Labour, Politics and Emancipation, Arendt and the Historical Materialist Tradition

Labour, Politics and

Emancipation,

Arendt and the Historical

Materialist Tradition

Ulrich Mühe

(University of Kent)

2

Labour, emancipation and politics – Arendt and the Historical Materialist

tradition

Ulrich Mühe (PhD-submission)

I investigate the role of labour in the tradition of Historical Materialism with particular

focus on politics and emancipation. The centrality of labour in this tradition is crucial

for its claims concerning human life, which is meant to be accounted for in a materialist

fashion. Overall I argue that this approach is an insufficient and reductive account of

human life.

Starting with Marx’s writings I show the connections and relations between his account

of labour and his account of society. I criticise Marx for an insufficiently differentiated

account of labour and the confusion of poiesis and praxis. I will show that this leads to

very particular outcomes in Marx’s thought on politics.

In opposition to Marx I then present the approach to human life that Hannah Arendt

provides. I explain Arendt’s account and the distinction between labour, work and ac-

tion. Subsequently I defend her approach against several criticisms.

In the third chapter I investigate Jürgen Habermas’s account of human action. He pre-

sents the account of a Historical Materialist who attempts to incorporate Arendt’s criti-

cisms of this tradition. I will defend Habermas’ approach particularly in reference to

objections to his division between communicative and instrumental action. Then I will

criticise his approach to human interaction on the issue of his pragmatism in language

with which he reduces interaction to the propositional content of people’s utterances.

Habermas cannot escape the reductivism inherent in Historical Materialism either.

Lastly, I will criticise current postmodern Neo-Marxists Hardt and Negri. In their recent

publications they return to a more orthodox Historical Materialism but face substantive

issues in their accounts of (immaterial) labour and the future global political subject (the

‘multitude’). Finally I end with reflections and projections on politics from an Arendtian

view.

3

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the entire philosophy staff at the University of Kent, particularly my

supervisor Prof. Sean Sayers who provided me with both freedom in and criticism of my

research that allowed my project to be what it has been. Furthermore I would like to men-

tion explicitly Dr. Alan Thomas, Todd Mei, Lorenzo Chiesa, the School of European Cul-

tures and Languages at the University of Kent in general, Peter Andras and Sabine Pfeiffer.

It is due to these and all the other people with which I have been in contact during my re-

search that this project ended up teaching me a lot more than what I could have expected

when I started. Thanks to you all!

4

Labour and Historical Materialism......................................................................................7 Introduction ...............................................................................................................7

I. Contra Historical Materialism ...................................................................................17 1. Introduction to the Materialist Account of Human Life .......................................17 Preview ....................................................................................................................19

2. Marx’s Human Ontology......................................................................................22 2.1. Marx’s philosophical-anthropological account of human genesis ..................22 2.2. Combating arbitrariness through controlled production ...............................25 The division of labour ..............................................................................................30

3. Consequences and Criticisms....................................................................................34 The problem of needs ..............................................................................................34 Marxian labour .........................................................................................................35 Work and Tools in Anthropology.............................................................................36 The physical process and Time.................................................................................38 Labour – due to need or free from need?.......................................................................39 Labour and alienation...............................................................................................42 3.2. A first conclusion - Insufficient Ontology ....................................................45 3.3. More Labour ................................................................................................47 3.3.1. Abolishing labour and alienation – the labour puzzle continued......................47 3.4. A second conclusion ....................................................................................54 3.5. Politics and the State ....................................................................................55 3.6. Materialism to replace politics ......................................................................58 3.7. The arbitrary.................................................................................................61 3.8. Summary ......................................................................................................66

II. A reply to Arendt’s critics: in defence of labour, work, and action ............................69 1. Arendt’s ‘Human Condition’.....................................................................................70 1.1. Labour and Work .........................................................................................70 1.2. Action ..........................................................................................................75 1.2.1. Individuality ....................................................................................................77 1.2.2. Plurality...........................................................................................................79 1.3. Action: a beginning but no end ....................................................................82 1.4. Action compared to work and labour ...........................................................84

2. The objections..........................................................................................................89 2.1. Objection 1: Snobbism ......................................................................................89 2.2. Objection 2: Arendt’s distinctions are not applicable..........................................91 2.3. Conclusion to the first two objections................................................................98 2.4. Objection 3: Arendt’s supposed opposition to Hegel and self-awareness .........100 2.4.1. Labour vs. Labour.........................................................................................103 2.4.2. Work ......................................................................................................104 2.5. Resolving the puzzle – Conclusion ..................................................................107

III. Habermas...........................................................................................................112 1. Background ........................................................................................................113 2. Habermas’ labour-action distinction ...................................................................116 2.2.1. Lifeworld and system I..................................................................................119 2.2.2. System and Lifeworld II ................................................................................124

3. Is there space for emancipation in Habermas action-labour distinction?.............130 3.1. Critics of Habermas....................................................................................130 3.1.1. Breen ............................................................................................................130

5

3.1.2. The Master-apprentice relationship ...............................................................133 3.1.3. Labour and the social ....................................................................................136 3.1.4. Honneth .......................................................................................................138

4. End of the debate...............................................................................................144 5. Habermas and Arendt on action.........................................................................147 6. Habermasian vs. Arendtian action ......................................................................148 7. Summary ............................................................................................................155 8. Deliberation, Consensus and Emancipation .......................................................158 8.1. Concerning 1 ...................................................................................................159 8.2. Concerning 2 ...................................................................................................162

9. Conclusion .........................................................................................................165 IV. Postmodern Neo-Marxism .................................................................................167 1. Hardt and Negri .................................................................................................169 1.1. Immaterial Labour......................................................................................172 1.2. Goods and services ....................................................................................175 1.3. What is new about ‘immaterial labour’? ......................................................178 1.4. Marx’s inheritance – the unsolved labour-puzzle ........................................181 2. The ‘Multitude’ ...................................................................................................186 2.1. Networks ...................................................................................................190 2.2. Contra the ‘multitude’ as a political subject.................................................193 3. Conclusion .........................................................................................................197

V. Conclusions and projections...................................................................................202 Bibliography: ................................................................................................................215

6

Abbreviations:

Marx:

GI The German Ideology

C Capital

EPM Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts

CM The Communist Manifesto

Habermas:

TCA Theory of Communicative Action

Arendt:

HC The Human Condition

Hardt and Negri

E Empire

M Multitude

7

Labour and Historical Materialism

Introduction

Historical Materialism, the approach to human life, society and history originated by Karl

Marx, has the concept of labour at its very centre. I became interested in labour independ-

ently of its connection with Marx’s writings but was quickly referred to them. For an inves-

tigation of the connection between man and labour, as I originally planned it, the insights

of Marx and other Historical Materialists were to be important. Over the course of my re-

search I then changed my perspective, namely into what this work now represents: an in-

vestigation into the concept and role of labour in Historical Materialism in particular refer-

ence to emancipation and politics. I came to realise that this concept and its role have very

particular consequences for subsequent claims within this framework, consequences for the

characterisation of human beings, for social life and for politics. These consequences and

how they follow from the role of labour in Historical Materialism are what I want to dis-

play here.

Initially I felt a lack of research on labour and mine was to be a contribution to remedy this

lack, but in hindsight of my study I now feel this lack to be illusory. There have been nu-

merous publications on work over the last dozen years, let alone reprints of Marx.1 Yet

many academic publications in this field still start with the lamentation that not enough

scholarship on labour exists. This itself is an interesting fact for my thesis: the amount of

scholarship on labour shows our obsession with this activity, even more so since all of

these publications emphasise the existential importance and meaning of work. This empha-

sis, however, is a historical development and Historical Materialism has done its share to

support it. The focus on labour goes so far that ‘social reproduction’, a concept which to

1 For example the following: Sennett ‘The Craftsman’ (2008) and ‘The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism’ (1998), de Botton ‘The Joys and Sorrows of Work’ (2009), Svendsen ‘Work’ (2008), Martin ‘Meaningful Work’ (2000), Thompson ‘The nature of work’ (1997), Piper ‘Women and work in Globalising Asia’ (2007), Pfeiffer ‘Arbeitsvermögen’ (2004), Friedman and Greenhaus ‘Work and Family – Allies or Enemies’ (2000), Kang ‘Passion at Work’ (2007), Hemsath ‘301 Ways to have fun at Work’ (1997), Rapoport ‘Beyond Work-Family Balance: Advancing Gender Equity and Workplace Performance’ (2001), Colella ‘ Discrimination at Work’ (2009), Blackburn ‘A Fair Days Wage for a Fair Days Work?’ (2007), Anderson ‘The global Politics of Domestic Labour’ (2000), Margolis and Wilenski ‘There is no place like work’ (2006), Peppers and Briskin ‘Bringing your soul to work’ (2000), Furnham ‘Per-sonality at Work’ (2002), Muirhead ‘Just Work’ (2007), Gini ‘My Job, My Self: Work and the Creation of the Modern Individual’ (2001), Meilaender ‘Working: its meaning and its limits’ (2000), Malin ‘Professionalism, Boundaries and the Workplace’ (2000), Gorz ‘Farewell to the Working Class’ (2001), Schreiner ‘Woman and Labour’ (2008), McKinlay ‘Creative Labour’ (2009), Donkin ‘Blood, Sweat and Tears: the Evolution of Work’ (2001), Rifkin ‘The End of Work’ (2004), Toynbee ‘Hard Work: Life in Low-Pay Britain’ (2003), Waddell and Burton ‘Is Work Good for Your Health and Well-Being?’ (2006), M.B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work, (Penguin Press HC, 2009).

8

my mind is far larger than what we can be said to produce, is often used synonymously

with ‘labour’. This is again an interesting fact: that so many writers today equate the two

shows how closely we have linked labour with the entirety of our life.

Historically, the veneration of labour starts with industrialisation, before that time it was

seen as a burden. The further we go back in history the more pronounced the distain for

labour becomes. The ancient Greeks, for example, did not share our veneration of this ac-

tivity. Rather, they held it in the highest disregard. The advent of Christianity changed the

picture insofar as work was mostly seen as a duty to God. It was thus still merely instru-

mental and its corresponding value was external. The valorisation and glorification of la-

bour started with the Calvinists (Fromm, 1941). They were the first to elevate labour to a

meaningful activity in itself: work was one’s duty not merely in order to atone for an ‘original

sin’ but in order to fulfil God’s intention for a meaningful human life: being successful in

work and successful in God’s eyes started to become assimilated. By the time Marx starts

writing on labour he has already dropped the religious connection. He affirms the link be-

tween human life and labour directly in a materialist conception of human life and history

(Historical Materialism) without recourse to a transcendent reality. Work is not a duty to

God but the essence of what it is to be human.

However, this study is not intended to be one of history, even though the sequence of

writers which I investigate fits their chronological order (Marx, Arendt, Habermas, Hardt

and Negri) and even if, as will be seen, historical developments have no unimportant af-

fects on the theories. My real interest, as just mentioned, is the conceptual consequences of

the concept of labour in Historical Materialism, of which the veneration of labour is only

one. Particular attention is paid to the relations between labour, politics and emancipation.

The chapters are arranged as follows:

Chapter 1 Although both Historicism and Materialism can be traced back much further

than the 19th century, Marx is justifiably regarded as the creator of the school of Historical

Materialism. The approach to history that he advances is clearly influenced by Hegel, but

contrary to Hegel’s Idealism Marx wants to turn him ‘from his head onto his feet’, that is,

ground the historical development of mankind on material factors, rather than an unfold-

ing World Spirit. My main purpose in this chapter is to draw out the connections between

Marx’ concept of man (i.e. ontology), in which labour plays a major role, and his political

thought, i.e. his claims on the nature of the state. The role of labour within Marx’s account

9

is clear: labour is central to human beings, not just in terms of survival but also in terms of

the relations it establishes between them. The emancipation of man, that is, the becoming

of what he can be, namely a free producer (who is not slave to the things he produces), is

therefore intrinsically linked to the activity of labour and the conditions under which it is

performed. Man, labour, and emancipation are therefore clearly bound up in Marx’s theory of history

and the relationship between labour and emancipation is direct.

Chapter 2 is devoted to the thought of Hannah Arendt on human nature, or rather as she

calls it, ‘the human condition’. The advocacy of an Arendtian approach in contrast to the

Historical Materialist one is the critical part of this thesis. I present the social ontology Ar-

endt provides in The Human Condition. The ontological and anthropo-philosophical thought

which her book contains has not received enough attention. In the analytic tradition Ar-

endt continues to be primarily known as a writer on politics. She is often hard to place in a

particular tradition or field simply because she barely uses any philosophical jargon.2 In The

Human Condition, however, she presents her approach to human life and, as a consequence,

to politics. Since Arendt is mostly under-read and even less understood the second chapter

is therefore mainly exegetical. I will outline and detail her - mostly ill-received - distinction

of labour, work and action and will subsequently defend it against various criticisms.

In a certain way Arendt poses the antithesis to Marx. It will become clear that overall I fol-

low Arendt’s thought with which I will criticise Marx, Habermas and current Neo-Marxists.

But this antithesis must not be misunderstood: Arendt is perfectly aware and moreover in-

debted to the insights that Marx provided, and so am I. Hardly any philosopher has had

such an effect on the subsequent historical development. Arendt’s objection to Marx is that

Historical Materialism is deadly to politics as she understands it: in his materialist focus,

Marx exactly undermines what Arendt views as absolutely crucial, namely the realm of (in-

ter)action. Furthermore, emancipation belongs to interaction rather than labour, and Ar-

endt thus argues that the narrow attention to labour results in a mistaken view of action

and therefore also emancipation. Contrastingly to Marx, labour and emancipation part ways in Ar-

endt’s theory.

2 Even in political theory her position is hard to determine again because she refuses to use standard jargon or be put into a particular box. Thus, at a conference on politics she was once asked “What are you? Are you a conservative? Are you a liberal? Where is your position within the contemporary possibilities?” Her answer must have been dissatisfying to the questioner “I don’t know. I really don’t know and I’ve never known. And I suppose I never had any such position. You know the left think that I am conservative, and the conservatives sometimes think I am left or I am a maverick or God knows what. And I must say I couldn’t care less. I don’t think that the real questions of this century will get any kind of illumination by this kind of thing.” (Hill, M. A., 1979, p.333f.)

10

Chapter 2 therefore opens the opposition to Historical Materialism. Although Arendt’s

claims may be the most pronounced, they are definitely not the only ones but stem from a

particular circle of philosophers in the aftermath of Marx. Heidegger and Jaspers, who Ar-

endt both new (with the first she had a, by now, well-known love-affair, the other was the

supervisor of her thesis), had very similar views. They all took recourse to the ancient

Greek distinction between making (poiesis) and doing (praxis). The objection to Historical

Materialism is that it confuses the two, which results in a mistaken view of human interac-

tion. This posed a challenge to the subsequent development of Historical Materialism and

Jürgen Habermas, coming out of the heavily Marx-based Frankfurt School, attempted to

meet it. Habermas was familiar with Arendt’s writings and due to her argument, but also

several other reasons, his goal was to find a way to incorporate her insights. In other words,

a follower of Historical Materialism himself, Habermas attempts to meet the criticisms by

changing the theory.

Chapter 3 will therefore deal with Habermas. Even though he cannot stand as an exhaus-

tive embodiment of Historical Materialism, he is (for good reason) the most influential fig-

ure with an extensive and detailed account that is the focus in many debates. He also fea-

tures because one particular strand of Historical Materialism with its (labour) debate come

to end in his writings. This is not to say that there have not been fruitful criticisms and ad-

ditions to particular parts of Habermas’ oeuvre, but only that it is exceedingly difficult to

top a theory that is as vast and complex as Habermas’ whose writings concerning this field

span almost three decades. In order to discuss Habermas adequately I will have to sketch

his theory of communicative action and his account of language. Only then can the link

between his theory, labour and Arendt, be made clear.

Out of all political theorists Habermas is one of, if not the, most influential modern political

thinker. He is still devoted to the Marxian project, namely to elucidate the relations be-

tween material culture and the historical development. His idea, in the light of the criti-

cisms against Historical Materialism, was to widen the explanatory basis and resources of

Historical Materialism in order to incorporate the phenomena that Arendt found it to ex-

clude. In short, his version of Historical Materialism is meant to include the distinction be-

tween poiesis and praxis. The means with which Habermas does this is a linguistic analysis.

In this way, he attempts to capture human interaction, which Arendt found insufficiently

accounted for in Historical Materialism, by analysing communication. Hence his approach

is that of ‘communicative action’. The way in which Habermas incorporates the distinction

11

between poiesis and praxis is to separate (like Arendt) labour from communicative interac-

tion and find (unlike Arendt) a materialistic approach to the latter. This theoretical devel-

opment, however, has met its own adversaries: many, most notably the current director of

the Frankfurt School Axel Honneth, argue that in separating labour from communicative

action Habermas has thereby severed the link between labour and emancipation, one of the

core points of Marx’s approach. I will discuss these arguments.

However, apart from these criticisms I have my own ones against Habermas. Despite his

efforts to present a viable theory that still fits the Historical Materialist cause, I will argue

that Habermas’ account is still subject to Arendt’s criticism, namely a mistaken view of in-

teraction. What Habermas does is to reduce interaction to communication, where commu-

nication, in turn, is characterised in a pragmatic way. The important element for Arendt,

however, was not just the information conveyed in interaction but the unique revelation of

the agent in his actions. Habermas, in his pragmatism, again undercuts what Arendt diag-

nosed as a shortcoming for all materialist accounts: the neglect of uniqueness in human

interaction. In this it becomes again clear that Habermas is still tied to the materialist ap-

proach: his analysis of communication can still not account what Arendt considers immate-

rial: the essential fact that every actor is uniquely revealed in his actions. I will supply two

current criticisms of particular aspects of Habermas’ theory as examples in which this lack

of uniqueness emerges (arguments against pragmatic and formal accounts of communica-

tion, and the consensus model for politics). This will validate my critique of Habermas and

will link it to Arendt.

Habermas thus faces a double stumbling stone: on the side of Historical Materialism he is

accused of making labour too instrumental and thus diverging too far from Marxian His-

torical Materialism. On the side of Arendt’s arguments he still cannot, according to my

analysis, capture what Arendt thinks is the crucial point of praxis over poiesis. Thus, in his

attempt to reconcile both sides he has satisfied neither. The relationship between emancipation

and labour in Habermas is, contrary to the one in Marx’s account, indirect at best, severed at worst.

Chapter 4 The fourth chapter then picks up the contemporary debate, particularly the

writings of expressed Neo-Marxians (Hardt, Negri, and Lazzarato). They mainly bypass the

debate involving Habermas and are engaged in a postmodern re-evaluation and –

application of Marx’s ideas. Their writings have been described as the ‘Communist Mani-

12

festo of the 21st century’.3 This resurgence is one reason for their inclusion in this study.

Moreover, the Neo-Marxians, like Habermas, are trying to tackle the same problem con-

cerning the scope of Historical Materialism, namely the account of action from a labour-

centred analysis. Out of all the theorists that I will investigate I am most critical of these

postmodern Neo-Marxians.

The writings of Negri, Hardt and Lazzarato are mostly concerned with modern labour-

conditions and their aim, apart from a critique of capitalism, is political change. Apart from

Marx these writers are also heavily influenced by postmodern French philosophy (Foucault,

Derrida, Deleuze, and Guattari) including a typical attention to power and deconstruction.

In their hope for a new communism they have turned once again to labour-practices and

particularly a new variant of them: so-called ‘immaterial labour’. This suits Marxian theory

at least insofar as ‘immaterial labour’ facilitates the synchronisation of workers’ aims and

actions since the important aspect of ‘immaterial labour’ is its inherent connection with

communication. Thus, if communication has become such an essential part of most la-

bour-practices then this should allow the unification of the demands and actions of work-

ers. The resulting future politics, however, is neither a standard ‘dictatorship of the working

class’ (Marx), nor a mere ‘administration of things’ (Engels). Here the post-modern element

comes most prominently to bear, namely in the characterisation of modern social life and

politics in the form of the ‘multitude’.

But I am critical of the political scope of the ‘multitude’ as well as their concept of ‘imma-

terial labour’. Despite the attempt to reinterpret Marx and provide a new grounding for the

labour-debate on the shoulders of ‘immaterial labour’, this attempt still inherits the prob-

lems that already beset Marx’ account. Labour and emancipation join forces once again in

this approach but the problems that lead to their dissociation during the 20th century are

seemingly simply neglected. Moreover, I will show that ‘immaterial labour’ is simply a mis-

nomer that relies on bogus differentiations between what is material and what is not, and a

confusion between production and services.

The concept of the ‘multitude’ as the bearer of politics is also not a viable model because it

undermines several central elements crucial for any political order (representability, identifi-

able goals, the concept of a public with definable borders, bearers of responsibility). It fur-

thermore relies on an analogy which is flawed and does not help to ensure the cooperation

of individuals: the appeal to communicative networks as the future mode of political order

3 Steger (2002), Vazquez-Arroyo (2002)

13

does, firstly, not correspond with the characteristics of actual social networks and secondly

it cannot provide stability – whether politically or socially – in fact, it undermines it, be-

cause the definition of the ‘multitude’ as a global class that has a fleeting membership and

that is irreducible to a particular identity, makes it non-representable.

The fifth and last chapter will then summarise and further my claims with the retrospective

view that such a final chapter allows. I hope to pick up some of the issues that will emerge

in the course of the previous four chapters and finish this thesis with some conclusions and

projections concerned with the outlook that an Arendtian framework provides.

14

Terms and concepts:

1. Marx’s theory – Historical Materialism

Although we may distinguish between Marxian theory and Historical Materialism,

in most respects they are synonymous. Historical Materialism may be characterised

as a more general account of society which is usually coupled with a Marxian hu-

man ontology. The latter has the flaw of reducing human beings to labourers,

where this is meant to be exhaustive; Historical Materialism has the flaw of not be-

ing able to account for those things that are not material, but nevertheless decisive

for our being.4 Insofar as Historical Materialism is not necessarily Marxian, criti-

cisms levelled at Marx’s writings do not have to apply necessarily to it. However,

unless otherwise indicated, I make no distinction between the two insofar as Marx’s

theory is what is known as Historical Materialism. Of course it can be argued that

Marx’s theory is a particular instance of Historical Materialism in general. Generally,

however, I do not think that much hinges on this difference. I am not questioning

whether Marx’s thought is a true instance of Historical Materialism, this is simply

not my interest here; I simply assume that if there is a canon of Historical Material-

ism it is to be found in Marx’ writings. The role of labour and the link between la-

bour and emancipation, which I investigate, is crucial and central in both.

