lukacs, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Roux, J. (1985) 'Das "Manifest der Enragés"', in ibid, Freiheit wird die Welt erobern, Reden und Schriften, Röderberg, Frankfurt.

Schmidt, A. (1974), 'Praxis', Gesellschaft: Beiträge zur Marxschen Theorie 2, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt.

Schmidt, A. (1983) History and Structure, MIT Press, Cambridge MA.

Tischler, S. (2005) 'Time of Reification and Time of Insubordination. Some Notes' in Bonefeld,W. and K. Psychopedis (eds) Human Dignity, Ashgate, Aldershot.

Downloads

Published

2014-06-30

How to Cite

Bonefeld, W. (2014). Notes on Fetishism, History and Uncertainty: Beyond the Critique of Austerity. Isegoría, (50), 319–335. https://doi.org/10.3989/isegoria.2014.050.18

Issue

Section

Notes and Discussions