2. Emancipation

I understand emancipation in the Enlightenment sense of the term, namely of per-

sons becoming increasingly self-reflective. Therefore, I am not talking about the

emancipation of women, nor of any other modern identity-related issues as in gen-

der-debates.

What is decisive for the Marxian use of ‘emancipation’ is its connection with the

underlying picture of the essence of man that Marx works out particularly in his

early writings and which remains the crucial basis for his entire approach. Unlike the

Enlightenment thinkers, Marx localises this essence in labour – the activity that, ac-

cording to him, defines man’s relation to nature as well as to other men. Emancipa-

tion thereby becomes a specific trait of the working class. In short, ‘emancipation’

acquires a certain social and political spin since it now refers to the development of

4 This will become apparent in my criticism of Habermas, who may accordingly be classed as an un-marxian Historical Materialist.

15

the proletariat and its rise to political power. More than “just” this socio-political

dimension, the concept remains true in form to the Enlightenment idea in ‘coming

to be what one is only potentially’, where this potentiality is wherein the human es-

sence consists. But through Marx the content of this potentiality, together with the

characteristics of labour and the working class, changes: it now means the realisa-

tion of a state of affairs in which men make history, instead of suffering it (GI)5. The

scope of emancipation available to the proletariat, according to Marx, is not just that

of self-reflective writers in an intellectual world of a public of readers as during the

Enlightenment (Marcuse, 2008, p.37), but that of a global society which can deter-

mine its own (future) historical development. This line of thought rests on the con-

fusion of poiesis and praxis, includes a misinterpretation of human interaction, and

leads to the abandonment of politics. This latter outcome is as explicit in Marx’s

own writings as in current post-modern conceptions of politics.

This particular Marxian understanding of emancipation will be explained and criti-

cised in the subsequent chapters. For the most part, unless otherwise stated, my

own understanding is based on the original Enlightenment-sense of the term

which, compared to most modern debates on the matter, is by now, in this rough

definition, almost a minimalist account. There is obvious scope to develop this

matter a lot further but here I decided against this for two primary reasons:

a) the minimalist Enlightenment understanding of emancipation that I have seems

to me sufficient for this current project. I am aware that in various current debates

most of the key terms in this definition are a matter of much argumentation: what

‘reflection’ is, what ‘realisation’ is, what or who exactly the ‘self’ is that is meant to

be reflective as well as reflected upon. Emancipation is thus bound up with such

various areas of enquiry as personal identity, epistemology and ontology.

This then constitutes my second point: b) the literature on emancipation is just as

vast as the literature on Marx or the literature on politics. If I can only begin to have

some overview over the approaches in these fields then it would have simply ex-

ceeded my capabilities to also engage with the vast and varied academic writings on

emancipation. There was simply neither scope nor time to include an analysis and

5 The standard reference for The German Ideology, unless otherwise indicated, is Riyasanskaya’s translation as in Marx, K., 1968, The German Ideology, Progress Publishers, Moscow

16

discussion of emancipation on top of what I have done. I hope, however, that what

I have done remains coherent and convincing without such a discussion.

3. Ontology and Politics

These two areas are the prime bases in my thesis. For reasons of clarity it would

have made sense to separate them, yet this proved almost impossible in a thesis

concerning the role of labour and its connection with politics and emancipation in

Historical Materialism. The reason for this difficulty, as I came to realise, is that

these two areas are strongly interconnected. As will become clear, ontological accounts

have immediate effects on the characterisation of politics: what we take to be the ontology of

human beings and societies, whether politics is specifically recognised or not, and

what shape and concerns the realm of politics has, are all intimately intertwined is-

sues. This holds for any ontological account of human life, for my concern here, it

holds particularly for both Marx and Arendt. The only difference is that Arendt is

explicit about how her characterisation of the realm of politics is anchored in her

ontology, whereas Marx comes to hold his particular views about politics without

realising that they are a natural outcome of the human ontology he presents.

I will try my best to separate ontology and politics as much as possible, where I am

unsuccessful in this respect I now consider this as evidence of their intimate con-

nection. Moreover, to stress this connection, and how it features in the various

writers I discuss, is one of the main points of this thesis.

17

I. Contra Historical Materialism

1. Introduction to the Materialist Account of Human Life

For Marx, offering a materialist account of human life meant to present it without recourse

to some transcendent reality and to explain it in terms of actual, or real, phenomena. This

materialism all too often understands itself as sufficient and exhaustive. It is this narrower,

and in my eyes reductionist, approach that I am opposed to: a materialist approach is an

important part of an ontology of human life but it is not exhaustive. For reasons to be ex-

plained later, Marx, in his materialist approach, considers production, and thus labour, to

be decisive: it is not just a primary feature by which our actions and history can be charac-

terised but the determining phenomenon. But to single out this one feature of our species is

reductive. Aspects such as agency and individuality are also central for any account of hu-

man life but are missing from Marx’s picture. I will argue that this is an outcome of his ma-

terialism and that the consequences are particularly damaging for the account of politics. A

materialist account of life can, at best, only inadequately account for these features, at worst

it neglects them. Treating a materialist approach as exhaustive therefore leads to insuper-

able problems. On the whole, Marx’s Materialism is itself only half the story: due to the

reductive framework that a materialist approach demands it misses the uniqueness and in-

dividuality of human beings. It is these latter features, however, that I consider most note-

worthy and which the reductive approach of Historical Materialism and the role of labour

therein makes inaccessible.

At times Marx is absolved from the task of human ontology since one of his claims is that

human nature is socially and historically constructed. Since humans are so malleable there

simply is no human nature. Rather than discerning the roots of human life it is claimed that

Marx merely wanted to provide a way, not the way, to social developments or states of af-

fairs. My arguments would accordingly misfire because they aim at a position Marx appar-

ently did not occupy. However, I find such claims unfair to Marx.

His project is based on a particular account of human life. Only because Marx thinks human

life to be material does he think that his approach to society is realistic (in the double-sense

Chapter I: Marx and Historical Materialism

18

of ‘correct’ and ‘realisable’).1 This by itself is not contentious. On the contrary, a compre-

hensive explanatory account better had some ontological roots because without such a ba-

sis on which an explanation can rest it would be merely imaginary and disconnected from

human life. But to explain the latter was precisely Marx’ goal. Thus, my issue here is with

Marx’ ontology of human beings and I take him to engage in this issue particularly in the

publications before he started to work on Capital.2 But also after the early writings Marx did

not change his mind on these topics significantly. To deny these writings the status of writ-

ings on human nature is to be unfair to Marx. Throughout all of his early writings from the

Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (1844) until the Preface to the Contribution to Political Econ-

omy (1859), it is clear that his goal is an account of human nature. We can summarise him

by saying that individuals are what they do;3 and what they do that distinguishes them firstly

from animals, is production, which is hence the distinguishing feature of humans.4 It sepa-

rates them from animals and it is the basis for their mutual interaction. I agree that produc-

tion does distinguish humans from animals but it does not suffice for the explanation of ac-

tions and other distinctively human features, for example that each individual has a unique

personality that he/she is aware of. Marx does not claim that production is all there is to

humanity, but he certainly thinks it is the real determining factor since everything else is built

upon it. I will prove this below. Whether production is the genealogical base level (that is,

whether it was the initial cause) of human interaction or not, my claim is that it does not

suffice as an account of human interaction and the latter cannot be reduced to the former.

The sheer fact that Marx enquires into man’s ‘species being’ or ‘essence’, as he sometimes

calls it, indicates that he provides an ontological account. Thus, claiming that Marx merely

focussed on one issue amongst many and that his account is only meant to be an explanatory

1 See also Cohen (1978), ch. 7; Simon (1994), p.xxiii; Karlsson, (2001), pp.4, 9ff.,; Runciman (1969), p.50ff.; I. Forbes (1983), McLellan (1984) p.43 2 Cf. Chitty, (1993), Press, (1977), Fromm, (2006). 3 “As individuals express their life, so they are. What they are, therefore, coincides with their produc-tion, both with what they produce and with how they produce. The nature of individuals thus depends on the material conditions determining their production.” (GI, p.32, original emphasis)

“The fact is, therefore, that definite individuals, who are productively active in a definite way enter into these definite social and political relations. Empirical observation must in each separate instance bring out empirically, and without any mystification or speculation, the connection of the social and political struc-ture with production. The social structure and the State are continually evolving out of the life-processes of definitive individuals, but of individuals, not as they may appear in their own or other people’s imagination, but as they really are; i.e., as they operate, produce materially, and hence as they work under definite material limits, presuppositions and conditions independent of their will.” (GI, p.36f. original emphasis)

This is repeated very closely in the 1859 Preface including the well known phrase “It is not the con-sciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their conscious-ness.” (Simon, 1994, p.211) 4 “Men can be distinguished from animals by consciousness, by religion or anything you like. They themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of sub-sistence, a step which is conditioned by their physical organisation” (GI, p.31, original emphasis)

19

account is to be too friendly and apologetic to Marx. He did think he discovered new in-

sights into the being of man. Of course he thereby also gives an explanatory account, but

the reason why he thinks that his explanation is better than that of others before him is

precisely that he has an ontological foundation (which is moreover empirical, contrary to

Hegel’s, at least as portrayed by Marx). Economy and production are important because

they strike the very core of human life. Due to this conviction Marx is so adamant in his

writings. Terms like ‘alienation’ and ‘self-realisation’ make no sense without supposing that

Marx thereby thought on an ontological level of human existence in general. To remove

him from this area is to be unfair to him. The direct correspondence between the condi-

tions of production and social relations, which Marx points out, is the central claim of His-

torical Materialism. This correspondence must be based on at least some preliminary onto-

logical account, for otherwise it would turn out altogether arbitrary. Thus, not only is it a

mistake to deny Marx ontological claims, it is also inconceivable to be a Historical Material-

ist without assuming the direct correspondence between facts and norms to be backed up

by at least some preliminary ontological account.5

Preview

In what follows I criticise Marx for an incomplete account of human nature. I will focus on

4 main areas:

1) the account of human life

2) the abolition of labour and the division of labour

3) the relation between individual and community

4) the view of politics

The account of human life is the essential area in which all subsequent issues are rooted. A

thorough critique of this account will therefore have important effects on the latter. Prob-

lems arise because a) the account is taken to be exhaustive when it is in fact reductive and

because b) Marx does not sufficiently distinguish between necessary and artificial engage-

ment with the world. The consequences of a) are inadequate accounts of human relations,

politics, and history; the consequences of b) are inadequate accounts of labour and produc-

tion.

5 Cohen distinguishes the “thesis that Marx vested primacy in the forces [of production] […] from the thesis that they are primary” (1978, p.134, original emphasis). The latter is a statement about a matter of fact, the former is the claim that Marx endorsed this statement. I think it is clear that Marx did endorse this state-ment and that it is the central statement of Historical Materialism.


20

As helpful and important as such an approach is – Marx went too far. In his effort to re-

main empirical he reduces humans to what he, in his early writings, calls ‘species-being’.

Even though he moves away from this term in his later writings he nevertheless sticks to

the account of human nature presented in his early writings. These writings are the basis

for his Materialism, which, in turn, is the motive for all his writing. In short, if one thinks

about social reality in materialist terms, that is, real conditions such as need and production,

then deciphering them is to inquire into the determining factors of social reality. If these

factors can be discerned, analysed, and explained then one cannot only explain why social

reality and its phenomena are as they are, but, more importantly, one can also start to direct

it - this was Marx’ thought and project. At the stage when this is realised (communism)

humans could then shape their own reality to the benefit of all.

Marx saw human life and reality primarily shaped by production and thus economy. Hence,

by analysing these areas Marx thought he was inquiring into the core factor of human life,

or at least a factor the understanding of which could afford people with the power to attain

freedom. However admirable, Marx’ framework cannot deliver the goods and the reason is

that the frame is too tight: human reality is not only material and to explain it only in those

terms either leaves out important human features, or implausibly reduces them to material

ones. This is my central claim against Historical Materialism throughout this investigation

and will be elaborated later. The problems that I point out will then lead to some specific

criticism of what is missing from Marx’s account (and Materialist accounts in general). If

production is taken as a sufficient basis to explain human life then its characterisation is

always limited by this focus on production. What is left out by such an account is what Ar-

endt called ‘action’ and Habermas calls ‘communicative action’.

In short, work is, as Marx would agree, an instrumental relationship with the world and is

driven by instrumental reasoning. As he said quite rightly, it is “a process in which both

man and Nature participate, and in which man of his own accord starts, regulates, and con-

trols the material reactions between him and Nature” (C, p.173). Of course, man does not

fully regulate it and also has to abide by the rules that Nature imposes on him. Man does

not make Nature in its entirety after all. Although human life is greatly affected by this in-

strumental connection I claim that it does not suffice to account for human society and

history. Marx thought that this functional relationship between man and world is the basis

for and translates into relationships between people, i.e. the direct correspondence between

21

facts and norms. I argue that the framework guiding interaction is very different from that

of instrumental rationality. The devil is hidden in the details about our individuality, our

reasons to act, the interpretation of our acts by others, the way we are evaluated by others,

etc. No knowledge stemming purely from and concerned with production can give an actor any information

about the nature and values of interaction between persons. The simplest social situation of merely

two people immediately confronts each with an infinity of actions, inactions and their

meanings and values that is vastly different from our interaction with the world as an ob-

ject.


22

2. Marx’s Human Ontology

Marx starts with a straightforward claim, namely that the first condition for all human his-

tory is “the existence of living human individuals” (GI, p.31). This is true but in his account

of human life Marx singles out one particular feature about humans and explains all of hu-

man life in its terms, that feature is production. Production is not only the first action that

distinguishes man from animals, it is also the origin of all subsequent development. Marx’s

account, to be sure, is coherent, but as an ontological basis to describe human history it is

too narrow. He locates the origin of the distinction between humans and animals in the

production of the ‘means to subsistence, a step which is conditioned by their physical or-

ganisation’ (GI, p.31). By ‘subsistence’ Marx means ‘producing their own life’ and it is the

concepts of ‘production’ and ‘life’ that are my primary concern. In the next few subsections

I will point out various areas in which Marx’ Historical Materialism with its focus on pro-

duction is evident.

2.1. Marx’s philosophical-anthropological account of human genesis

Particularly in The German Ideology we find a philosophical-anthropological account of the

development of the human species. According to Marx humans have a history because they

produce and have corresponding relations. The first historical act is the satisfaction of the

first need, which then leads to the second act, namely the rise of new needs. The third his-

torical act is procreation.1 These are the three aspects of human history for Marx. A fourth

element needed for consciousness is being social, which, for Marx, means nothing more

than that people have a ‘productive force’, that they cooperate in production (GI, p.41).

It is evident that, from the start, Marx views production as the main feature of human life.

As individuals express their life, so they are. What they are, therefore, coincides

with their production, both with what they produce and with how they pro-

duce. The nature of individuals thus depends on the material conditions determining their

production. This production only makes its appearance with the increase of popu-

1 Although I will not elaborate this here, the second and third acts are questionable in their consideration as acts. If an act is something that one does, i.e. a deed, then this second act is questionable as a deed, since, that a new need arises is not an act, that is, something that I do, rather it is something that happens to me. Concerning the third we can ask why it is historical: because it relies on the first and second historical acts or because it is done by humans? All those options fail: neither does procreation depend on the production of means of life, nor is it specifically human, for all animals procreate too. Although the way Marx marries this into his account works out really well (see below p.30f., 35).

Marx’s Human Ontology and the Workings of Society

23

lation. In its turn this presupposes the intercourse [Verkehr] of individuals with

one another. The form of this intercourse is again determined by production. (GI, p.32, my

emphasis)

The fundamental form of this activity [interaction, U.M.] is, of course, material;

on which depend all other forms – mental, political, religious, etc. (GI, p.89)

The economic structure of society is the real foundation [of society], on which

arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite

forms of social consciousness. (1859 Preface, Simon, p.211)

For Marx human relations, society and history are all based on production and can hence

be explained by it. He sees this as the only adequate way of accounting for them. If it were

otherwise his approach would only be one among many, but Marx thought he found the

rock-bottom of all social phenomena.2

The fact is, therefore, that definite individuals who are productively active in a

definite way enter into these definite social and political relations.[…] The social

structure and the State are continually evolving out of the life-process of defi-

nite individuals, but of individuals, not as they may appear in their own or other

people’s imagination, but as they really are; i.e. as they operate, produce materi-

ally, and hence as they work under definite material limits, presuppositions and

conditions independent of their will. […]

The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly in-

terwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the lan-

guage of real life. Conceiving, thinking, the mental intercourse of men, appear

at this stage as the direct efflux of their material behaviour. The same applies to

mental production as expressed in the language of politics, laws, morality, relig-

ion, metaphysics, etc., of a people. Men are the producers of their conceptions,

ideas, etc. – real, active men, as they are conditioned by a definite development

of their productive forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these, up to

its furthest forms. […]

We set out from real, active men, and on the basis of their real life-process we

demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life-

process. The phantoms formed in the human brain are also, necessarily, subli-

2 “Traditional history, which focuses on matters of state and political, diplomatic and military affairs, misses, according to Marx, the crucial level of historical explanation. Developments at the level of the rela-tions of production explain political events rather than the other way round.” (Simon, p. xxii). Cf McLellan (1984) pp. 38-43, 67


24

mates of their material life-process, which is empirically verifiable and bound to

material premises. Morality, religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and

their corresponding forms of consciousness, thus no longer retain the sem-

blance of independence.” (GI, p.36ff.)

Thus, everything, including all human relations, is understood in terms of production.3 For

Marx people are only together in order to produce and procreate. In other words, they are

together because of their needs. This picture of humans as needy beings that create their

own means of survival also emerges earlier in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts in the

notion of ‘species-being’. Concerning human interaction Marx then claims the following:

By social we understand the co-operation of several individuals, no matter un-

der what conditions, in what manner and to what end. It follows from this that

a certain mode of production, or industrial stage, is always combined with a cer-

tain mode of co-operation, or social stage, and this mode of co-operation is it-

self a “productive force.” Further, that the multitude of productive forces ac-

cessible to men determines the nature of society, hence, that the “history of

humanity” must always be studied and treated in relation to the history of in-

dustry and exchange. […] Thus it is quite obvious from the start that there ex-

ists a materialistic connection of men with one another, which is determined by

their needs and their mode of production, and which is as old as men them-

selves. This connection is ever taking on new forms, and thus presents a “his-

tory” independently of the existence of any political or religious nonsense

which in addition may hold men together. (GI, p.41)

Also in Capital we still find this thought:

The life-process of society, which is based on the process of material produc-

tion […]. (C, p.84)

[…] the economic structure of society, is the real basis on which the juridical

and political superstructure is raised […] the mode of production determines

the character of the social, political, and intellectual life generally […]. (in a

footnote, C, p.86)

3 Lukács (1980), as one among many, carries on this thought and claims „All those determinations which we shall see to make up the essence of what is new in social being are contained in nuce in labour.“ (p.v). Sartre (1990) also endorses this thought only that he expresses it in terms of lack, i.e. scarcity: “[…] we already know that conflicts and social struggles as much as individual battles are all conditioned by scarcity; negation of man by the Earth being interiorized as a negation of man by man.” (p.13, original empasis).


25

The picture that emerges here and which runs like a thread through all of Marx’s writings is

this: he analyses human nature with his focus set on needs, desires and their satisfaction.

What is distinctive about humans is that they produce the means for their own subsistence

(‘instruments of satisfaction’, i.e. foods, tools and other utilities). This subsistence is the

rock-bottom of all existence, history, and relations, and hence Marx explains all of these in

terms of production. Not ‘political or religious nonsense’ brings and holds people together

but sheer ‘industry and exchange’. ‘Social’ means co-operation in terms of ‘productive

force’. Thus, the theme of production is all-pervasive. Even the social sphere of human life

is understood in terms of it and therefore also history: “Men have history because they

must produce their life […]” (marginal note by Marx in GI, p.42, original emphasis).4 In

short, life is material, it requires the satisfaction of needs, man must produce to satisfy his

needs, hence, all of life centres on needs and their satisfaction through production. This

account of human nature, for Marx, is empirical, exhaustive, and thereby, necessary and

sufficient.5

2.2. Combating arbitrariness through controlled production

Further proof for this veneration of production is the conclusion that Marx draws from

this account of human life, namely that the control of production is the key to the control of social

relations.6 One major focus of Marx’s criticism is the seeming arbitrariness of price-

developments on the market. Capitalism is not only disadvantageous because it creates

alienation, but also because life’s circumstances become external and seemingly arbitrary to

the single person and society as a whole. The value of one’s labour-power is subject to ex-

ternal forces as well as the supply of goods needed for life and thus people have to worry

4 Further evidence for this account of history: “History is nothing but the succession of the separate generations, each of which exploits the materials, the capital funds, the productive forces handed down to it by all preceding generations […].” (GI, p.50)

“This conception of history depends on our ability to expound the real process of production, start-ing out from the material production of life itself, and to comprehend the form of intercourse connected with this and created by this mode of production (i.e. civil society in its various stages), as the basis of all history; and to show it in its action as State, to explain all the different theoretical products and forms of conscious-ness, religion, philosophy, ethics, etc. etc. and trace their origins and growth from that basis […].” (GI, p.50)

“Thus all collisions in history have their origin, according to our view, in the contradiction between the productive forces and the form of intercourse.” (GI, p.87) 5 “The relation of the productive forces to the form of intercourse is the relation of the form of inter-course to the occupation or activity of individuals. (The fundamental form of this activity is, of course, mate-rial, on which depend all other forms – mental, political, religious, etc. the various shaping of material life is, of course, in every case dependent on the needs which are already developed, and the production, as well as the satisfaction, of these needs is an historical process […])”. (GI, p.89) 6 GI, pp.50ff., cf. Simon, 1994, p.xi


26

constantly about their bare life.7 This also leads to social disintegration. Already in the Ger-

man Ideology Marx complains that in most industrial societies the individuals are scattered

(i.e. isolated), not geographically but socially and capitalism is particularly ‘successful’ at

separating people despite close geographical proximity. The conditions of life appear to

them external, coincidental, and uncontrollable.8

In Capital we find the elaborated version of this thought in Marx’s criticism of the fluctuat-

ing market prices. Not only do the supplies and prices of the products vary constantly, but

due to them and the use of machinery also the price of labour-power (C, p.406, 414, 490, C

III, p.180f.). So, not only is the supply of use-values increasingly variable but so is the price

of the person’s own ability to work; not only external things (the social and economic sys-

tem) are arbitrary but so seems the inner quality of one’s abilities. This quality does not really

change, of course, because whatever the economic circumstances are one nevertheless

keeps one’s labour-power. But under capitalism one may be an able-bodied worker, yet

when one’s abilities are not needed, which is decided by external factors that the labourer

has no control over, then one’s labour-power is worthless. Since the labourer does not own

the means of production and has to sell his labour-power in order to have access to them,

he has no means of producing for himself when he cannot sell his labour, i.e. when he can-

not find employment. Hence, there seems to be insecurity all around: in the way the out-

side world works and in the way one’s personal contribution to it will be valued.

“Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social

conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch

from all earlier ones. […] All that is solid melts into air.” (CM, p.83)

Thus, it is the arbitrariness and fluctuation of the market that Marx criticises and he there-

fore attempts to regulate it since this would then resolve the disagreeable results of an un-

regulated economy. To regulate the market efficiently Marx has to find the root that causes

these fluctuations. He detects it in the uncontrolled production of commodities by inde-

pendent producers.9 Commodities are produced for exchange on the market and due to

7 Marx encountered this worry personally: many times during his life the family was bankrupt and if Engels could not help then the riches of his wife, who had a wealthy background, often ended up at the pawnbrokers. This constant insecurity was a strain on the family. 8 “Competition isolates individuals […] despite the fact that it brings them together.” (GI, Simon, p.142) 9 See Capital chapter 1, section 4; chapter 2; chapter 14, section 4; chapter 15, sections 3, 5, 7, 8; ch.23; C III, chapter 10 “Modern bourgeois society with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and exchange, is like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells.” (CM, p.85f., see also p.89). See


27

competition their quantities and market prices vary constantly. In capitalism, therefore,

everything evolves around the profit to be made from commodities and they are regarded

as objective entities. Consequently, interaction between people “takes the form of the ac-

tion of objects, which rule the producers instead of being ruled by them” (C, p.79). In

short, it is the uncontrolled influx of commodities on the market that turns it into turmoil.

The remedy therefore lies in the control of production:

The life-process of society, which is based on the process of material production,

does not strip off its mystical veil until it is treated as production by freely asso-

ciated men, and is consciously regulated by them in accordance with a settled plan. (C,

p.84, my emphasis)

If production was ‘consciously regulated’, Marx argues, i.e. commodities, supply and de-

mand abolished, then the arbitrariness of the price of labour-power would disappear: then

prices could be determined beforehand, namely through the amount of the socially neces-

sary labour-time, and labour also more conveniently distributed.10 However, for Marx the

source and the solution to this problem of arbitrariness are both located in production: it is

the main determining factor of all social relations.

The market prices, however, are only the economic indicator, the market expression, of the

arbitrariness that underlies all human relations and Marx’s real project is to eliminate ex-

actly this last factor (C, p.414f.). It is the relations between people that have gotten out of

hand, more precisely, out of their own hands and thus external to them, and Marx’s project is

to rectify this external rule of mere fortune.11 More important than the market, for Marx,

are the people in the market. The problem is that what happens on the market, and there-

fore in production, is closely connected to what happens between people. This connection

between the economic and the social realm is, after all, the most fundamental core of His-

torical Materialism. The arbitrariness of market prices is parallel with, and causally related

to, the arbitrariness of the relations that govern people’s lives. This constitutes the connec-

also The Poverty of Philosophy [Marx: Das Elend der Philosophie, S. 82. Digitale Bibliothek Band 11: Marx/Engels, S. 2389 (vgl. MEW Bd. 4, S. 93-94)]; “In existing society, in industry based on individual exchange, anarchy of production, which is the source of so much misery, is at the same time the source of all progress.” (Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, 1963, p.68, em-phasis added); see also Wages, Price and Profit; [Engels: Umrisse zu einer Kritik der Nationalökonomie, S. 33. Digitale Bibliothek Band 11: Marx/Engels, S. 519 (vgl. MEW Bd. 1, S. 514)]; GI, Simon, p.120ff., 144ff.; 10 The same thought can already be found in the German Ideology (Simon, p.144). Whether this attempt would succeed or not is not my concern here. Planned economies have been and are still being used in some countries (Cuba, North Korea, Myanmar) but whether these economies are successful is another question. I think that Marx’s approach is too one-sided here, for Marx underestimates demand, which, importantly, cannot be controlled. See next section below and 3.8. Summary, p.66ff. 11 Schaff (1965, p.142f.) calls this the ‘spontaneity of progress’ and also advocates to defeat it.


28

tion of the economic and the social realm. Most generally we can say that the rule of things

(commodities) over people is concomitant with the rule of external relations (economic, mar-

ket, political relations) over people in general. This is already expressed in the different

meanings of ‘alienation’: alienation from the object of labour, from the activity of labour,

from other labourers, and overall from one’s essence (or species-being).

That Marx subsumes those phenomena under one term expresses his thought that they are

related, that they are one issue. Put more generally: alienation in labour leads to alienation

amongst people and therefore if you combat one you thereby also combat the other. The

most fundamental factors for Marx in this respect are the division of labour and private

property: they are at the root of the entire problem since they enable the separation of man

from his activities, i.e. they are the material preconditions of alienation (see next section).

Changing them will affect all the various aspects of alienation. At the most general level we

may say that the control of the economy will mean the control over these arbitrary human

relations, that it will eliminate these external relations that rule the labourers.

It is thus the arbitrariness of 19th century industrial life that bothers Marx. Capitalism has

led to great advances, but at the price of millions of people labouring in appalling condi-

tions. Through the economy acting on an ever larger scale (from local, via regional, then

national, to international and, today, global scale) a vastly increasing number of people are

subject to suffer the impact of processes that have seemingly nothing to do with them. But

according to Marx we are capable of controlling these relations.12 We simply do not realise,

or rather, we are kept from realising by the ruling ideology: one of Marx’s criticisms against

the national economists is that they postulate the arbitrariness of supply and demand, and

thereby the instability of prices, as an unchangeable fact. Marx thinks this is a mistake, in

fact, it betrays the bourgeois intellect (C, p.85, 503ff., C III, p.181f).

This is important for the connection between the economic and the normative realm. Ac-

cording to Marx we are the only species that is capable of analysing its own workings. That

is, we can find out what conditions our lives. Marx thinks he has done this with his phi-

losophical anthropology. Notably, he thinks that everything can be accounted for materially

(however broadly this term is used) and that it can therefore be studied objectively (hence

12 This is another reason for why communism can only work globally, because only then all factors that can impact people’s lives are under control. As long as there is an outside, i.e. somewhere that is not under communist control, this outside will be unpredictable and a threat to the relations between people in communism. Note, however, that in this case any social system can only work globally, since the threat of the outside is common to them all.


29

scientific socialism).13 This is the intention of Historical Materialism as a framework.

Through it, we can advance from being subject to these conditions in which we live to being

masters of them. This is what fuels Marx’s frustration: not only the glaring injustice con-

fronting labourers but the fact that we are advanced enough in order to control our own

destiny. As he says, we can become history makers, instead of being history sufferers, or

that capitalism is the last stage in human pre-history, for human history truly begins when

man not only realises his power but starts to use it.14 This can be traced back to Hegel who

conceives of history as Spirit realising itself. The end, the telos, is Spirit realising its own re-

alisation, i.e. that it becomes self-aware. Marx is dissatisfied with Hegel because realisation is

not enough for him: action has to follow this realisation, otherwise it is useless.15 Hence

Marx’s dissatisfaction with idealism: it focussed on realisation, but said nothing about action.

Hence his words that so far philosophers have only interpreted the world when the real

project is to change it (Theses on Feuerbach, Simon, 1994, p.101).

To summarise: human life and relations, for Marx, are based on people’s needs. By ac-

counting and analysing those needs he thinks it is possible to control human life in the

sense of enabling people to take life into their own hands, rather than being at the mercy of

Fortuna, that is, the arbitrariness of the circumstances of one’s life. Under capitalism this

arbitrariness, or Fortuna, has developed into an absolute uncertainty about one’s future

without any means to control or escape the impact of large-scale economic forces. Marx

13 Although Marx never uses the expression ‘scientific socialism’, Engels does. That Engels’ use is neverthe-less based on Marx’s claims is clear. See EPM (Simon, 1994, p.76ff.): “But natural science has penetrated and transformed human life all the more practically through industry, preparing for human emancipation however much it immediately had to accentuate dehumanisation. Industry is the actual historical relationship of nature, and thus of natural science, to man. […] One basis for life and another for science is in itself a lie. History itself is an actual part of natural history, of nature’s development into man. Natural science will in time include the science of man as the science of man will include natural science: There will be one science. […] The social actuality of nature and human natural science or the natural science of man are identical expressions.” (original emphasis) 14 Engels expresses this later in this fashion: “With the seizing of the means of production by society, production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the product over the pro-ducer. Anarchy in social production is replaced by systematic, definite organization. The struggle for individ-ual existence disappears. Then, for the first time, man, in a certain sense, is finally marked off from the rest of the animal kingdom, and emerges from mere animal conditions of existence into really human ones. The whole sphere of the conditions of life which environ man, and which have hitherto ruled man, now comes under the dominion and control of man, who for the first time becomes the real, conscious lord of nature, because he has now become master of his own social or-ganization. The laws of his own social action, hitherto standing face-to-face with man as laws of Nature foreign to, and dominat-ing him, will then be used with full understanding, and so mastered by him. Man's own social organization, hitherto confronting him as a necessity imposed by Nature and history, now becomes the result of his own free action. The extraneous objective forces that have, hitherto, governed history, pass under the control of man himself. Only from that time will man himself, more and more consciously, make his own history — only from that time will the social causes set in movement by him have, in the main and in a constantly growing measure, the results intended by him. It is the ascent of man from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom.” (Engels, 1962, p.153, my emphasis) 15 This is Marx’s criticism of Hegel. Whether this analysis and criticism of Hegel and idealism is correct is another matter.


30

thought this arbitrariness to be an illusion: since the market and the economy is man-made

and satisfies accountable human needs it ought to be possible to bring it under human con-

trol. That is, with the right approach, namely Historical Materialism, the supposed arbi-

trariness of modern life, which is due to the uncontrolled production in a capitalist market

economy, can be replaced by man’s ability to direct his own life. All this can be accom-

plished by a study of production and human needs: needs are what brings people together,

needs are what makes them trade, and through historical development this leads to the

creation of the economy which centres on consumption, and therefore, again, on need.

This is also why the notion of the ‘associated producers’ is crucial for Marx since they

would pool the information about needs and production, distribute goods and work ac-

cordingly, and would thereby prevent the market from getting out of hand, more precisely,

this would abolish the market as we know it. This, in turn, would prevent the situation in

which goods dominate their producers.16 Throughout all this the link between the eco-

nomic and the normative realm, between the relations of production and the social rela-

tions is asserted, sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly.17

The division of labour

As just argued, at the basis of Marx’s thought of human nature is an attention to our

physiological constitution. It is what he considers ‘real’ as opposed to such abstractions as

Hegel’s ‘Spirit’. This constitution anchors us as beings with needs and hence the needs that

Marx appeals to are mostly bodily: he refers to food, shelter, warmth, etc. Although he

considers the emergence of new needs a positive development he does not give many con-

crete examples other than that of art. In order for his account to remain as ‘real’ and an-

thropologically based as he intends it, it is important for Marx to stress the connection to

our physiological nature and therefore the image of needs remains bodily and physical. This

appeal to bodily needs that runs through Marx’s account of human life and production re-

veals itself also in his account of the division of labour. The first natural instance, and

therefore the origin of the division of labour, is located by Marx in the act of procreation

and the roles of man and woman played therein: “[…] there develops the division of la-

bour, which was originally nothing but the division of labour in the sexual act […]” (GI, p.

43). Bodily needs are here consistently united with his thoughts on the origin of social rela-

16 Lenin (1978, p.92), in adequate correspondence with this approach, writes: “The whole of society will have become a single office and single factory, with equality of labour and pay.” 17 This is the link that Habermas will later criticise (see chapter 3).


31

tions in the relationship between man and woman. Generally this manifests Marx’ tendency

to base labour in the process of life: labour is the necessary production of one’s own life

and also the production of new life (i.e. procreation).

A crucial point is the evaluation of the division of labour. Depending on the context, Marx

varies between advocating and objecting to it. On the one hand, Marx is aware that the di-

vision of labour is one main reason for the increasing productivity of modern industry:

“Labour itself can only exist on the premise of this fragmentation” (GI¸p.83).18 On the

other hand, his analysis of wage-labour and private property leads him to identify the divi-

sion of labour as the origin of alienation and therefore he wants to abolish it.

“[…] the division of labour implies the possibility, nay the fact that intellectual

and material activity – enjoyment and labour, production and consumption –

devolve on different individuals, and that the only possibility of their not com-

ing into contradiction lies in the negation in its turn of the division of labour.

[…] With the division of labour […] is given simultaneously the distribution,

and indeed the unequal distribution, both quantitative and qualitative, of labour

and its products, hence property […]. Division of labour and private property

are, moreover, identical expressions […]. Further, the division of labour implies

the contradiction between the interest of the separate individual or the individ-

ual family and the communal interest of all individuals who have intercourse

with one another.”19 (GI, p.44)

In other words: the division of labour means the unequal distribution of labour, the juxta-

position of individual and private interests, private property, and alienation. Thus, the divi-

sion of labour triggers the division between individual and common interest: man gets lost

in his own individual interests, becomes solitary and sees ‘all others’ as rivals to himself. He

becomes, so to say, a psychological egoist. Consequently, Marx, in contrast, envisaged the

‘socialised man’ (vergesellschafteter Mensch) as an ideal. But as long as labour is divided this will

lead to inequalities. Communism, by contrast, is meant to remedy all this by abolishing the

division of labour.20 This will free the individual from his own egoistic interests and lead it

to true (un-alienated) self-realisation within the general interest.

18 Lenin (1978) also relied on this fact and consequently advocated the division of labour for the sake of productivity to tayloristic proportions. A later outgrowth in the 1930’s was the Stakhanovite movement. 19 Notice that my reading here is even a favourable one, because the passages I leave out are those identifying the family as the hub of division of labour and thereby slavery. 20 Cf. GI, p.45, which includes the famous idealisation of “hunt in the evening, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner”.


32

I do not want to argue about this approach to the division of labour as a whole, although it

is question-worthy. But I would like to raise two related concerns.

1) One obvious question is how Marx envisages society to survive without the division of

labour, let alone without labour in general. Marx imagines the communist society to be able

to cater for everyone’s needs and allow every individual full freedom in the choice of his

actions. Thus, what Marx needs is an efficiently running production and distribution of es-

sential goods. Marx knows this of course, but only says that “society regulates the general

production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow

[…]” (p.45) yet it “will make possible the normal satisfaction of all needs, i.e. a satisfaction

which is limited only by the needs themselves” (GI, MECW, Vol.5, p.255-6). But how he

wants to accomplish this without the division of labour and without limiting anyone’s free-

dom of action is a mystery. One escape is endorsed by Schaff (1965, pp.177,178) who

solves this problem in the radical way of denying both of Marx’s claims: he judges the abo-

lition of the division of labour, as well as the free choice of one’s activities, simply as unat-

tainable.21 Whether one agrees with Schaff’s sobering analysis or not, the fact remains that

Marx never specifies to what extent the division of labour is meant to be abolished.

2) The second question concerns Marx’ thoughts on distribution: as already mentioned

above, he does not think that distribution will be directed by supply and demand. In fact,

communism will “dissolve” this relation entirely (GI, p.47f.). But how will it do so? There

are two options, neither of which is satisfactory: Either a) by focussing on supply Marx as-

sumes a simply naïve and unrealistic view according to which, under the right kind of rule,

everything can be supplied everywhere, anytime, to everyone’s satisfaction; or b) by focus-

sing on demand, he thinks that human wants are actually fairly easy to fulfil. The first op-

tion is simply unrealistic because it postulates an infinite abundance of natural resources.

The second option would find evidence in the examples Marx’ gives of some of the basic

needs: food, clothing, and shelter. But it seems that one fact - that Marx himself mentions

elsewhere and which we today know from experience - comes to his detriment: namely that

many human wants are unsatisfiable. Marx himself noted as the first historical act the

emergence of new needs after the satisfaction of prior ones. Today we know this from daily

experience: in our, aptly called, ‘consumer-societies’ every satisfied need will either, given

time, arise again or spawn a new need. It is because of this fact that modern economy,

which is based on it, keeps on going and growing.

21 Interestingly Schaff does consider himself a Marxist. This correction of Marx’s thought is one amongst many that Schaff undertakes after which, despite Schaff’s assurances to the contrary, not much of Marx is left (see particularly pp. 167-181, ibid.).


33

In the later passages of the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts Marx is absolutely right: we

constantly create new needs and wants and with consumption we trigger new ones again.

Under capitalism money becomes the arbiter and access to those wants and their satisfac-

tion. But if wants are in principle unsatisfiable then it is a fact about us that no social sys-

tem can change, not even communism, simply because it is not the result of the social

world (already Hobbes (2005, esp. ch.6) pointed to this fact ). Of course we can still differ-

entiate here: certain wants are surely a product of the social world and are, as Marx would

say, historical. Thus, some people in the western world may impatiently await the next al-

bum of a particular artist, a book, a car, a clothing range, etc. whereas a monk in Tibet

wants none of these things. But this says nothing about the nature of needs as such, only

something about particular instances of them, namely that some have them and others do

not. It may be healthy if we did cultivate some of the asceticism of monks but in that case

we are starting to diverge from Marx, who considered the development and emergence of

new needs to be a sign of progress.22

What I have done so far is to show the centrality of needs and production in Marx’s

thought. They play the main role in his human ontology by defining our being and our so-

cial life. The increasing dependence of people (particularly workers) on the surrounding

social system, as well as that system itself (namely capitalism), leads to an escalation of the

factors that affect their lives. This is what I have referred to above as ‘arbitrariness’. By lo-

cating the root of this arbitrariness in the organisation of production Marx thinks that it is

also here that we have to change the system. Since the arbitrariness is man-made we are, for

Marx, also able to control it: instead of being subject to external factors we should be masters

of them.

22 Peter Sloterdijk (1995) has commented on this veneration of ‘productivity’: “The general industrial process consumes more natural and human “resources” than it can create or regenerate. In this way it is autopoietic like cancer, as creative as a firework, as productive as the growing of drugs. What has been hailed as human productivity without hardly any resistance for almost 200 years is becoming increasingly transparent in its destructive and addictive character. Over an entire sequence of generations did more-living, more-consuming, more-devaluing and younger generations replace more conserving, relatively saving, relatively less exciting older ones.” (p.75, translation U.M.)


34

3. Consequences and Criticisms

The problem of needs

As just argued, Marx defines humans via our needs: they define us as who we are.1 In many

of his claims about the being of man, and also about the reasons for why we are social

animals, he centres on the thought that we have necessary needs which are best served in

society. Often these needs are physiological in nature and thereby independent from the

particular social setting, for example when Marx considers production “a fundamental con-

dition of all history, which today, as thousands of years ago, must daily and hourly be ful-

filled merely in order to sustain human life” (GI, p.39). Also the notion of “species-being”

and the four constituents that he considers fundamental for human life and history – 1) the

continuation of one’s own life through labour, 2) the creation of needs, 3) the creation of

others’ life through procreation, and 4) the social being of humans, meaning that they have

a ‘productive force’ (GI, p.39ff.) – clearly show the narrow focus on biological processes.2

The activity instrumental for the satisfaction of those needs, namely through the produc-

tion of the means of satisfaction, is labour, which is therefore a necessary and an inviolable

condition for our existence.3 This connection between needs and labour is central and cru-

cial to Marx’s philosophical anthropology. Yet it is not clear what exactly the product of la-

bour is. In what follows I shall prepare the grounds for what Arendt later (1958) distin-

guishes as two differing activities: labour and work.

1 See also Chitty (1993, p.24): “For Marx, the essence of man consists in the first instance in his char-acteristic activity, namely species activity. From this starting point, it is possible to see how the essence of man could also consist in his characteristic needs.” (original emphasis). See also Elster (1985, pp. 61,68) “[…] the beginning for Marx is not alienation. The beginning is need, and the satisfaction of need.” cf. Press (1977, p.331) 2 Cf EPM: “Species-life, both for man and for animals, consists physically in the fact that man, like animals, lives from inorganic nature; and because man is more universal than animals, so too is the area of inorganic nature from which he lives more universal. […] For in the first place labour, life activity, productive life itself, appears to man only as a means for the satisfaction of a need, the need to preserve physical existence. But productive life is species-life. It is life-producing life. The whole character of a species, its species-character, resides in the nature of its life activity, and free conscious activity constitutes the species-character of man. Life appears only as a means of life. (Simon, p.63) Simon’s translation differs slightly but preserves the meaning. 3 Marx is furthermore fully aware that labour is bound up with our natural environment, as can be seen from his critique of the devastating effects of industry on agriculture (C, chapter 15). This is also the reason why an ecological critique of capitalism is possible through Marx.

Consequences and criticisms

35

Marxian labour

When needs are expressed in Marx’s biological terms, labour always revolves around sur-

vival, ‘the production of life’. It is this link between labour and life that is crucial for Marx’s

approach. It also explains his references to procreation.4 The corresponding needs are

therefore physical needs. It is this approach to labour that I have highlighted so far. This

definition of labour, namely the necessary activity we engage in to satisfy these necessary

needs would match Arendt’s (1958) use of the term. Arendt, however, is far from putting

labour on the pedestal that Marx did because she does not consider the necessary satisfac-

tion of our physiological needs to be a species-specific activity.5 Nor did she consider pro-

duction in general the key to human freedom and emancipation. As much as it is plausible

to focus with Marx on biological needs and their satisfaction as preconditions for human life,

in terms of ‘species-being’ this turns out too meagre, since our ‘species-being’ is presuma-

bly meant to be something distinctive about our species. But it is obvious that our survival-

needs are not distinctive, instead they apply to every living being. On the level of physical sur-

vival we are on the same playing field as any being belonging to the kingdom of animalia: all

survive on the basis of physiological processes: nutrition. In short, the necessary satisfac-

tion of physiological needs is not a trait specific to human beings but a characteristic of all

animal life.

The reason why this thought is important is that the connection between labour and neces-

sity is crucial for the theoretical as well as moral appeal of Marx’s account: only because

Marx can appeal to the ontological status of labour that he claims of it, do his arguments

about labour have such a force. This global equality, so to say, of the human species,

namely that we all share at least a certain set of needs, is important for the universalist ap-

peal of Marx’s theory and thereby Historical Materialism. He can make such a forceful

moral argument out of the connection between human beings and labour because he has

anchored labour in our physiology – because he has linked labour and life. His claims are

therefore, so to say, not just another ideology but grounded in our empirical existence.

4 Such as: “For labour, life activity, and productive life appear to man at first only as a means to satisfy a need, the need to maintain physical existence. Productive life, however, is species-life. It is life-begetting life. In the mode of life activity lies the entire character of a species, its species-character; and free conscious activity is the species-activity of man. Life itself appear only as a means to life. (EPM, Simon, p.63, original emphasis)

Or: „The production of life, both of one’s own life in labour and of another in procreation […]” (GI, Simon, p.116) ‘Labour’ here refers to the production of food for it is through the consumption of food and drink that man produces his own life. Producing other life, however, is the act of procreation. Also, a bit further removed but still relevant: “The immediate, natural, and necessary relation of human being to human being is the relation of man to woman.” (EPM, 1966, p.126, original emphasis) 5 More about Arendt in chapter 2.


36

They are not just theoretical conjectures but existentially necessary. This is one important

part of Marx’s concept of labour.

But Marx’s concept of labour does not only include necessary activities but also such ones

that are not necessitated by our physiological constitution: ‘production’ also includes the crea-

tion of use-goods, e.g. the products of industrial labour.6 These, however, are arguably not

as necessary as the production of ‘means of subsistence’, compared with the latter, use-

goods are historically contingent. But in this case the ontological grounding that Marx gave to

labour falls away. It is simply not necessary, in the same way that nutrition is, that the hu-

man species engages in industrial production or the production of use-goods (or “instru-

ments of labour” C, p. 175) in general. The connection between material production in this

sense and human life does not have the same direct and necessary link to physiological sur-

vival which Marx refers to in the ‘production of life’. I remain a human being even if I

never produce a single thing in my entire life. Thus, there is clearly a difference between the

two senses of ‘labour’ that Marx uses.

‘Labour’ and ‘production’ always refer to consumption as well as the production of use-

goods, as if they were the same and as if the link between labour and life also included the

production of artefacts. The latter, however, are clearly not dictated by life and its necessity

but by mere utility. Thus, Marx includes the two activities, which I, following Arendt, would

like to distinguish, in his grand notion of labour. The reasons why they should be kept dis-

tinct are that their processes as well as products radically differ. As just pointed out, con-

cerning Marx’s account there is the added difficulty that the necessity on which the appeal

of the connection between labour and the human being rests, is not transferable to the

class of people he is concerned with, namely the industrial proletariat, simply because they

are not engaged in the necessary ‘production of life’, but in the contingent production of use-

goods. Although the distinction Arendt makes between labour and work is often a red her-

ring even for her advocates and an object of ridicule for her opponents, I will demonstrate

in several instances that they are indeed distinct: claims concerning labour hardly ever also

apply to work (and vice versa), apart from very generalised ones.

Work and Tools in Anthropology

As just shown, in contrast to Arendt, Marx includes under ‘labour’ also human artifice. We

not only survive through producing and consuming food, we also make artificial objects:

6 I will detail the concepts of use-goods and necessity in the next chapter.


37

tools, machines, instruments, utilities, buildings, clothes, works of art, etc. These are not

goods for consumption but use-goods. In fact, we are the only species that surrounds itself

with such a freely and artificially created environment.7 Arendt calls such production of

artefacts ‘work’.

When within Marxian philosophical anthropology the focus shifts to the artificial creation

of use-goods, this, and not the existentially necessary activity of labour, suddenly becomes

specifically human. Not needs, but freedom from need, becomes the trademark of truly hu-

man activity.

’[…] man produces even when he is free from physical need and only truly pro-

duces in freedom from such need.’ (EPM 329, MEW 517) In so far as man is

characteristically human, his activity is motivated by needs which are not simply

given by his physical constitution. They are not ‘immediate’. (Chitty, 1993,

p.25f., my emphasis)

This production differs from the earlier catering for one’s survival exactly in that it is ‘free

from need’, even though it is still conditioned by utility. But in this case the necessity pre-

viously attached to production is no longer available, more than that, necessity has now

become a mark of inhumanity. When Marx previously used needs in order to define the

human being, we are now confronted with the opposite: namely that freedom from need de-

fines the human being. This already forecasts problems concerning the relation between

freedom and labour.8 I consider this to be one of the main root problems with Marxian

human ontology.

Tool-creation plays a large role in the anthropological study of mankind generally. Al-

though I oppose Marx on the connection between need and the production of artefacts, I

do agree with the importance of tool-use for the development of our cognitive abilities.

The definition of man as the ‘tool-making animal’ (Franklin) is, however, not without its

opponents: Elster (1985, p.64f.) criticises this definition on the grounds that animals also

use tools. His examples are, however, insufficient to refute the approach. He employs the

fact that animals use sticks in order access food as an example of tool-use. But a stick is not

a tool in the relevant respect: by ‘tools’ reference is not made to sticks, which many animals

use in quite imaginative ways, but to ‘composite tools’, that is, tools that consists of several

parts that have to be assembled. Elster thinks that the cognitive abilities necessary for tool-

7 Although ants, bees, beavers, etc. also build their housings they do not produce them freely, rather, they are genetically conditioned. 8 Press (1977), for example, is hopelessly confused on this issue.


38

creation merely comprise the use of found objects, but this is a mistake. Although some ani-

mal species use found objects, there is yet no evidence that any species constructs compos-

ite tools, nor does Elster cite any, his examples comprise only the use of found objects.9 The

particularity of composite tools lies in the fact that in order to produce them the creator

not only has to envisage the future use, thus the activity for which the tool is needed (which

some animals can obviously do as well concerning found objects), but also that he envis-

ages a thing which does not naturally exist or, in other words, lies around to be found. The

construction of composite tools is the introduction of a type of objects that would not oc-

cur naturally, hence their status as ‘artefacts’. The creator must therefore be able to abstract

objects from their natural occurrence as parts of an envisaged future composition in which

they play a defined role. There has to be thus a pre-conceived image of what is meant to be

created, in other words, it requires ‘working according to a mental plan’. When Marx refers

to Franklin for his definition of man as a ‘tool-making animal’ Marx (and Franklin) are

therefore, contrary to Elster, quite right and also true to the term: man is (so far) the only

tool-making animal, even though he is not the only ‘tool-finding’ animal. This does not entail

a rejection of the evolutionary development of this ability. That is, the development from

the use of found objects to the use of composite tools can nevertheless be gradual and it seems

that some higher apes come very close to it.

In any case, concerning Marx the important point is the inconsistency regarding the defini-

tion of what is specifically human. Are we to be defined by our needs or by our freedom from

need? The former refers to labour which produces the products to satisfy our necessary

needs (goods of consumption). The latter refers to work, which is free from necessity. Marx

struggles between the two: he wants to use the necessity with which we labour to ground a

normative critique of the relation between man and work under capitalism.

The physical process and Time

A further element that compounds the confusion of labour and work is the role of time in

Marx‘s account of production: he focuses solely on the process that the individual being has

to subject herself to, her physical and mental engagement and the repercussions. He never

attends in the same way to the outcome of the process, namely the product. His analysis

stops with the end of the production process, and hence Marx identifies time as the meas-

urement of work, rather than the produced good (C, p.46f., 52). Therefore Marx does not

see the difference between products that are used (work) and such that are consumed (labour). 9 This includes recent experiments with crows. See: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~kgroup/tools/tool_manufacture.shtml


39

Thus, what the person actually produces is of little importance, it is a side-issue compared

to the sheer fact that she is working (mentally or physically).

Inasmuch as time is, of course, the adequate measurement of any process, it is also a value

under which all actions must become equal; it annihilates any essential differences between

the ways in which this time is spent and what the result is. It only matters that I do some-

thing from t1 until t2, not what the result after t2 is. That Marx is only looking at the physical

process, that is, the exertion of (bodily) energy, can be seen from his definition of labour:

Productive activity […] is nothing but the expenditure of human labour-power.

[The] expenditure of human brains, nerves, and muscles, […] in this sense are

human labour. (C, p.51)

Marx only values the sheer activity, the expenditure, engagement or process, which in the

case of humans is always the use of ‘brains, nerves and muscles’. At this level of abstrac-

tion, where we simply coin all ‘expenditure of human brains, nerves, and muscles’ labour,

the only measure left over is the time spent expending this energy. Although time is an apt

measure in this respect, it also removes all specificity concerning the object of one’s labour:

the final product, that which remains after the process has finished, drops out of the pic-

ture. Labour-time is indeed the only common denominator of all production processes,

irrespective of the economic paradigm, since the definition of labour-power that Marx

gives is universal. It is not just particular to capitalism but applies generally. Yet this de-

nominator allows no distinction between consumption- and creation-processes. This com-

pounds Marx’s use of ‘labour’: sometimes as the creation of artefacts (material use-objects

like tools, machinery, houses, clothes, etc.) that can be used and exchanged; at other times

as ‘the production of life’10 and other such formulations of physiologically and biologically

necessary processes. The making of things, however, is not a biologically necessitated phe-

nomenon – as Marx himself maintains in other passages, it is free from need.11

Labour – due to need or free from need?

We are thus left with the following problem: On the physiological (‘labour’) level of exis-

tential (life-sustaining) needs neither they nor our labour is distinctive, on the production

level (‘work’) they are not necessary. As foreshadowed above, the relation between labour

and freedom is then problematic. If labour is necessary, as Marx’s human ontology claims,

10 „Men have history because they must produce their life.” (GI, p.42) 11 For example: “Man lives physically only by these products of nature; they may appear in the form of food, heating, clothing, housing, etc.” (EPM, Simon, p.63) Whereas food is a product of nature heating, cloth-ing, and housing are not: they have to be produced artificially by us and do not occur naturally.


40

then how can it be free? Ignoring social pressures (duties, expectations) for a moment, even

if I only produce for myself I cannot be free in this activity if its execution is necessary.

Chitty (1993) reaches this same problem. He focuses on the production of use-goods and

proceeds along the path outlined above: humans differ from animals exactly because they

produce universally and free from immediate compulsion by physiological needs. ‘Man’ as

Chitty quotes Marx, ‘only truly produces in freedom from such [physical] needs’.12 This dis-

sociation of human freedom from animal necessity is important. Only due to this can Marx

then criticise capitalism for the reduction of the human individual to his animal basis.13 On

this basis Chitty can now answer why production for one’s own needs is not alienating

when production for someone else is alienating. Namely:

Marx’s answer might have been that the satisfaction of a being’s intrinsic needs

does not constitute a compulsion on that being. On the contrary, it is that be-

ing’s essential activity. (op.cit., p.28)

Chitty is right in supposing this to be Marx’s solution but it is no longer available because the

satisfaction of one’s own intrinsic needs was previously explicitly denied the status of a truly

human activity. Freedom from need was the mark of humanity before, now it is the opposite,

namely production according to need. That those needs are intrinsic, rather than externally

imposed, makes no difference to their compulsion. However intrinsic, in an account of

human life, rather than death, there can be no question whether anyone is free to act ac-

cording to his needs: in life one cannot choose to cater for one’s needs, instead one is com-

pelled on pain of death (also Aristotle and Rousseau, for example, see it in this way). To take

an example from literature: Robinson Crusoe was not free to search or hunt for food, unless

he wanted to die he had to, whether he resented it or not. If labour is an intrinsic human

activity that is essential and has to be performed in order for there to be a human species at

all, as Marx argues, then we are not free to do it. Therefore if freedom from need is the mark

of ‘truly human’ activity, as Marx argues elsewhere, then labour is not ‘truly human’.

In order to remain within the Marxian framework Chitty has to avoid this last point. He

does so by closing the gap between production and consumption:

Is gathering fruit, or hunting for game, a separate act of production or an initial

phase of consumption? […] If I produce something for my own needs, there is

no clear line between production and consumption. (op.cit., p.28)

12 See the previous quote from Chitty on p.36. 13 See EPM (‘Estranged Labour’).


41

But this claim is simply false, particularly when the production that Chitty refers to here is of

that ‘truly human’ kind, which he indicates above, according to which we produce ‘free

from need’ and ‘universally’ (cf. EPM, Simon, p.62). This production must be the produc-

tion of artefacts: utilities, ‘the means of production’ and works of art. Only those are un-

tainted by necessity because in the production of artefacts we are free from need. But ex-

actly here it is false to say that production and consumption merge. In fact, it would under-

mine one of Marx’s insights into the production of artefacts and use-goods, namely that the

process disappears in the product (C, p.176). This insight highlights the fact that the proc-

esses of production and use are distinct: as long as the construction has not finished the

product cannot be used in the way it was intended. Thus, production and consumption

cannot merge: I have to finish making the spear before I go out to hunt with it. Once the

construction process has ended it disappears, as Marx says, in the finished object. Produc-

tion and consumption therefore remain different and do not merge.

But why is it convincing when Chitty (op.cit., p.28), in order to make his point, asks rhet-

orically “Is gathering fruit, or hunting for game, a separate act of production or an initial

phase of consumption?” It is convincing because activities like gathering fruit or hunting

do indeed stand in a circular relation with consumption. Yet, to be precise, even here we

can distinguish the various processes: neither gathering nor hunting is consumption. I have

to gather and/or hunt before I can consume. Admittedly, the two parts often follow each

other so quickly that it is indeed difficult to tell them apart, they do appear like one. Fur-

thermore, the circularity of these activities is also apparent insofar as we hunt in order to

eat and eat in order to hunt again. Notice first, however, that hunting and gathering are far

from those types of production that are ‘free from need’. Quite the contrary, as I claimed

above, unless we want to die, we have no choice but to engage in them. Also, we have now

adopted the Arendtian account: the given example as well its characterisation is exactly

what Arendt understands as labour: necessary activities that follow each other in such a

circular motion as the needs whose satisfaction necessitate them. We therefore have to

adopt Arendt’s account if we want to succeed where Marx fails. The conundrum concern-

ing needs and freedom in Marx’s labour account can only be resolved by distinguishing, as

Arendt does, between labour and work. Unless we do this we will reach the deadlock

above, in which exactly those activities we are not free to choose are those which are appar-

ently ‘free from need’ and ‘truly human’.

Notice that the reason for deliberating about the relationship between labour and freedom

is Marx’s attempt to ground human specificity in our species-activity, that is, labour. I argue


42

that this fails. The attempt to capture the distinctiveness of our human species in terms of

labour connected to needs, has, as far as I know, not yielded any successful results.14 In

other words, an account of what is distinctively human has to comprise more than labour. I

will locate this distinctive trait later in what Arendt calls ‘action’.

Labour and alienation

As outlined above, Chitty wants to answer why labour under capitalism is enforced when it

is free under one’s own directive. Working within the Marxian framework he therefore has

to show that the essential activities man performs in a solitary situation are still human and

not just animalistic. He tries to do this by closing the gap between production and con-

sumption. I have argued that this approach fails. But I would like to continue using Chitty’s

thought because it touches so many important points. The next one concerns alienation,

which lies close because it is equally grounded in Marx’s ontology.

The perceived proximity between labour and consumption is translated by Chitty into the

proximity of means and ends. As long as both are close and internal to the agent we have a

case on un-alienated labour. Thus, production for one’s own needs is not alienating be-

cause “The separation between means and ends which makes it possible for the means to

appear as compelled by the ends simply does not exist for the animal, or man ‘in the savage

state’, producing for himself” (Chitty, 1993, p.28). This means that only immediate produc-

tion for one’s own needs is non-alienating. Marx himself, as well as much secondary litera-

ture, abounds with such claims:

In society the relation of the producer to his product after its completion is ex-

trinsic, and the return of the product to the subject depends on other individu-

als. The product does not immediately come into his possession. [...] Distribution,

which on the basis of social laws determines the individuals’ share in the world

of products, intervenes between the produce and the products, i.e., between

production and consumption. (Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political

Economy, 1970 p. 199.)

So far as the labor-process is purely individual, one and the same laborer unites

in himself all the functions, that later on become separated. When an individual

appropriates natural objects for his livelihood, no one controls him but himself.

Afterwards he is controlled by others. A single man cannot operate upon Na-

14 Also Stephen Mulhall, in an otherwise very insightful essay, cannot cover up the difficulties involved in such a project. He advances a very friendly reading of Marx but is also forced to such circular claims as: “In other words, human practical activity – the exercise of the distinctively human array of drives – is an essen-tial mediating element in the process of developing those drives to the point where they can indeed be called “distinctively human”.” (Mulhall, 1998, p.16)


43

ture without calling his own muscles into play under the control of his brain. As

in the natural body, head and hand wait upon each other, so that the labor-

process unites the labor of the hand with that of head. Later on they part com-

pany and even become deadly foes. The product ceases to be the direct product

of the individual, and becomes a social product, produced in common by a col-

lective laborer; i.e., by a combination of workmen, each of whom takes only a

part, greater or less, in the manipulation of the subject of their labor. (C, p. 508).

Alienation in labour is characterised here as the circumstance in which the individual either

does not own the means of production, or the finished product, or both. There is, so to

say, too much distance between means and ends. One is neither in control of one’s activity,

since one has sold it to the capitalist, nor in control of the object, since one does not own

it. If so then the conditions for non-alienated labour seemingly must be this: I produce for

myself, own the means of production and the final product. But this is extremely undesir-

able for Marx’ goal of communism because here I equally neither produce for myself nor

do I own the means of production. Accordingly, communist production turns out to be

alienating. But, it will be replied, in communist production I produce for society. Yet, by it-

self, this reply is a red herring: in capitalism I also produce for society. In response it will be

said that my claim is false: under capitalism we do not produce for society but for the own-

ers of the means of production. But also this reply is not that easily available: according to

Marx’s own analysis, a product is of no use-value to the person who sells it, otherwise he

would not sell it (C, p.89). If the product of my labour is of no use-value to the owner of

my labour, then I cannot produce for him. Instead, I produce for those to whom my prod-

uct is of use-value, i.e. the rest of society, or whoever buys the product. Of course, the apt

reply is to argue that under capitalism we produce for the owners of the means of produc-

tion for the exchange-value of the goods. The capitalist is indeed not interested in use-value of

the product but in the exchange-value he can get for it.

Nevertheless, since the goods would not have an exchange value if they did not also have a

use-value for someone, it remains that I produce for those to whom the product is a use-

value. In other words, in both capitalism and communism, I produce for society. Further-

more, if, as shown above, the conditions for non-alienated labour are those in which I pro-

duce for my own needs, under my supervision and where I own all the means of produc-

tion, then these conditions undermine the basis of communism, which is conceived as a

commune of associated producers neither of whom owns the means of production. This

last element, is also known as ‘collective ownership’, which is often treated like the Holy

Grail for social harmony. But notice first that this does not escape the features of alienation


44

that Marx outlines above. Alienation has more sources than just private ownership and they

are not eliminated by advancing collective ownership instead. In other words, even if we

add the collective ownership of the means of production, it is clear that other conditions of

alienation will persist (for example the distance between means and ends for the single

agent in production, i.e. that the labourer is not the master of his product). Here I also

want to question the reality of collective ownership: owning something collectively means

that I do not own what I work with, nor do my associate workers. In that case, we do not

own anything either. If neither they nor I have access to ownership then no one owns any-

thing at all. Collective ownership is an oxymoron. This judgement finds its proof in the ac-

tual experiences of peasants in the compulsory collectivisation of their farms under com-

munist governments. Under communist rule all private peasants had to surrender their

claims to private ownership of their means of production, that is, their farms. Their live-

stock and fields were simply usurped. In East Germany this took the form of LPG’s

(Landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaft – association of agrarian producers), in Russia and

its satellite states, the ‘Kolkhozy’. In the majority of cases the compulsory collectivisation

fuelled the peasants’ resentment of collective ownership because it meant that they were

deprived of the little property they had – in the process of collectivisation they ended up

owning nothing. The productive output of the newly collectivised farms did not increase

either, on the contrary, it often shrunk.

To summarise: I have argued that the relationship between labour and freedom is difficult

at best within Marx’s account. To be more reckless: labour and freedom do not mix. Yet it

is important for Marx’s philosophical anthropology and social ontology that they do mix, in

fact, that they become one, namely insofar as labour is meant to become life’s prime want.15

Chitty’s defence of Marx’s philosophical anthropology unintentionally brings out many of

the problems that I am criticising (namely: needs as the distinctive feature of humans, the

connection between labour and freedom, and a concept of alienation that seems to apply to

communistic labour as well).16 Last but not least, it shows the difference between labour

and work which Marx never makes. This is a major distinction for Arendt which I will ex-

plain in detail later.

The further puzzle that Chitty wants to resolve, namely why there is compulsion and alien-

ation under capitalism but in not production for one’s own needs, remains to be answered.

15 Critique of the Gotha Program, Simon, op.cit., p.321. 16 More below pp.47ff.


45

With the philosophical anthropology of labour that Marx gives, which anchors it in funda-

mental needs, in life, this will be impossible. Even if we grant, as Marx argues, that in ex-

change relations producers become enslaved by their own products, then why is this any

worse than the compulsion and reduction we would be subjected to if we produced only

for our own survival? To my mind, there is no answer to this question from Marx’s ac-

count since it is quite clear that Marx himself would also view such a situation as one of

deprivation. Man would be deprived from those elements that make him essentially human,

rather than a mere animal.

3.2. A first conclusion - Insufficient Ontology

Marx considers human needs and production to be necessary and sufficient for an account of

society and history. I have claimed that this characterisation of human life as a whole is un-

satisfactory: it is not an exhaustive picture of human life but insufficient. There are two ele-

ments to this critique:

There are firstly ‘internal’ problems: namely a clash of two intuitions which are a result of

Marx’ fudging on the needs-issue: seen in terms of the pure biological life-process produc-

tion is not a distinctive feature of our species since all life has to produce the means for the

satisfaction of the needs it has to fulfil. Thus, having and satisfying the needs of life is ex-

actly not human.17 If it is replied that Marx means the production of objects (e.g. tools),

which admittedly does distinguish us from other life-forms, then this is no longer a necessary

condition of human life as such anymore, since we do not produce artefacts necessarily. In

short, Marx cannot have it both ways: production cannot be necessary in the survival sense

and be the essential human criterion, for whatever is necessary in this physiological way does

not distinguish us from animals. The reason for this dilemma is that Marx does not distin-

guish between labour and work.18 The difficulty is therefore that, for all his criticism of

capitalism, Marx himself turns humans into mere producers and consumers. Of course he

thinks he has liberated man from this fate, especially once communism is in place: by

changing the economic system he hopes to liberate man from capitalism which is unfair

and leads to alienation. But Marx’ own ontology never comprises more than production to

17 This approach is very old: when Aristotle enquires what makes humans special he also discards the vegetative and appetitative aspects of life. 18 See chapter 2 for this distinction.


46

which everything is related and thus humans are still just oscillating between their desires

and the production of things that satisfy them.19

Secondly, and connected with the former, is the external problem that production is also

insufficient as an exhaustive characterisation of human beings: we are not only more than

animals but also more than just ‘the productive species’, which Marx reduces us to. The hu-

man species is exactly not determinable in its necessities – rather, it is the species of excess,

the one that does ‘more’ than what it has to. Whatever this ‘more’ is, it is not included in

Marx’s ontology of human life, even though he may have wanted to pave the way for it by

establishing a system of production that would ensure everyone’s physical needs to be met.

This indicates that it is not material but comparatively immaterial. In this case, Historical

Materialism as a whole is insufficient, if it wants to stay true to its name. I will later present

two attempts of subsequent Historical Materialists to escape its entrapment and this con-

clusion. Habermas tries to alter the scope of Historical Materialism in order to allow the

inclusion of language and action; and postmodern Neo-Marxists Hardt and Negri try to

integrate ‘immaterial labour’.20 Both attempts fail.

The materialist approach finds its limits in its ontology that tells us what we are, but not who

we are, yet the latter is important in order to account for human life, because it is one of

the fundamental characteristics of our species that we are not just indistinguishable subjects

in anonymous societies, but unique agents. That is, we are the species whose members have

individual identities. This feature of identity, this who of each person, is, according to Ar-

endt, what no materialism can account for because it does not manifest itself materially, as

in production. It is internal to each agent and only becomes realised directly between people,

without recourse via production. This is the feature in which we are more than animals and it

is the feature Historical Materialism cannot accommodate because it stops at the what. I will

return to this thought later with Arendt’s writings particularly in comparison with Haber-

mas.21

19 And what capitalism currently shows is that the veneration of production and the appeal to needs and desires quickly changes into the cult of consumption. 20 See below pp.130ff., 169ff., 202 ff. 21 See below pp.148ff.


47

3.3. More Labour

3.3.1. Abolishing labour and alienation – the labour puzzle continued

The consequences of the problems pointed out above are substantial and revert back onto

Marx’ own analysis of human life. The problematic relationship between labour and free-

dom emerges, for example in one of the most deep seated contradictions in Marx’s writ-

ings: that labour, on the one hand, is the activity we have to engage in necessarily to be alive at all22

while also “the proletarians, if they are to assert themselves as individuals, will have to abol-

ish […] labour” (GI, p. 96). Thus, the activity that defines the human being is also the one to

be abolished under communism. This is a recurrent contradiction from the early Economic

and Philosophical Manuscripts to the The German Ideology until the late Capital III. It therefore

concerns all of Marx’s writings. The accepted standard interpretation is that when Marx

advocates the abolition of labour he refers to its alienated perversion. The aim is to liberate

labour, rather than to abolish it. However, this reading is not unchallengeable, even if it is

the most plausible one. Firstly, in those sentences in which Marx calls for the abolition of

labour he does not use the word ‘alienated’. Seeing that he had both senses of labour in his

writings, alienated and un-alienated, it would have, at least, been better to clarify which one

he was referring to. Also, the term ‘wage-labour’, as a possible referent to ‘alienated labour’

is explicitly used only from 1847 onward, by which both the Early Manuscripts and the Ger-

man Ideology, in which Marx calls for the abolition of labour, were already written, so Marx

did not just refer to the abolition of wage-labour in those texts.

Secondly, there also are followers of Marx who take the call for the abolition of labour seri-

ously, for example Herbert Marcuse:

The abolition of the proletariat also amounts to the abolition of labor as such.

Marx makes this an express formulation when he speaks of the achievement of

revolution. Classes are to be abolished ‘by the abolition of private property and

labor itself.’ Elsewhere, Marx says the same thing: ‘The communistic revolution

is directed against the preceding mode of activity, does away with labor.’ And

again, ‘the question is not the liberation but the abolition of labor.’ The question is

22 “The first historical act is thus the production of the means to satisfy these needs, the production of material life itself. And indeed this is an historical act, a fundamental condition of all history, which today, as thousands of years ago, must daily and hourly be fulfilled merely in order to sustain human life.” (GI, p.39)


48

not the liberation of labor because labor has already been made ‘free’; free labor is the achieve-

ment of capitalist society. (Marcuse, 1955, p.292, emphasis added)

The passage Marcuse refers to at the end is the following from the German Ideology in the

chapter on ‘Saint Max’, who argues that:

“The state rests on the slavery of labour. If labour were to become free, the state

would be lost.” (GI, p. 153)

Against this Marx argues that

The modern state, the rule of the bourgeoisie, is based on freedom of labour. The

idea that along with freedom of religion, state, thought, etc., and hence “occa-

sionally” “also” “perhaps” with freedom of labour, not I become free, but only

one of my enslavers — this idea was borrowed by Saint Max himself, many

times, though in a very distorted form, from the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher.

Freedom of labour is free competition of the workers among themselves. Saint

Max is very unfortunate in political economy as in all other spheres. Labour is free

in all civilised countries; it is not a matter of freeing labour but of abolishing it. (GI, p.223f.,

original emphasis except the last sentence)

Marcuse (above) is thus quite correct: Marx criticises ‘Saint Max’ for interpreting the liberation

of labour as the downfall of the capitalist state. Marcuse’s interpretation of the last sentence

hits the nail on the head: free labour is already achieved, hence the liberation of labour is not

what the communist revolution pursues.23 Instead, it is its abolition. Of course this must

leave us puzzled since Marx himself is well aware that “labour, life activity, and productive

life appear to man at first only as a means to satisfy a need, the need to maintain physical

existence” (EPM, Simon, p.63). Thus, labour is necessary (here we are back to the ‘physical

need’ interpretation of labour, but the problem remains even if we switch from ‘labour’ to

‘work’ which is free and universal) yet it is meant to be abolished. Marcuse explains that:

These amazing formulations in Marx’s earliest writings all contain the Hegelian

term Aufhebung, so that abolition also carries the meaning that a content is re-

stored to its true form. Marx, however, envisioned the future mode of labor to

be so different from the prevailing one that he hesitated to use the same term

‘labor’ to designate alike the material process of capitalist and of communist so-

ciety. He uses the term ‘labor’ to mean what capitalism actually understands by

it in the last analysis, that activity which creates surplus value in commodity

23 For a good discussion of the views of Marx and Marcuse on this point see Andrew (1970).


49

production, or, which ‘produces capital’. Other kinds of activity are not ‘pro-

ductive labor’ and hence are not labor in the proper sense. Labor thus means

that free and universal development is denied the individual who labours, and it

is clear that in this state of affairs the liberation of the individual is at once the

negation of labor. (1955., p.293)

But this is not explanatory at all, for we are still not told what will be so different about la-

bour under communism. We are told that labour will be restored its ‘true form’ instead of

its current one which denies the individual universal development. But what is the ‘true

form’ of labour? Here we return to the point I made above (p.42f.) already: inferring from

the way in which labour alienates man, namely when the object of my labour is not mine, it

seems that the ‘true form’ is attained when I work for my own benefit and not someone

else’s. But surely this cannot sit easy with communism either, since production is meant to

be universal and not just for me. In other words, since under communism the product does

not belong to the labourer either why is it any less alienating than capitalism?24

Another expression of the problematic relationship between labour and freedom, which is

very closely connected to this issue of the endorsement of labour vs. the abolition of la-

bour, is issue of the relation between self-realisation and labour, namely whether self-

realisation for Marx takes place within or outside labour (Elster, 1985, p.84f.). Freedom, la-

bour and self-realisation are closely linked phenomena: if self-realisation happens in labour,

then labour must feature freedom, in which case its abolition would make no sense. The

Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, the Comments on James Mill and the Critique of the Gotha

Program support the reading of self-realisation through (or within) labour; here Marx claims

that ‘labour has become life’s prime want’.25 Yet in Capital III (p.820) Marx is explicit that

“the realm of freedom actually begins only where labour […] ceases” and that “the short-

ening of the working-day is its basic requisite.” I will come back to this quote shortly.

The interpretation concerning the abolition of labour, namely that Marx is referring to

alienated labour, may be justified since Marx only calls for the abolition of labour as such in

The German Ideology. Elsewhere he refers to either wage-labour or, synonymously, alienated

labour. It is also clear from many other passages in which Marx confirms the existential

24 Above I have also already commented why I do not consider the advocacy of collective property to be of any significant help. 25 “In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want […]” (Critique of the Gotha Program, 1962, p.24)


50

need of labour that he cannot have thought about an abolition of the activity. But then the

result is that the call to the abolition of it only amounts to change of the economic para-

digm under which labour takes place.26 (I have already explained above why I do not con-

sider communism to resolve alienation.) The important point is that subsequent adherents

of Marx’s account advance opposing interpretations (for example: Schaff, Elster, Chitty,

and Press). Thus, there is an issue here which is a stumbling block until today.27 Elster’s

question (whether self-realisation takes place within or outside labour) therefore remains. He

suggests a compromise (1985, p.85), namely a reading of Marx which allows both alterna-

tives: some people will realise themselves in labour, some outside of it. But this would not

have been to Marx’s satisfaction because it relies on combining two views of labour which

Marx in different times of life seems to oppose quite clearly: namely that either labour can be

free or that it is always bound to the realm of necessity.

A third instance of the problematic relationship between labour and freedom is whether

alienation is intrinsic or extrinsic to labour. If all labour is intrinsically alienating, then self-

realisation can only happen outside of it. Vice versa: if self-realisation is meant to be possible

within labour, then not labour itself but an external factor makes it alienating. According to

Marx’s own view man externalises himself in labour, he conditions the object as much as

the object also conditions him.28 It is a dialectical relationship and self-externalisation is also

self-realisation. But it is also part of the phenomenology of labour that the product, once

externalised, confronts me as something that is ‘not-me’. That is, externalisation means that I

produce an objective thing in the world independent of me, even when it is my property.

This should not be surprising since Marx is explicit that it is part of man’s being to exter-

nalise himself and in so doing he objectifies himself.

26 Schaff (1965, p.178), judging from his own actual experiences of socialism, comes to the same con-clusions. He also attributes the call for the abolition of labour to one of Marx’s ‘sins of youth’. 27 I will show in chapter 4 that current postmodern Neo-Marxists battle with the same point. 28 “Labour is, in the first place, a process in which both man and Nature participate, and in which man of his own accord starts, regulates, and controls the material re-actions between himself and Nature. He opposes himself to Nature as one of her own forces, setting in motion arms and legs, head and hands, the natural forces of his body, in order to appropriate Nature’s productions in a form adapted to his own wants. By thus acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops his slumbering powers and compels them to act in obedience to his sway. […] The labour-process, resolved as above into its simple elementary factors, is human action with a view to the production of use-values, appropriation of natural substances to human requirements; it is the necessary condition for effecting exchange of matter between man and Nature; it is the everlasting Nature-imposed condition of human existence, and therefore is independent of every social phase of that existence, or rather, is common to every such phase.” (C, chapter VII, section 1, pp.173-179). “[…] The product of labour is labour embodied and made material in an object, it is the objectification of labour. The realization of labour is its objectification. […] The workers can create nothing without nature, without the sensuous external world. It is the material in which his labour realizes itself, in which it is active and from which, and by means of which, it produces.” (Early Manuscripts, Alienated labour, Simon, p. 59f.)


51

Nevertheless, that my self-externalisation has resulted in an objective and independent en-

tity can also be seen in a negative way: exactly because it is objective and independent it

means that it can oppose me, that I cannot wish away, that is not only mine but has its own

objectivity in the world. The connotation now changes: externalisation is not just affirma-

tive for my being but also threatening. The created thing is independent and ‘not-I’ and

therefore a little alienation (and un-freedom) hides inside all production. Thus, we can see

that in the same way as it is easy to switch between the advocacy of labour and its abolition,

it is also easy to switch from self-externalisation to self-alienation. This move is accom-

plished, for example, by Press (1977). According to him

[…] in producing objects, man becomes alienated, and this expression of his

life becomes an alien power over him. Thus, "The product of individual con-

sumption," as in any animal, "is the consumer himself; the result of productive

consumption is a product distinct from the consumer." This production of ob-

jects, the production of the means of subsistence, makes it possible, indeed, in-

evitable, that the objects become separated, alienated, both in production and

consumption, from the inward source of life: from need, from nature, from the

body. The object, which is produced "outside," as a certain exteriorization, ex-

ternalization, of the "inside," in order, in the peculiar way of men, to gratify the

inside, thus acquires the character of a separated object. This loss of the object,

this as it were Archetypal Loss, is at the root of all alienation. (p.333)

I consider this a misreading of Marx. However, to some, the production of objects, this

distinctively human ability, is intrinsically alienating at the same time. Is alienation, so to

say, ontologically given (intrinsic), or is it a social product (extrinsic/external)? The answer

to this question becomes decisive once we deliberate about how alienation can be over-

come, since if alienation is intrinsic to production then no overcoming is possible (except by

ceasing to engage in production which is surely not Marx’ plan). If alienation is intrinsic then

there can be no freedom in labour. It seems to me that this is not an uncommon problem con-

cerning Marx since many interpreters divide in two major camps on this point:

On the one hand there are those who argue for the incompatibility of labour and freedom:

Marcuse (1955, 1965) argues that labour is by nature drudging and alienating, Andrew

(1970) reads him likewise.29 They refer mostly to those radical sections from the German

Ideology that I have quoted above and that often-quoted passage from Capital III (p.820) to

29 But compare Leiss (1971).


52

which I will now turn. Since according to these writers labour and freedom are incompati-

ble they advocate the abolition of labour in general.

On the other hand there are those who argue that self-realisation and freedom is possible

within labour, i.e. that freedom and labour are compatible, (e.g.: Chitty, 1993, and Sayers,

2003).30 Their arguments are mostly based the Early Manuscripts, Capital I, and also the pas-

sage from Capital III which is worth quoting it once again:

In fact, the realm of freedom actually begins only where labour which is deter-

mined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases; thus in the very nature

of things it lies beyond the sphere of actual material production. Just as the sav-

age must wrestle with Nature to satisfy his wants, to maintain and reproduce

life, so must civilised man, and he must do so in all social formations and under

all possible modes of production. With his development this realm of physical

necessity expands as a result of his wants; but, at the same time, the forces of

production which satisfy these wants also increase. Freedom in this field can

only consist in socialised man, the associated producers, rationally regulating

their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control, instead

of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature; and achieving this with the

least expenditure of energy and under conditions most favourable to, and wor-

thy of, their human nature. But it nonetheless still remains a realm of necessity.

Beyond it begins that development of human energy which is an end in itself,

the true realm of freedom, which, however, can blossom forth only with this

realm of necessity as its basis. The shortening of the working-day is its basic

prerequisite. (C III, p.820)

The ‘abolitionists’ of labour particularly refer to the first and the last sentence. Their oppo-

nents, the ‘compatibilists’, like to point out that in between Marx does also refer to the

‘freedom in this field’. Together with the main claims from the early writings (for example

“self-realization, objectification of the subject, hence real freedom, whose action is, pre-

cisely, labour” (Grundrisse, 1973, p.611) it seems that a good and more plausible case can be

made for the interpretation according to which labour and freedom are compatible.

However, I contend that, although Marx makes space for freedom within labour in the

passage above, he also makes it clear that this space is very confined: the realm of necessity

30 See also Schoolman (1973) and Schaff (1965). Gould (1978, ch.2) occupies a strange position be-tween both camps. Like the ‘pro-labour’ claimants she thinks that labour implies self-realisation (under the right circumstances) and therefore allows for freedom. Yet, like Marcuse, she sees full automation as the pre-condition for self-realisation. She has to answer why labour would then still be pursued seeing that it is now fully automated (cf. Schoolman, 1973). Habermas (1971, esp. pp. 387ff.) also published on this debate and, for short, does not think that alienation is ontologically given.


53

remains, by definition, one of compulsion. Freedom therein consists only in making the com-

pulsory actions as humane (‘worthy of their human nature’) as possible.31 Acquiring the necessi-

ties is the pre-condition and basis for freedom but it is not freedom itself. Real freedom can only

start outside of the realm of necessity. If it was not so, then why would the working-day

have to be shortened?

In short, with respect to each side of the divide we can ask questions that they will find

hard to answer:

To the ‘abolitionists’ we ask: 1. How can humans survive without labour, and 2. how hu-

mans otherwise externalise themselves (since externalisation is a crucial activity of man for

Marx)? Another strong argument against the abolition of labour is the following: the ‘aboli-

tionists’ collapse the distinction between externalisation and alienation. For if labour is in-

trinsically alienating then there is no distinction between this externalisation and alienation.

Yet it is clear that Marx thinks the distinction to be important. So, for the respective Marx

scholarship the question is why Marx upheld this distinction if the two amount to the same.

More importantly, without the possibility of non-alienated labour we also lose the norma-

tive ground on which to criticise capitalism for being alienating. I therefore consider aboli-

tionists to be in a very weak position.

To the ‘pro-labour’ party we ask why, if freedom within labour is possible, Marx still calls

for the shortening of the labour-day? If labour and freedom are compatible and labour be-

comes ‘life’s prime want’ then would it not be better to work 24/7? If labour is so essential

and self-realising then why is it a prerequisite for the realm of freedom to shorten labour-time?

Why is there is there still a distinction between the realm of freedom and the realm of la-

bour at all? And is communism a state in which everyone or no one works? Marx’s catchphrase

‘from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs’ allows both interpreta-

tions presented here: it could mean minimal as well as maximal working hours.

The question of whether labour is to be abolished or not, i.e. whether there is freedom in

labour or not, i.e. whether self-realisation happens in- or outside labour, is unresolved. At the

very least, it continues to be matter of debate. As I have argued above, the relationship be-

tween labour and freedom, due to Marx’s definition of labour, is inherently problematic,

31 Cf. Popper (1958, p.129) and McLellan (1984, p.68). Also Lenin (1978, p.67) advocates a “shorter working day”.


54

evidenced here by the three debates I have mentioned. This is indicative of the fact that in

Marx’s own account no clear answer is available.

3.4. A second conclusion

Whatever the answers to the questions just put would be, according to my analysis, they

arise and are based on the ontological and philosophical-anthropological issues pointed out

above: What exactly belongs to this human essence that Marx is talking about (is labour

free or necessary) and what do ‘labour’ and ‘production’ exactly refer to? If this can be an-

swered questions concerning the abolition of labour could then be clarified as well. How-

ever, my view is that these issues cannot be resolved by studying Marx at all, simply because

we find evidence for both approaches to labour and freedom in his writings.32 This is an in-

herent as well as crucial problem in Marx. To show this and the resulting problems is what

I have done so far.

To my mind, although it is true that one of the distinguishing features of our species is the

creation of a world of artefacts in which we live, it is firstly unwarranted of Marx to elevate

this activity to the human activity in general, particularly if it is undistinguished from the

satisfaction of necessary needs, which is not specifically human at all. Secondly, this focus

prevents the recognition of such truly human traits as uniqueness in identity and agency (to

which I will come later). Furthermore, as shown, Marx’s account includes the substantial

difficulty of the relation between labour and freedom: if the core-element belonging to our

essence is production, do we produce according to need or free from need? Marx cannot have

both, yet it is important that he does: he needs to characterise production as naturally free

because this constitutes the normative ground on which to criticise capitalism (namely be-

cause under capitalism labour becomes unfree and alienating); and he needs it to be necessary in

order to anchor it in his philosophical anthropology and social ontology. Only with this

grounding can production play the central role that it does and the critique of capitalism be

as strong.33 But these two features are mutually exclusive: if production is necessary then it

cannot be free.

32 Many Marxians, however, do not accept that Marx is inconsistent on this point, even when the sheer existence of this debate indicates the opposite. McLellan (1984) is a noteworthy exception here. He simply asserts that Marx changed his mind on the matter over the course of his life (p.68). 33 Marcuse makes this point. For him Marx’s “examination of economy is specifically carried on with the question in mind whether that economy realises man’s Gattungswesen (universelles Wesen)” (1955, p.275)


55

To summarise: the link between human nature, life, need, and production is as crucial in

Marx’s account as it is problematic. Furthermore, Marx’s account of production is not as

exhaustive as argued. He claims that all other phenomena depend on and are influenced by

production. My aim is to point out the insufficiency of such a Historical Materialist ap-

proach to explain social reality. I will now elaborate some more points resulting from

Marx’s account pertaining to his account of politics and history.

3.5. Politics and the State

By defining human beings as he did Marx thought to have solved the riddle of history. The

object was to explain and describe the development of the human species and advance a

future political project. To identify the central role and pervasiveness of production in this

capacity was, according to Marx himself, his personal insight and contribution.34 In what he

calls ‘natural societies’ with typical hierarchies, labour already confronts the individual as

something alien - throughout most of human history it stays that way. With the rise of capi-

talism and the development of the industrial proletariat, production, as the driving histori-

cal force, becomes apparent. Hence Marx claims that capitalism simplifies the workings

behind human history (CM) and he is the one to make us conscious of it.

It follows quite naturally from an account of human relations which bases them on produc-

tion and need, that politics is understood as nothing else than administration in the service

of domination.35 For, if the major concern is life, which Marx describes in mostly physio-

logical terms and thus depends on the satisfaction of needs, then all relations are at once

necessary and antagonistic. I cannot share my survival with anyone else and in the satisfac-

tion of my needs I am a rival to everyone else, in the same way as everyone else is to me.

“In the framework of scarcity, constitutive relations are fundamentally antagonistic” (Sar-

tre, 1990, p.15). In communism this would be recognised and used to avoid scarcity. Marx

thought that antagonistic relations would then end, since my activity would also affirm that

of everyone else:

34 The German Ideology starts with the following sentence: “Hitherto men have constantly made up for themselves false conceptions about themselves, about what they are and what they ought to be” (GI, Preface). When men were wrong about themselves so far then Marx is going to rectify this. “This conception of his-tory depends on our ability to expound the real process of production […]. […] In the whole conception of history up to the present this real basis of history has either been totally neglected or else considered as a mi-nor matter quite irrelevant to the course of history” (GI, Preface, p.23) 35 Cf. McLellan (1984, p.61) “On whatever base it [the state, U.M.] was constituted, the state was, for Marx, central to the alienating structure of capitalist society, and only a revolution could displace its pervasive influence.


56

In my individual life I would have directly created your life; in my individual ac-

tivity I would have immediately confirmed and realised my true human and social na-

ture. (Marx, Excerpt-Notes of 1844, Comments on James Mill, Simon, p.53, origi-

nal emphasis)36

This shows how production and politics are linked: only as long as production proceeds

under conditions of ownership and wage-labour will there be politics in order to dominate

the labourer and the conditions of his labour. The end of production under domination

will also be the end of politics. Thus, the dominating relations in production correspond

exactly to the dominating relations (i.e. politics) between people. The fall of the first must

bring about the fall of the latter. At least this is Marx’ thought and I take it that this is an-

other central claim of Historical Materialism.37 Seen in this way politics must turn out to be

a mere synonym for domination and it emerges explicitly already in Marx’s view of the

towns. According to him, towns are the outcome of “direct need, the care of providing for

the protection of property, and of multiplying the means of production and defence of the

separate members” (GI, p.67, see also C, p.333). Again Marx stresses only material needs as

the sufficient motive. And towns imply domination because they are centres of division of

labour38:

The existence of the town implies, at the same time, the necessity of administra-

tion, police, taxes, etc., in short, on the municipality, and thus of politics in gen-

eral. (GI, p.65, my emphasis)

This view of politics expressed in the quote is then continued and projected onto the State,

government, and even rights: the modern State is a bourgeois invention to save the status

of the ruling class; the government is the playground of those with vested interests in the

control of labour-power and the productive capacity of others to ensure their own luxury;

and rights are conceived as humbug that only serve the interests of some to the detriment

of others.39 In line with production as the central element in human life Marx also thinks

that the economic ordering under communism will suffice as the ‘political superstructure’:

“Its [communism’s, U.M.] organisation, therefore, is essentially economic […]” (GI, Simon,

36 See also p.xxxii 37 This is also the target of Habermas critique (1969) to which I will come back later. 38 Since towns, in this manner, foster and propagate what Marx criticises, he calls for the ‘abolition of the antagonism between town and country’ a few sentences later. 39 „To this modern private property corresponds the modern State, […][which] has become a separate entity, beside and outside civil society; but it is nothing more than the form organisation which the bourgeois necessarily adopt both for internal and external purposes, for the mutual guarantee of their property and interests.” (GI, p.79). Also for Lenin (1978) the state “is organised coercion” (p.69) “So long as the state exists there is no freedom. When there is freedom, there will be no state” (p.86).


57

p.147). Engels’ assertion that government can be reduced to an ‘administration of things’

and ‘the direction of production’ (see below) is then no longer surprising.40

Political Power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class

for oppressing another. (CM, p.105)

Thus, politics always comes across as something that takes place over people’s heads, in the

superstructure, out of their reach, but impending upon and affecting them.41 Politics ap-

pears as additional and optional to human life. In fact, for Marx it is superfluous and hence

he calls for its abolition.42 It is alien and Schaff (1965, p.120), who shares Marx’s view of

the state, talks of ‘political alienation’. This constitutes an instrumental conception of the

State: it exists only in order to facilitate something, in Marx’s case the domination of one

class over another. This is the opposite of Aristotelian or Hegelian approaches, according

to which the state exists for its own sake (Aristotle, 1995, Hegel 1991). Here, a state is the

climax of human life, because only there can man engage and participate in those activities

that set him apart from the animal kingdom – that accord with his being. But Marx carries

the instrumental approach, which underlies all production, over into the political realm. All

production is good for something, that is, it is instrumental, it is so to say utilitarian by na-

ture. This links with his conception of human relations which are defined in terms of pro-

duction. Production, in turn, is linked to domination, and thus he thinks that the state is

only a vehicle for domination. Sartre phrases it in this way: “[…] the State […] would

gradually become a useless factor of alienation, an absurd and harmful intermediary between the

producer and production” (Sartre, 1990, p.121f., my emphasis). Thus, Marx has an instrumental

conception of the state according to which its goal is domination.

The root of this approach lies in Marx’s social ontology. The social existence of man, ac-

cording to Marx, is already imbued with power- and means-end relations, since ‘being so-

cial’ means ‘productive co-operation’ (GI, p.41), as I have shown above (p.22f.). Thus, the

relation between people is understood only in terms of their productiveness. Productivity,

in turn, is a material phenomenon triggered by our needs which we have to satisfy through

40 In line with this is Marx’s account of justice: he seemingly believes justice to be a matter of distribu-tion, at least he does not offer a different account. Inferring from all that I have read Marx thinks that social relations will be just when the relations of production are just. This constitutes an account of distributive jus-tice. This furthermore manifests the claim that all social relations can be reduced to material relations. 41 “For the proletarians, on the other hand, the condition of their existence, labour, and with it all the conditions of existence governing modern society, have become something accidental, something over which they, as separate individuals, have no control, and over which no social organisation can give them control.” (GI, Simon, p.145) 42 This is contrary to Arendt’s (1958) conception of politics according to which it is integral to human life.


58

production. In this way, social existence is understood as the result of necessity issuing

from material needs.43 To repeat, if the social being of people is only understood in terms

of necessary needs, then it is not surprising that politics, which concerns the relations be-

tween people, is understood as relations of domination. Additionally, it is not surprising

that Marx should hold this view also for historical reasons: the 19th century saw the last big

wave of colonialism and empires, the biggest ones of which (England and France) con-

trolled the majority of the world’s population. Politics thus appears as a mere means to rule

over others. The state with its government must then appear as something negative.

Since the State is the form in which the individuals of a ruling class assert their

common interests, and in which the whole civil society of an epoch is epito-

mised, it follows that the State mediates in the formation of all common institu-

tions and that institutions receive a political form. (GI, p.79f.)

Moreover, the state also fosters the division of labour, which triggers unequal distribution

and is the bifurcation point of individual and common interests, as argued above. The state

thereby gives free reign to the perceived common interests, but due to the way in which

Marx sees the state, these cannot be the ‘true’ common interests, since the state is a mere

instrument of domination (ibid., pp.62-65). The ‘true’ common interests can, of course, only

be realised in communism. The state as it exists so far, however, is the enemy of the indi-

vidual since it legalises alienation and prevents its members from discovering their ‘true’

general interests. Consequently, Marx says, the state must be abolished.

3.6. Materialism to replace politics

Marx locates the source of human relations in the ‘productive cooperation’ to satisfy mate-

rial needs. This is the basis for his proposal to control distribution and to allocate all prod-

ucts evenly. Then all human relations would be equal.

All-round dependence, this natural form of the world-historical co-operation of

individuals, will be transformed by this communist revolution into the control

43 For example: „[...] all struggles within the State, the struggle between democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy, the struggle for franchise, etc., etc., are merely the illusory forms in which the real struggles of the different classes are fought out among one another […]. Further, it follows that every class which is strug-gling for mastery, even when its domination, as is the case with the proletariat, postulates the abolition of the old form of society in its entirety and of domination itself, must first conquer for itself political power in or-der to represent its interest in turn as the general interest, which in the first moment it is forced to do” (GI, Simon, op.cit., p.120). That the proletariat will abolish domination, as claimed here, does not mean that poli-tics can be freed, but instead that politics will come to an end with the proletarian revolution.


59

and conscious mastery of these powers, which, born of the action of men on

one another, have till now overawed and governed men as powers completely

alien to them. (GI, p. 49f.)

Thus, with this Materialism as the origin of all human relations Marx thinks he has solved

the riddle of human interaction and thereby history. The aim now is to administer and dis-

tribute all products equally. To paraphrase the passage above: we are all-round dependent

because through the division of labour every individual relies on numerous others to pro-

vide what she herself has neither time nor expertise to produce. It is world-historical be-

cause modern industry acts globally. The exchange of goods as private property under the

instituted law of supply and demand conjures up ‘these powers of actions of men on an-

other’ which, because they exist under alienated conditions, ‘overawe and govern men

completely alien to them.’ The progression of Marx’ thought here is ingenious, but it is a

natural outcome in connection with the supposition that material relations are exhaustive as

an account of human relations.44 In other words, because Marx reduces man to a needy

creature and the needs themselves are material, it appears to him that the satisfaction of

those needs can be calculated and controlled.45 Since all human relations are directed by

those material needs, the control of the distribution of goods is the key to solve social

problems because these problems are all based on unequal distribution. To do this is the

aim of communist society. It is hence unsurprising that Engels claims:

Yet what is here already very plainly expressed is the idea of the future conver-

sion of political rule over men into an administration of things and a direction

of processes of production – that is to say, the “abolition of the state”, about

which recently there has been so much noise. (‘Socialism: Utopian and scientific’, Se-

lected Works in Two Volumes, Vol. II, 1962, p.123)

44 “This sum of productive forces, capital funds and social forms of intercourse, which every individ-ual and generation finds in existence as something given, is the real basis of what the philosophers have con-ceived as “substance” and “essence of man”, and what they have deified and attacked: a real basis which is not in the least disturbed, in its effect and influence on the development of men, by the fact that these phi-losophers revolt against it as “self-consciousness” and the “Unique”.” (GI, p.51) 45 This, however, is nothing particularly new. Many schools of thought, especially hedonistic ones, are prone to quantify satisfaction and identify this as the basic principle of human happiness and human rela-tions. A modern variant of Marx’ materialism is the concept of ‘immaterial labour’ advanced by contemporary Marxists, which I will explain in detail later. Their approach is identical to Marx’s with the only difference of a change in terminology. Their project, however, is exactly the same: ‘affects’ can account for all human phe-nomena.


60

Politics is meant to be abolished; the only thing needed is an administration of things.46

What Marx is afraid of, and diagnoses as a fatal flaw of capitalism, is on the one hand the

‘individualisation’ of communities, that is, the alienation of man from his activity, himself,

and his fellow human beings, and on the other the uncontrolled and thereby arbitrary sup-

ply of the means for the continuation of material life. This uncontrolled supply and distri-

bution turns the conditions of life into something external and arbitrary in the eyes of the

individual. Accordingly, he wants to remedy both by re-aligning the individual with the

community, abolish the division of labour, and control of the means of production. The

latter is the key to the former.47 In communism, it is claimed, the members of society will

control the conditions of life. Here again Marx’ conception of politics comes to the fore.

He thinks that these uncontrolled and arbitrary forces which the worker is subjected to un-

der capitalism are the outcome of the division of labour and the arbitrary distribution of

the requirements for material life (i.e. supply and demand). Relationships become infested

with power, due to the unequal distribution of labour and its division, which then alienate

and antagonise individuals and, later, classes. All this has its origin in material conditions:

“Thus, all collisions in history have their origin, according to our view, in the contradiction

between the productive forces and the form of intercourse” (GI, p.92). Thus, control of the

productive forces and distribution is the remedy to social problems. Since Marx thinks that

all interaction depends on production (‘social’ means ‘productive cooperation’ GI) he ar-

gues that by controlling the latter he also affects the former.

In other words, the community is meant to control the conditions of its own existence. But

is this realistic? Marx thinks that the control of all production in a communist fashion will

lead to the elimination of supply and demand. This, however, has never been achieved. Sar-

tre once commented on Russia:

Through planning, in fact, the full rigour of economic laws that liberalism was

so fond of evoking was rediscovered – the sole difference being that this rigour

was perceived through a system, whereas the liberals grasped it in pure exteriority.

(Sartre, 1990, p. 131)

The ‘economic laws of liberalism’ (e.g. supply and demand) were thus not mastered but

reasserted themselves. The defensive reply to such claims, as in Schaff’s case for example,

46 Likewise Lenin (1978, p.100) writes: “Accounting and control – this is the main economic task of every Soviet of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, of every consumers’ society, of every union or committee of supplies, of every factory committee or organ of workers’ control in general.” 47 “The transformation, through the division of labour, of personal powers into material powers, […] can only be abolished by the individuals again subjecting these material powers themselves and abolishing the division of labour.” (GI, pp. 93ff.)


61

is often that this perception ‘through a system’ enables one to fight the causes of these laws

better. But so far this reply is unwarranted, as Sartre claims above, supply and demand can-

not simply be eliminated through planning, they re-emerge, whether within or outside a

system.

3.7. The arbitrary

There is one final element that is important for Marx’s approach. We have now already

proceeded far into the deep theory that fuels his approach. What he saw was that life’s cir-

cumstances escaped the control of those who were affected by them, which is the opposite

of what he thought humans to be capable of. That is, whereas in previous ages people had

been able to determine their own doings to a good extent (cf. GI, p.89, with provisos of

course: during the feudal period peasants were bound to their lords, for example, tradition

often determined which child in a family would grow up to pursue which “career”, and

guilds controlled who could exercise a certain craft and who could not), by Marx’s time the

majority of people were subject to a whole new range and force of factors that they had to

surrender to. Capitalism, for all its benefits, which Marx saw in the efficiency of production

and which he thus wanted to copy to an extent, was the worst economic arrangement for

society because it aggravates and empowers these forces. It is this that underlies Marx’s ap-

proach. Together with contemporary advances in the natural sciences (as is well known

Marx wanted to dedicate the first volume of Capital to Charles Darwin and Engels called

Marx the ‘Darwin of the social sciences’) Marx saw a clear path: biologically humans are

like animals – we need to live, but what distinguishes us from animals is our ability to pro-

duce the means of production, understand this process and direct it. As long as production

turns out a sufficient amount of goods and has the good of all as its goal it affords us the

chance to live in a situation in which we can then enjoy the ‘realm of freedom’. But capital-

ism is ‘unfit’ for this arrangement because it takes the control out of the hands of the pro-

ducers and puts it into the hands of a ruling elite which is concerned with its own good, not

with that of all. Furthermore, the powers of an uncontrolled market assume control over

the people, when it should be the other way round. With this insight and the conviction

that our scientific knowledge allows us to understand and master this foundation of human

life, Marx thought he had found the panacea to the human misery he witnessed in the

working class and which he thought to be exemplary for the process of history as a whole.

In Sartre’s (1990, p.15) words: “At this level, we can at once grasp the link between this


62

intelligibility and that of the historical process.”48 This belief in human understanding and

man’s ability to consciously control the historical development is still at work in Schaff

(1965) when he describes Marxian humanism, which

is grounded in the conviction that the world is the product of man, that man himself

is the product of self-realisation and that therefore man has practically unlimited

possibilities – as amongst other things the current technological revolution shows

– to change the world, and practically unlimited possibilities to change himself. (p.231,

my emphasis)

The object is thus to assume control over those factors that seemingly make our life so un-

stable, to control those external influences according to which our fate seems to shift. See-

ing that human life is so dependent on production, according to Marx, the control of the

latter would also mean control over the former. This is the connection between the realms

of fact and norm in Historical Materialism. But also for many subsequent Historical Mate-

rialists the guiding thought was that rational and scientific understanding and control of

production would disable the external and arbitrary factors, that seem to shape our exis-

tence so far (‘pre-history’) and which capitalism exaggerates, and instead allow the ‘realm of

freedom’ for everyone (truly human history).

Engels has a very definite view on this. For him “the course of history is governed by inner

general laws” which he then identifies, unsurprisingly, as production and class-struggle.49 In

earlier periods people were simply not able to compute all the relevant factors, but since

capitalism has radicalised the underlying forces in history and thus brought the relevant

ones to light we can now understand the forces of history: it is not so much the ends and

48 Sartre, however, already realised the underdetermination of human action (cf. 1990, pp.11-13). 49 “But this distinction [between law-like events in nature and human action, U.M.], important as it is for historical investigation, particularly of single epochs and events, cannot alter the fact that the course of history is governed by inner general laws. For here, also, on the whole, in spite of the consciously desired aims of all indi-viduals, accident apparently reigns on the surface. That which is willed happens but rarely; in the majority of instances the numerous desired ends cross and conflict with one another, or these ends themselves are from the outset incapable of realization, or the means of attaining them are insufficient. Thus the conflicts of in-numerable individual wills and individual actions in the domain of history produce a state of affairs entirely analogous to that prevailing in the realm of unconscious nature. The ends of the actions are intended, but the results which actually follow from these actions are not intended; or when they do seem to correspond to the end intended, they ultimately have consequences quite other than those intended. Historical events thus ap-pear on the whole to be likewise governed by chance. But where on the surface accident holds sway, there actually it is always governed by inner, hidden laws, and it is only a matter of discovering these laws. […] But while in all earlier periods the investigation of these driving causes of history was almost impossible — on account of the complicated and concealed interconnections between them and their effects — our present period has so far simplified these inter-connections that the riddle could be solved. Since the establishment of large-scale industry — that is, at least since the European peace of 1815 — it has been no longer a secret to any man in England that the whole political struggle there pivoted on the claims to supremacy of two classes: the landed aristocracy and the bourgeoisie (middle class).” (Marx, Feuerbach and End of Classical German Philosophy,MECW, Vol.26, pp.387-389)


63

wants of particular individuals but the material conditions that underlie the actions of the

many. These material conditions are production, the relations and the forces thereof. Thus,

for Engels, as well as Marx, the answer to the question what the driving forces in history

are, are the yet undiscovered material relations and conditions. These can be studied and

calculated and the element of chance therefore eliminated. Since it is capitalism in particular

that amplifies the element of chance in human interactions and capitalism is a historical

development, it means that chance (or: accidental conditions) itself is equally historical. For

Marx it is clearly bound up with the competition between classes:

The differentiation between the personal and the class individual and the acci-

dental nature of the conditions of life for the individual appears only with the

rise of the class which itself is a product of the bourgeoisie. Competition and

the struggle of individuals among themselves engender and develop this acci-

dental character. (GI, Simon, p.145)

In the present epoch, the domination of material relations over individuals, and

the suppression of individuality by chance, has assumed its sharpest and most

universal form, thereby setting existing individuals a very definite task. It has set

them the task of replacing the domination of circumstances and of chance over

individuals by the domination of individuals over chance and circumstances.

[…] This task, dictated by present-day relations, coincides with the task of or-

ganising society in a communist way. (GI, p. 494f.)

Repeatedly we find claims like these in Marx and Engels, they belong to the standard reper-

toire of Marx-scholarship, socialism and communism and are perfectly woven into the on-

tology behind these approaches.50 Schaff therefore comments on the above passage by

Marx in this way:

The task to organise society in a communistic way is thus for Marx identical

with the task to organise a society in which the people direct the material rela-

tions and not the other way round. (1965, p.243, translation U.M.)

50 Schaff, as shown above, in his late exposition and defence of Marxism, takes up this control of the external factors and also here it is bound up with the entire ontology. “Marx sees it [the answer to the ques-tion ‘What is man?’, U.M.] in the sphere of human labour, in human praxis, conceived as the process of change of objective reality by man and thereby changing himself. […] The basic form of this doing is […] labour. Human labour shapes objective reality and turns it into human reality in this way, thus the result of human labour.” […] “In this way one can construct a thoroughly anthropocentric anthropology that does not require any non-human embellishments and which views the world as man’s product. […] Such an anthro-pology – anthropocentric and thus materialistic – is at once autonomous anthropology in the sense that the world of man is only understandable as independent of any forces that exist outside this world (that is outside of nature and society), that it is understood as the work of man.” (Schaff, 1965, pp.94f., 132f., translation U.M.)


64

He summarises succinctly:

What does it mean when we say that alienation is the domination of man’s own

products over man? It is a synonym for the spontaneity of social development, when

the profit of goods on the market, the competitive armament between states,

nationalist inclinations, racial hatred, religious intolerance etc. not succumb to

the will and control of human individuals, when they enslave the individual,

even threaten its existence and thereby limit its freedom. The battle against

alienation is thus a battle against the spontaneity of development, for a development planned

by man and subordinate to his will. In other words, it is a battle for the freedom of

man, not an apparent, but real freedom, in which man becomes the conscious maker

of his own destiny. […] Only in this way can we fully understand the meaning of

Marxist socialism. (1965, p.142f., translation U.M., my emphasis)

Clearly, the ‘spontaneity’ (which in Marx is translated as ‘chance’ or ‘fortuitous circum-

stances’, or ‘accidental conditions’, depending on the edition) of development is marked as

negative and is, in fact, to be abolished. With the materialism that Marx has in mind and

which is pursued within Historical Materialism as a broad approach, this looks plausible:

since all of the decisive factors of human history are explained materialistically and there-

fore as an object of science, without any non-materialistic hocus-pocus, we should be able

be in control of them, just in the same way as we are in control of the process and object of

production. Also Sartre (1990, p. 125) claims: “Thus unity of production and management

must characterise the socialist order: socialist man is human because he governs things;

every other order is inhuman, to the (variable) extent that things govern man.” Soviet Rus-

sia was a large-scale attempt to put this theory into practice: by streamlining production and

catering for all needs via plans. These plans were drawn up by the government and had to

be implemented in society. At worst, these plans had lost all connection with what was real-

istically possible and available. At best, they constituted a new medium and therefore a new

element of chance: they became a medium between the worker and his product, i.e. exactly

what was meant to disappear under communism. The plan thus becomes a new spontaneous

factor: the creator has to establish it on the basis of something, i.e. he works under con-

straints, and the worker equally acts under constraints, namely those laid upon him by the

plan.51 The constraints were under control of neither planner, nor worker and therefore

51 “This implied a reification of the citizen’s relations with the sovereign. The former was defined through the latter’s calculations as a mere unit of production and consumption. Between the two of them, there was the mediation of the Plan: an ambiguous reality which was both the voluntarist political project of a certain ruling milieu and at the same time – at least as it presented itself through the instruction imposed on this factor or that combine – the simple, rigorous determination of the condition to be fulfilled by each and


65

constitute an arbitrary limit and influence upon them. Spontaneity, chance, or fortuitous

circumstances have not been eliminated but were merely shifted and re-introduced at an-

other level.

Contrary to this approach, in which spontaneity is a threat to human freedom, I will later

argue with Arendt that it is exactly this spontaneity which is important for development

and it has nothing to do with the ‘material conditions’ of the world around us. What Marx

and Engels want to capture in Historical Materialism and subsequently remove is the un-

certainty inherent in human interaction. All terms used in this respect (spontaneity, chance,

accident, arbitrariness) are indicative of uncertainty perceived as a threat. Marx and Engels

want to remove this uncertainty. In response, theirs is a factory-model of human interac-

tion: it presumes that all essential conditions of human history are material, thereby empiri-

cal, and thus graspable. There is to be a direct and, moreover, material link between the

realm of facts and the realm of norms. Since, according to Marx, labour is our species-

distinctive activity which is at the origin of our knowledge of the world and our relations

with others, the features that pertain to labour therefore link with human history: in work

we master the process of production – the corresponding view of history is one of a process

we should be equally able to master.

I consider this approach as mistaken. I have shown that the central claim of Historical Ma-

terialism is the direct correspondence between conditions of production and social rela-

tions, and the aim of communism is the control of the latter through the former.52 But

production and the relations thereof are not the only influential factor in historical devel-

opment. Moreover, historical development does not proceed along the lines that Marx and

Engels proclaimed. Neither our material relations with Nature in production, nor our social

relations are as determinable as claimed. Although we constantly improve our grip and un-

derstanding of Nature, with every new discovered fact we also discover new questions.

Thus, even on the material side of life cannot gain complete control. In addition to this is

the non-material side, which Arendt called ‘action’, and for which Habermas claimed that

its rules are different from those of the material world. This side I have so far only hinted

at and it is linked to the phenomena of spontaneity, chance, arbitrariness and the missing

every one in order to save the USSR (the foundations of socialism).” (Sartre, 1990, p. 130f., original empha-sis) 52 „Marx saw labor as the essential human activity, and human potential at any point in history was determined by the forms that labor took. This ideal of the fundamental role of labor is expressed in historical materialism in the claim that the development of the forces and relations of production determines and explains the course of history. Implicit in idea is the further claim that human beings can only be free and flourish when they freely labor under conditions they control.” (Simon, op.cit., p. xxiv, my emphasis)


66

‘more’ of human characteristics mentioned above. Arbitrariness and chance are not due to human

negligence but ineradicable elements of human interaction. I will elaborate this shortly. This non-

material element is, however, what Historical Materialism does not and cannot account for.

3.8. Summary

Marx’s approach to human beings contains problems on the level of definition (what is dis-

tinctive about humans) and leads to a strange account of human relations and politics. The

nature of humans (or rather their essence, because part of the claim about human nature is

that there no such thing) is seen as production. This is their species-activity. Production is

taken as the stepping stone from which all subsequent human development has com-

menced. For Marx it is the origin of human discovery and knowledge, the key to our life,

its secrets, and of our mastery of the world. His ideas together with his directness and rig-

our certainly make him very persuasive. In the way that the relation between man and

world is seen and weighted it results in claims central to Historical Materialism: the view of

human relationships in terms of production, and our mastery of the world of labour as the

mastery over human life in general (because life is seen in terms of labour). That man can

make things affords him in Marx’s eyes with the ability to thereby also make himself.53 Our

knowledge originates from the insights gained in and through the activity of labour, and

our related problem-solving strategies have seemingly led to the advent of science. Because

Marx takes labour and production to be the fundamental features of human life, he thereby

thinks that in understanding production we will reach the ability to change human life.

But human life does not just consist of the mastery of Nature, this is a modern thought un-

doubtedly triggered by the staggering scientific and technological advances we have made

in the last 400 years. At the same time this is a reductive approach. Although humans live

off the environment in the same way as animals do, we have individual histories, we bring

together individual viewpoints. Additionally to our biological existence we have, for exam-

ple, the spheres of interaction, social life, and politics (praxis). Although the events that take

place in these spheres are connected to, and often concern, our biological existence there is

no simple causal link from the latter to the former. Yet this connection between human

productive activity (poiesis) and human social life is central to Historical Materialism. Praxis

53 Cf. Popper (1958, p.130ff.)


67

is seen as poiesis (labour). The Aristotelian understanding of praxis, by contrast, comprises

more activities than just labour. ‘Praxis’ refers to action or conduct in general, it is other-

seeking and dialogic. 54 I take ‘materialism’ to refer to the ability to account for the work-

ings of human life in a verifiable way, i.e. that it will enable us to determine exactly how

human society works. These insights will then enable us to construct human society ac-

cordingly and shape human history consciously in our own fashion. This is Marx’s goal

when he tries to eliminate the arbitrary factors in human life (for example by controlling

production and thereby eliminating the arbitrariness of supply and demand). Thus, the view

that praxis is in principle determinable persists even if the extension of ‘praxis’ comprises

more activities than just labour, since for Marx all relations are based on production. Again,

I take this approach to be central to Historical Materialism.

My concerns here are the following: Firstly, the account of human life falls short of interac-

tion and even if it wants to incorporate it this Materialism is prevented from accounting

for, so-called, unscientific explanations. Secondly, in its attempt to consciously regulate

human relationships it impedes human freedom: the spontaneity which is meant to be

eliminated is essential to freedom and by battling the former, Historical Materialism also

impinges on the latter. The spontaneity is partly hidden exactly in those features of persons

that Historical Materialism cannot account for (freedom, uniqueness). Although we are the

authors of our actions we are not thereby in full control of them. This is what Marx cannot

accept. According to him, all of life’s circumstances are man-made and should therefore be

controllable. But even if we were to accept the premise we would not have to accept the

conclusion. The problem is not one of understanding but the way in which social life is

constituted, the way in which we perceive other persons and ourselves. Historical Material-

ism claims that all relevant features here are historical developments that can be studied,

understood, and then altered according to our wishes if we have the relevant knowledge.

An agent’s personality, however, is not open to change in this way and the reason is that we

are not fully in control of our persona.55 Although I am the author of my actions I am not

the writer of story in which they take place. This is not due to a lack of knowledge but con-

stitutive of human interaction. Control cannot be achieved. Man can make things, but he

cannot control the impact of these things on him. This, again, is seen as a threat because if

we view human history as an object of conscious human control then such undeterminable

factors seem to deprive us of our humanity and limit one’s personality. Both of these con-

54 Aristotle (1976, p.369); Taylor (1993, ch.3) http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-praxis.htm 55 I will come back to this later.


68

cepts are equally seen as objects of mastery, therefore not being the master of one’s own

self appears as a backlash from a non-human reality, i.e. one that is not of one’s making. If

‘socialist man is human because he governs things; then every other order is inhuman,

namely to the (variable) extent that things govern man’ (Sartre, 1990, p. 125). Spontaneity,

chance, accidental conditions, arbitrariness, alienation, are all understood as impositions

upon man, threats to his humanity, or essence. They are flaws to be conquered; they are

what Marx’s materialism tries to bring under human control. Here the theory can have dev-

astating practical consequences because the drive to control it is politically dangerous: Ar-

endt (1958) argued that it is this drive to control history, and with it human interaction,

which has led to totalitarian regimes. I do not suggest that Historical Materialism necessar-

ily leads to totalitarian regimes, what is important for me here are the underlying ontology

and some of the conceptual consequences. The next chapters will now be concerned with

interaction, which I have only hinted at so far. It is this that is left out of the materialist pic-

ture because it escapes the material realm.

Arendt’s Human Condition

69

II. A reply to Arendt’s critics: in defence of labour, work, and

action

This chapter serves three purposes: 1. it is an exposition of Hannah Arendt’s ontology as

presented in The Human Condition, 2. it constitutes an approach with which to counter His-

torical Materialism, 3. in doing so I reinstate Arendt as an important writer concerning so-

cial ontology.

The first chapter showed the reduction of human life in Historical Materialism to labour.

Whether ‘labour’ is meant to refer to the satisfaction of necessary needs or the production

of useful objects or both, it is insufficient as a characterisation of what is distinctive about

human beings and as an explanation of history. Moreover, I argued that the two senses of

‘labour’ differ to such an extent that they cannot be compressed into one concept without

thereby implying difficulties concerning the object of enquiry: the life and characteristics of

human beings. Not only does the needs-based account of sociality in Historical Materialism

lead to an account of politics that ultimately wants to abolish politics, in its attempt for a

rationally ordered society according to principles of distribution it also tries to eradicate

whatever does not fit into organised plans. The unpredictability of human beings and

events are perceived as a threat to be overcome. This attacks a part of our human condition

that is constitutive of the way in which we experience life – namely the characteristics of

‘action’ (interaction), as Arendt called it.

Her approach is decisively different. Distinctive of human beings is not their ability to la-

bour but their ability to act. To explicate this is Arendt’s goal in The Human Condition. Here,

she offers an account of what she calls, ‘the active life’ (vita activa).1 She wants to describe

‘what we are doing when we are active’ by which she means to account for the basic activi-

ties that we are engaged in as human beings and that shape our existence; or, in her words,

“the most elementary articulations of the human condition, with those activities that […]

are within the range of every human being” (p.6).2 She finds three categories of activities

1 Hence the original title “Vita Activa”, contrary to the English The Human Condition, (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1958). Arendt herself later came to regret the title she had chosen for the English edition because it is misleading (see Benhabib, 1998, p. 170). Important for Arendt was the distinction between the active life (vita activa) that appears to others and the contemplative life (vita contemplativa) which is accessible only to oneself. 2 This excludes thinking “the highest and perhaps purest activity of which men are capable” (p.6) because thinking is part of the vita contemplativa she exempted from The Human Condition which only deals with the vita activa. To describe the vita contemplativa, including thinking, was Arendt’s project for her The life of mind.

Chapter II: Arendt

70

that serve as the main features of human life: labour, work, and action. For this categorisa-

tion Arendt received much criticism, especially for the distinction between work and la-

bour, mainly because it opposes the Marxian (but also Hegelian) concept of labour, as Ar-

endt herself points out. There have been three main types of objections to Arendt’s distinc-

tion: First, that Arendt’s account devaluates labour and praises work, thereby expressing an

intolerable snobbism concerning the “lower activities”. Second, that such clear distinctions

between work, labour, and, in addition, action cannot be drawn. Third, that Arendt’s dis-

tinction violates important Hegelian concepts thereby making the emergence of self-

consciousness, at least along Hegel’s lines, impossible. I will defend Arendt’s account

against these objections. The overall aim is to present a defence of Arendt’s account of,

what she calls, the vita activa.

1. Arendt’s ‘Human Condition’

1.1. Labour and Work

The distinction between labour and work is Arendt’s own peculiarity (as she herself ac-

knowledges) and earned her much criticism. Usually the two terms are used interchangea-

bly but Arendt points out that already etymologically the two terms have different roots in

every modern or ancient European language (in English labour and work, in Greek ponein

and ergazeshai, in Latin laborare and facere, in French travailler and ouvrer, in German arbeiten

and werken), which indicates a difference in meaning. Secondly, historically, she says about

her distinction that “apart from a few scattered remarks, which moreover were never de-

veloped even in the theories of their authors, there is hardly anything in either the premod-

ern tradition of political thought or in the large body of modern labour theories to support

it” (HC, p. 72). Despite this she claims that the phenomenal evidence in favour of this dis-

tinction “is too striking to be ignored” (ibid.).

First, in an account of the conditions that shape human life, Arendt accounts for the activi-

ties in which we are engaged in order to stay alive. We are embodied beings. In fact, all life,

as far as we know it, is embodied. We, and all other life, are thus necessarily required to

engage in activities that ensure sheer physiological survival. Thus, corporeality comes at the


71

price of the necessity to remain embodied, and thus to maintain the body. As embodied

beings we are part of nature’s requirements, if we do not fulfil its demands life will cease.

As argued in the previous chapter this corresponds to one side of Marx’s definition of la-

bour, namely the side that is stressed when the focus is the importance of labour for sur-

vival. The necessary activities that pertain to this end Arendt collects under the term ‘la-

bour’. This activity has the following characteristics:

1. The goal and concern of labour is consumption, not production. Although we may

produce our ‘means of subsistence’ we do so only in order to consume them. To

live we have to consume the amount of energy that life itself requires every day. In

this consumption labour disappears – its fruits are destroyed and the only evidence

of it is the continuing life. The products of labour are so short-lived that they

hardly exist long enough in order to become part of the world of things that we

surround ourselves with.3 What we produce in labour is almost immediately con-

sumed. It is part of the circle of life, so to say. All the effort leaves “no trace, no

monument, no great work worthy of remembrance” (HC, p.81), it is only spent in

order to stay alive. Food is procured and consumed. The only evidence that we

must have engaged in labour is the sheer fact that one is alive.

2. Since labour pertains to our survival it is therefore characterised by necessity. It refers

to those activities we have to engage in simply because our physical being demands

it: we need to stay alive. Being a living, physical being has the price of constant up-

keep of our physicality which requires bodies to consume the energy they spend be-

ing alive. The satisfaction of our physical needs is a matter of pure necessity, since

otherwise life ceases.4

3. Labour is repetitive. Our physiology works in such a way that energy resources are

depleted and refilled again: we cannot eat only once but have to engage in the ac-

tivities that satisfy life’s demands repeatedly. Since it is concerned with necessary

needs, i.e. life-sustaining needs, it satisfies demands that are principally unsatisfiable.

As long as we are alive we will have such needs. We satisfy our physical demands,

3 It is due to this that Chitty (op.cit., p. 40f. above) can say above that in labour there is no distinction between production and consumption. 4 Labour activities are often tiring and exhausting (hunting, gathering, farm-work, etc.). Although labour often features these characteristics they are nevertheless not definitive, they are contingent rather than necessary. Thus, it would be wrong to describe any exhausting activity as labour.

Chapter II: Arendt

72

but due to the constitution of the living body the supply is soon used up and the

demand rises again. Hence, needs, motivation, supply, and satisfaction move in cir-

cular motion and are directed towards a reoccurring and identical goal. We (or any

life for that matter) are thus caught in a never ending cycle and therefore labour has

neither a concrete beginning nor an end. Instead, it is a constant and repetitive cycle. The

purpose for which the product is created in the first place is the mere ability to start

the next labour-process, i.e. to have enough energy in order to satisfy our needs as

soon as they arise again, hence the never-ending cycle of labour. “One must eat in

order to labour and one must labour in order to eat” (HC, p.143) The physical ob-

ject that stands at its end will be destroyed in the use of it. Disappearance in con-

sumption is therefore the goal, purpose, and use of the product. The disappearance,

or destruction, of the product in consumption is inherent to its being and the proc-

ess must therefore be repeated for reasons inside the product.

4. Therefore, labour is tied to a kind of destruction since the satisfaction of the need

demands the undoing of the object. This destruction becomes apparent in the

products of labour: products of consumption. In this literal meaning of the term,

products are not just for consumers but are actually consumed or destroyed (e.g. food).

Destruction is therefore internal to the products of labour, it is their destiny: they are

only produced in order to be destroyed in consumption.

Consumption (destruction), necessity and repetition are thus the characteristics of labour.

Arendt finds the term animal laborans for beings engaged in this activity. The term expresses

the sense that these activities are done in accordance with the characteristics we share with

animals.5 This is not intended to be derogatory: we are all animal laborans, all humans, and all

animals. Labour applies to all embodied living beings since it is a necessity stemming from

the simple fact of embodied life and its requirements. It would not make sense to use a

term which denotes a necessity in a derogatory way.6 Although not distinctively human (be-

cause it applies universally), labour nevertheless shapes human existence.

Contrasting are the features that apply to activities in which we produce things not for con-

sumption but for use. This is what Arendt calls ‘work’. This is the other side of the definition

5 Arendt writes: “The animal laborans, which with its body and the help of tame animals nourishes life, may be the lord and master of all living creatures, but he still remains the servant of nature” (HC, p. 139, original emphasis). 6 More about this below.


73

of labour that Marx has. Above I criticised the conflation of these two terms. With the fol-

lowing characteristics it becomes clear in how far work differs from what Arendt calls ‘la-

bour’.

1. Work is world-building, that is, it creates an artificial environment consisting of man-

made objects (i.e. artefacts), or things (hence Arendt calls it ‘thing-world’). Human

life is life in a thing-world: a world built by producing artefacts that last. Building

and the production of artefacts is an activity humans, as the only species, engage in.

The world in which humans live is not just a natural world in which they only find

themselves but one that they create: we live in a thing-world.7 Animals also affect

their environment but this is part of the natural order, whereas the creation of the

human thing-world is part of our un-naturalness. Our creations are not simply part

of nature since they are not made by natural processes, instead they are meant to re-

sist, namely outlast and transcend, them. This man-made, enduring environment is

the world in which man lives (HC, p.7). Without a trace that somehow indicates

human presence we cannot even tell whether they existed, in fact, we often use this

to deny those beings the status of ‘hominids’: the beginnings of a distinctively hu-

man culture are currently dated back to the time when the early hominids started to

make tools (about 2.6 million years ago). The things that constitute the thing-world

are man’s creations, are the physical marks of his existence that he leaves upon it

(i.e. tools, buildings, roads, aqueducts, monuments etc.). In this way, humans make

a unique impact by changing something from its natural state (trees for example)

into something else (a hut or house) which would otherwise not exist if not for

man’s conscious activity. The products of work are thus not natural occurrences,

they are not part of nature’s cycle but new things in the world which would not exist

if humans did not produce them. They make a perceivable difference in the world

and the sheer physical presence is an objectification, or reification, of man’s own

existence.8 Arendt writes: “against the subjectivity of men stands the objectivity of

the man-made world rather than the sublime indifference of an untouched nature

[…]. (HC, p.137)

7 Arendt uses the term ‘earth’ for our planet as such, but ‘world’ for the environment constituted by human artefacts. Just like all other living beings we live on earth but humans furthermore build a world for themselves. 8 This is identical with Marx’ claims.

Chapter II: Arendt

74

2. Work is not a necessity like labour. Whereas we would die if did not labour, we could

survive without working. Work therefore embodies a kind of freedom, which is

also evident from the fact that the maker of a piece of work can demolish it with-

out fatal repercussions, whereas the labourer cannot demolish the product of his

labouring without endangering his life.9 In other words, it is possible to survive the

destruction of the world of human artefacts, but even the most advanced man-

made environments could not aid our survival if the products of labour (or the ba-

sis thereof) would disappear.10

3. Work is accumulative, contrary to labour’s repetition. Whereas labour repeats because

its products are destroyed by the very processes that demand their creation in the

first place, work multiplies the amount of things that exist since their intended end is

not destruction but endurance.

4. Therefore, the end of work is production and not destruction. Products of work do

not carry an internal destruction as products of labour do. Whereas productions of

consumption are created only in order to be destroyed, products of work are meant

to last. Their point is exactly to stay in the world. The destruction of the work-

products and the repetition of the work-process are thus not due to the nature and

purpose of the product as in labour, but factors outside of it (making a living for ex-

ample, or demand for more on the market, in which case work and labour coin-

cide). Hence, the process here is not one of repetition but multiplication. The work-

process is finished once the object is created and it has “enough durability to re-

main in the world as an independent entity [that] has been added to the human arti-

fice” (HC, p.143). Thus, the end of the work-process is determined by the final

product (Marx equally says: “the process disappears in the product”, C, p.176),

whereas the end of the labour-process is determined not by the product but the ex-

haustion of labour-power. The products of work are accordingly use-objects instead

of objects of consumption. They have a longer lifespan; they are enduring and thus

can actually be counted as parts of the thing-world. Consumer goods, by contrast,

do not last long enough; their “life expectancy” is limited since they are either de-

9 This of course does not deny that products of work can be important for survival. Arendt acknowledges that man is a conditioned being, which means that anything he encounters immediately becomes a condition of his existence, even if this thing is something of his own creation (see HC, p. 9). Certainly the creation of tools allowed the colonisation of new regions which were otherwise uninhabitable. 10 This constitutes the threat with which the scarcity of resources that enable life (water, soil, etc.) dominates over any threat posed by the destruction of our artificial environments.


75

stroyed in the act of consuming them, or, as part nature, they disappear quickly

(they mould, rot, etc.). Use-goods, on the other hand, endure longer and are usually

not limited to a single application but continue to exist in the thing-world and

hopefully help us to make life easier (e.g. tools, machines).

When consumption (destruction), necessity and repetition were the characteristics of la-

bour, work can be summarised by production, freedom (within certain constraints), and

accumulation. This corresponds to the ancient distinction between agere and facere: “whereas

the product of the activity in agere is within ourselves (i.e. satisfaction of internal needs

through consumption), the work of activity in facere is in the determined products, having

an artistic and technical character” (Rotenstreich, 1977, p.26). Humans are the only beings

on Earth producing a world of artificial objects. Work is thus a distinctively human activity

and singles us out as a species. Arendt hence gives humans the title homo faber (the produc-

ing human) and it is in these activities that man transcends his mere animal biology. Of

course it might be objected that also some animals build things (e.g. bees, ants, beavers,

spiders etc.) but the difference is that man conceptualises his final product before he starts

producing it. In this way work is an expression of the most human feature: thought.11

The distinction between work and labour is sometimes difficult to maintain. Products such

as toothpaste, shampoo, or single-use items like certain types of protective clothing,

kitchen roll, etc. make it difficult to apply the features of consumption and endurance as

outlined above. This difficulty is also often due to the abundance in which these products

exist and the speed with which they are used. Arendt says about our modern societies of

mass-production: “The rate of use is so tremendously accelerated that the objective differ-

ence between use and consumption, between the relative durability of use objects and the

swift coming and going of consumer goods, dwindles to insignificance” (HC, p.125). Most

of those borderline cases are nevertheless resolvable. I will return to this issue later.

1.2. Action

Action, this most important part of the human condition within the vita activa for Arendt, is

also the most difficult. Whereas labour and work can be enumerated as above, action re-

quires a different strategy. I will now try to explain this concept, even if this can be, so far,

11 We find the same idea in Marx (C., p.173f.).

Chapter II: Arendt

76

nothing more than scratching the surface. It is this third fundamental element of human

life that captures what Historical Materialism cannot: the ‘who’ of a person.

Despite Arendt’s efforts, the concept of action remained irritating. One reason may simply

be found in the translation of ‘action’ for the German ‘Handlung’ because ‘action’ is mis-

leading exactly on the feature Arendt wants to highlight, namely its social dimension.12 ‘Ac-

tion’, in English, refers to general processes and events that can be physical, biological,

chemical, mechanical, psychological etc. For example, falling rocks, digestion, hormone

emission, bodily motoric abilities, like the pumping of blood by the heart, or breathing, can

all be called ‘actions’. But compared to the German ‘Handlung’, these events are rather re-

actions, namely automatic and unintentional responses or consequences of unintentional

causes. A ‘Handlung’, however, is intentional. For example, talking to someone is a ‘Hand-

lung’, breathing, digesting, or hormone emission is not, since one cannot be said to do those

things in the same way that one talks to another. The one is intentional whereas the others

are not. A ‘Handlung’ thus requires agency - as the ability of the subject to act - and other

agents - to allow for the opportunity to act - hence it being a relational term because one can

only act (handeln) with others. Thus, depending on the context, I suggest ‘agency’, ‘dealings’

or ‘interaction’ as a better match for ‘Handlung’, because these terms do have the relational

and intentional qualities Arendt is concerned with: they emphasise the ‘inter’ in ‘interaction’

and also suggest its non-material nature.13 In its relational character, that is, as interactions

between agents, Arendt’s concept of action also differs from the ‘theory of action’, as

known in analytic philosophy. This field is concerned with the processes of decision and

execution of intentions through the use of the body. In this way, however, it remains un-

relational, that is, the analytic ‘theory of action’ deals with intra-personal intentions and

their execution, rather than the social interaction between agents that Arendt is concerned

with. This social interaction is hence relational, since it requires the presence of at least two

agents, and intentional insofar as the agents can be said to initiate their dealings with each

other, which does not mean, of course, that therefore all consequences are intended. It

means that they initiate interaction by themselves; it is something that they intentionally do

without being necessitated, unlike their breathing.

12 A note on language as this might be where Arendt’s mistake lies: the closest noun to ‘Handlung’ is ‘agency’ (except for its use for non-intentional events such as ‘reacting agents’ in chemical processes). There is, however, no direct verb for this noun. The usual one is ‘to act’, which, taken by itself, seems to point to ‘action’ as its noun rather than ‘agency’. 13 More about the immaterial nature of interaction below pp.84ff., p.147ff., 152ff.


77

Roughly, then, ‘action’ refers to the interaction between people. The complexity of this in-

teraction far exceeds that of any other animal species. We do not just express emotions or

signal actual occurrences as many species of animals can; human interaction is far more

versatile and complicated. A major ingredient is the possession of a language which allows

for most of the characteristics we consider special about us (e.g.: personal identity, reasons,

plans, conscious intentions that are open to reflection, etc.). Being relational, interaction at

once implies the two concepts of individuality and plurality, plus speech as a means of

communication. Interaction thus covers the individual (individuality) as well as the social

dimension (plurality) and the means of communication (language). I will now address these

in turn. Individuality and Plurality, those two central elements of our human existence for

Arendt, are intimately connected with interaction. It is here that Arendt finds this ‘who’ that

Historical Materialism attempts to explain with reference to material media such as labour

or use-goods, or production in the widest sense. But for Arendt the essential features of

human life remain hidden to such enquiry.

1.2.1. Individuality

We are all individuals, this sounds like a platitude, but it is not. In fact, we have to clarify

the sense of ‘individual’: every ant in an anthill is an individual but only to a certain extent,

and certainly not in the sense that a human is an individual. To bring out the difference we

have to distinguish between ‘otherness’ and ‘uniqueness’ both of which we connote with

‘individuality’. As Arendt explains, every single being on this planet, whether human or not,

is ‘other’ from its fellow beings, they are all different tokens of a particular type, so to say.

A person, by contrast, is not just a token of the type ‘human’, not just an-‘other’ physical

object, but furthermore an individual agent, a distinct personage, a unique human being

with his/her very own characteristics, contrary to an ant.14 Arendt writes:

In man, otherness, which he shares with everything that is, and distinctness,

which he shares with everything alive, become uniqueness, and human plurality

is the paradoxical plurality of unique beings. Speech and action reveal this

unique distinctness. Through them, men, distinguish themselves instead of be-

ing merely distinct; they are the modes in which human beings appear to each

other, not indeed as physical objects, but qua men. (HC, p.176, original empha-

sis)

14 Cf. Buber (1958, p.8) “Thus human being is not He or She, bounded from every other He and She, a specific point in space and time within the net of the world; nor is he a nature able to be experienced and escribed, a loose bundle of named qualities.”

Chapter II: Arendt

78

In order to be unique, that is, for every human being to be his/her own personage which

has never existed before and will never exist again, we must be distinct from each other: if

you were identical to me then neither of us would be unique. Yet it is an undeniable fact

that every single human being is unique. Nevertheless this uniqueness does not prevent us

from interacting, so there is also a degree of similarity, or equality.15 This equality is impor-

tant for the fact that we can relate to each other, but because we are all unique the relation

does not go far enough to presuppose each others wants, desires, projects, intentions, etc.

In short, we are similar but not identical. If we were identical we would not need the elaborate

kind of language we have, mere signs and sounds would be enough to indicate our match-

ing interests.16 Equally, if we were not even similar then we could not relate to each other, it

would be hard to find any basis for a unitary communication system and we could not

make sense of each other. Thus, we are distinct, yet alike; uniqueness and similarity are

both required. Any reduction of one to the other results in a world that is unlike the one

we inhabit.

What makes us individuals is the possibility of each and every single one of us to have their

own experiences, history, reasons, motivations, feelings, intentions, projects, etc. The way

in which this stronger sense of individuality is exposed is through speech and interaction.

As quoted above, it is through interaction that people ‘distinguish themselves’, that is, they

actively reveal themselves as a particular someone, rather than only being passively distinct

merely because they have different bodies and representing only another something, or any-

one. This links with the active sense of initiative mentioned above. We only know that we

are unique because everyone conducts their own actions and it turns out that none of these

actions between several people are identical. When I do something it has the unwavering

stamp of being done by me, where this is not simply reducible to the conditions in which I

find myself but also incorporates the particularity in which I respond and which is unlike

anyone else’s response. And even if someone else acts like I do, this does not negate the

fact that he acts as he does, where as I act as I do. Actions are thus not merely indicative of

the kind of species we belong to, but of the respective person, namely due to the way one

acts, the kind of action, for which reasons, and with which aim. The reasons as well as the

15 ‘Equality’ here is non-normative. It refers merely to the fact that we are similar beings. 16 We can express this in terms of Popper’s functions of language. He outlines a hierarchy of four features where each higher one presupposes those underneath: 1) the expressive or symptomatic function; 2) the stimulative or signal function; 3) the descriptive function; 4) the argumentative function (Popper, K.R., 2002, pp.397, 398). If humans were identical then communication could be reduced to expressing and signalling identical wants, the two lower functions of language that many species of animals possess. But over and above that we also have the descriptive and argumentative function in order to discuss concepts we use. Doing so reveals our individual perspectives. (See Popper, 2002, pp.397, 398)


79

kind of action (e.g. good, malicious, fake) can only be conveyed through speech. Through

speech we get to know another person, we discover their reasons for acting as they do and

their particular perspective. I can tell you a project of mine that is particular to me (and

even if it is not then the reasons and aims for which I’m doing it can differ from other

people with the same project) and you might give me your thoughts on it. In this case we

have both revealed ourselves to each other. Importantly, this revelation is not reducible to

the content of what we have said.17 Uniqueness is not just the propositional content of

one’s speech-acts but is a part of interaction that emerges as one acts.

Thus, the access to everyone’s distinct uniqueness is through interaction. If we did not in-

teract we would not know that we are individuals in this strong sense. Interaction flows out

of, and reveals, our individuality and through speech we make it explicit.

Only man can express this distinction and distinguish himself, and only he can

communicate himself and not merely something (HC, p.176).

Interaction and speech ‘reveal this unique distinctness’ that is not exhausted by having dis-

tinct bodies but, additionally, features unique personas. That is, only of humans can we ask

who the person is and expect an answer that will tell us of an identity which is unique. In no

other activity does the uniqueness of the agent become so apparent as in interaction, for it

is here that the individual experiences, reasons, motivations, feelings, and intentions enter

the world that we share with others. Therefore, the fact that we are all unique individuals is

of utmost importance, since without it interaction would not exist, nor would speech have

developed, for if we were all the same then there would be no need to communicate but

just a blind understanding as among, aptly called, anonymous social animals like ants or bees.

Uniqueness and interaction therefore require each other, they are co-referential.

1.2.2. Plurality

The other essential element for interaction is plurality: the fact that there are always many

people, that we live with others, that human life is social life.18 Without the presence of

others we are deprived of the opportunity to interact and therefore to be social agents in

the full sense of the term, namely to act among and with others. Thus, plurality is the con-

17 I return to this point in the next chapter in my criticism of Habermas. 18 For Arendt this Heideggerian idea (being is being with others, Being and Time, §26) became absolutely central. Of course also Marx thinks that all human life is social, but as shown in chapter 1, Marx conceives of human sociality instrumentally: it is an outcome of the need to reproduce and labour together with others.

Chapter II: Arendt

80

dition within which our individuality can exist, namely between several agents capable of

interacting. Interaction therefore presupposes plurality since a solitary human being cannot

interact. To use the literary example: Robinson Crusoe, as long as he was alone, did not

interact because he could not interact. He was deprived of the opportunity to act as a social

agent due to his solitude.

Once there are several individual agents capable of interacting an entire new level of life

comes into existence: the social world, in which the individual is not just subject to its own

drives and reasoning about which it may reason but also to the behaviour of other agents

about which it has to reason. The social world is the product of the continuous interactions

of the participating agents. Like in a team game, the social world requires not just a single

but constant participation, that is, interaction, of the members. If an agent stops interact-

ing, he falls out of the social world. We find the same thought in Aristotle, claiming that

the kind of life for man is “an activity or series of actions […] in a complete lifetime.”

(1976, Book 1, 1098a). Life requires constant interaction, thus each agent must continue to

interact and thus continuously import himself. By doing so the agent constantly affects the

social world anew and contributes to its existence as well as his own within it. However,

this does not require a particular conscious effort because we are social beings by nature.

We do not have to remind ourselves, so to say, to keep interacting. Rather, it is something

we do naturally. Yet it does rely on initiative, compared to other things we do and which

we do not have to be reminded of (like breathing) and which proceed passively – interac-

tion, however, proceeds only actively (hence vita activa). The general will to interact and to com-

municate is not triggered by necessity, like labour, or by the expectation of utility, like work but simply

stems from within ourselves.

That repeated participation nevertheless affects the social world anew is itself an important

feature for Arendt. Even if I repeated the same action daily it may very well be that today it

has very different consequences from those it had yesterday. This ‘newness’ is a further fea-

ture of interaction: the setting of a new beginning, the possibility for ‘initiating new things’

as Arendt calls it (HC, ch. 5). An agent’s individuality brings, through interaction, some-

thing new into the social world. For example, if I tell you my view about an issue, some-

thing new has entered our relationship, something that was not there before and which is

not exhausted by the content of what I told you. You not only know what I told you, but by

telling you I also revealed something about myself. You might go and do something because

of what I said, or you might have a different view of me now. Our ability to interact is the


81

ability to initiate something, which is a condition no human being can escape, once he is

thus capable, without ceasing to be human. This warrants a lengthy quote:

This appearance [as a unique persona, U.M.], as distinguished from mere bodily

existence, rests on initiative, but it is an initiative from which no human being

can refrain and still be human. This is true of no other activity in the vita activa.

Men can very well live without labouring, they can force others to labour for

them, and they can very well decide merely to use and enjoy the world of things

without themselves adding a single useful object to it; the life of an exploiter or

slave-holder and the life of a parasite may be unjust, but they certainly are hu-

man. A life without speech and without action, on the other hand – and this is

the only way of life that in earnest has renounced all appearance and all vanity

in the biblical sense of the word – is literally dead to the world; it has ceased to

be a human life because it is no longer lived among men.

With word and deed we insert ourselves into the human world, and this inser-

tion is like a second birth, in which we confirm and take upon ourselves the na-

ked fact of our original physical appearance. This insertion is not forced upon

us by necessity, like labour, and it is not prompted by utility, like work. It may

be stimulated by the presence of others whose company we may wish to join,

but it is never conditioned by them; its impulse springs from the beginning

which came into the world when we were born and to which we respond by

beginning something new on our own initiative. To act, in its most general

sense, means to take an initiative, to begin (as the Greek word archein, “to be-

gin”, “to lead”, and eventually “to rule” indicates), to set something into motion

(which is the original meaning of the Latin agere). (HC, p.176f.)

Expressed in terms of agency: humans are capable of agency, in fact, it is so central that if

someone did not interact they would cease to be what we consider a person. Essential, in

order to allow agency in the first place, is a social environment. Without plurality, that is,

without the existence of other agents, agency is impossible, contrary to labour and work.

Plurality is the condition of human action because we are all the same, that is,

human, in such a way that nobody is ever the same as anyone else who ever

lived, lives, or will live. (HC, p.8)

Chapter II: Arendt

82

1.3. Action: a beginning but no end

As a further characteristic, interaction has a specific beginning, namely the point in time

when someone interacts, but no specific end. For example, a worker may be unhappy

about the working conditions at his site and put forward a motion to change this. The be-

ginning of this interaction is clear, namely when he put forward the motion. But there is no

determined end to this action. Even if it falls ‘on deaf ears’ someone else may reintroduce it

later, or the worker’s initiative may gain symbolic status among other workers, or, if it is

successful, it may lead to several changes in the working conditions. Thus, it is of course

not guaranteed that the worker’s action will have the effect he intends, but as long as it is

remembered it never looses the power to spark a new action. This is different from both

labour and work. As characterised above, labour is a never-ending circular motion without

beginning or end and work-processes have a definite start and end. Interaction, by contrast,

has a definite start but no determined end.19 Every person capable of interaction can initiate

new things and set a new starting point but because we live amongst others, all of which

are equally agents, actions have no determined end. I can start a discussion, say, and the

talk as such might come to an end, but the way in which this discussion has influenced all the

participants which, in turn, might influence their actions with others, is beyond me. One

can neither exactly foresee nor plan the course of one’s interactions once they enter the

social world. Yet, whatever I do, the action is still mine. I am the originator and since I am

an individual my action is particular to me. As such it reveals me - I am identified by my

actions.20 It is hence a further strange feature of interactions that they reveal the person

who sets the starting point and is the originator (they make them the person they are), and

yet as soon as they are initiated they are taken out of one’s hands. The influence of our ac-

tions is largely out of our control.21

19 For labour, HC p.98, for action section 26, esp. pp.188-191 20 This is why Sartre (1973, p.41) can claim: “There is no reality except in action.” 21 A recent example which illustrates this fact is, what has become known as, the ‘cartoon wars’ (i.e. the issues surrounding the Mohammad caricatures in the Danish newspaper “Jyllands Posten” in September 2005). Whatever the motives of the creators might have been, it was hardly to spark a wave of sometimes violent protests (139 deaths and 823 injured persons) around the world. The cartoons had been published six months prior to the protests without causing problems. When a Muslim cleric drew attention to the cartoons the issue spread like a wildfire. Thus, at a time when the authors had probably already forgotten about them, the caricatures spawned a wave of protests which, in turn, spawned discussions about political correctness, freedom of expression etc., the authors and the publisher of the cartoons receiving death-threats and some of them being forced into hiding. In other words, the action had unintended consequences the extent of which were very unforeseeable. As the editor explained later, this was quite the opposite of their intention: instead of being alienating, the caricatures were meant to show how integrated Muslims are within the Danish nation, namely so integrated that they can also be caricatured. The reasoning was that not being able to make fun of someone is a way of excluding them. Therefore the caricatures were actually meant to indicate integration. (Der Spiegel, 22/2006, p.136). However much one may question the editor’s reasoning, it is unquestionable that he did reason. There are two main acting parties in this example: on the one hand the caricaturists and the editor, on the other hand the Muslim cleric who castigated the cartoons. Both parties acted and started some-


83

This is part and parcel of the social world. Our actions are taken up and influence the social

world in a way we cannot predict because we are all unique agents living in this social world

of interweaving dealings. Although we presuppose with every action that it will influence

others we have nevertheless no exact idea how it will do so. Arendt chose to call this reality

the “web” of human relationships, indicating by metaphor its somewhat intan-

gible quality. […] The realm of human affairs, strictly speaking, consists of the

web of human relationships which exists wherever men live together. The dis-

closure of the “who” through speech, and the setting of a new beginning

through action, always fall into an already existing web where their immediate

consequences can be felt. (HC, p.183f.)

This “web” of human relationships is also the reason why, as mentioned above, even iden-

tical actions may have differing outcomes, namely because the “web” always changes. The

constant interactions of the many participants involved in a particular issue have the effect

of always altering the connections and the meanings of the interactions between them. It is

due to this that we ‘can never step into the same river twice’, or ‘into the same web’ as the

analogy goes. As long as people interact the “web” will exist, but it never has a constant,

finished, or stable constitution.

To summarise: through action and speech man participates in the social world and only

there can interaction take place, it constitutes the social world. Being similar yet unique,

living together with others, being capable of action and possessing speech, these are the

pillars on which the social world rests. Interaction presupposes plurality and also reveals

the individual because it is through speech and interaction that the individual develops and

that his/her uniqueness can exist at all. We realise through interaction that we are individu-

als amongst other individuals. Interaction makes every participant a unique persona in a

social reality. A single human being is therefore not a human being in the full sense, only

the existence of other human beings, the existence of a community, creates the possibilities

for, what Aristotle would have called, human excellences. Thus, plurality is essential for

human life as we know it. These three aspects of our reality (interaction, uniqueness, plural-

ity) can therefore not be prized apart. Each one requires the two others: without interaction

thing the end of which was not determined by their action. Nor has the issue lost its potential: the cartoons could be used any time again if fundamental Muslims wanted to trigger action against the West. Alternatively, the Muslim protests may also be used by anti-islamists to show how ‘intolerant’ Muslims are. Again, the po-tential inherent in the original action remains.

Chapter II: Arendt

84

we would not know what plurality and uniqueness mean; without uniqueness plurality would

be impossible and interaction would be reduced to indicate identical wants and desires; and

without plurality we would be deprived of the opportunity to act and therefore realise our-

selves as unique individuals.

Interaction, as characterised by Arendt, is thus constitutive of the kind of beings humans

are (individually) and the world we live in (a social, thus plural, world). Plurality, with its

two elements of numerousness (of all agents) and uniqueness (of every single agent), is the

framework within which both human characteristics of sameness and distinction have their

place. Only in interaction can all of these develop at all.

1.4. Action compared to work and labour

Some differences have now already been mentioned: whereas labour is motivated by neces-

sity and work by utility, interaction needs no such causes but is innate; whereas labour is

circular and work has a concrete beginning and end, interaction has a beginning but no

end; whereas labour and work are relations between man and his surrounding physical en-

vironment, interaction concerns the social environment. As a consequence, and this is also

a feature that distinguishes Arendt’s account from Hegel’s and Marx’s, labour and work are

in themselves not necessarily social activities. Keeping myself alive as well as producing ma-

terial products are activities I can perform on my own. Of course it is practical to divide the

necessary labour between several people and specialise in a particular part of the work-

process, but there is nothing that makes those activities impossible without other agents. The

presence of others is not constitutive since it is not necessitated by these activities. This is

not to deny that labour (in the way it is performed by humans for example in the form of

agriculture) and work are outcomes of our social existence insofar as all culture relies on

this basis. Although we are always part of a social environment which we are simply born

into, there is nothing that stops an individual human being from engaging in labour and

work in solitude in the same way that deprives people of the opportunity for interaction.

Labour will have to be performed in order to remain alive and work can also be performed.

Contrastingly, interaction is impossible since there is no interacting in solitude. Conceptu-

ally interaction requires the presence of others. Solitude negates the ‘inter’ in ‘interaction’

and it thus becomes conceptually impossible, let alone practically. Robinson Crusoe could

certainly work and labour but he was deprived of the realm of interaction.

Action, as distinguished from fabrication, is never possible in isolation; to be

isolated is to be deprived of the capacity to act. Action and speech need the sur-


85

rounding presence of others no less than fabrication needs the surrounding

presence of nature for its material, and of a world in which to place the finished

product. (HC, p.188)

As mentioned above, contrary to labour and work, interaction is the only activity a person

cannot do without. Labour and work can be performed by others as long as they also pro-

vide for my corporeal demands. Our modern societies are based on these simple facts:

other people produce the food that we eat and the goods that we use. We can ‘outsource’

labour and work activities, but not interaction. It cannot be transferred to others for in that

case we would neither act nor speak, we would cease be human, because without interac-

tion the particular ‘some-one’ that I am would become a mere ‘some-thing’. I would cease to

be an agent, to make use of my capacity for agency, which makes me the unique person

that I am.

Furthermore, and this is again important in contrast with Historical Materialism, whereas

work and labour are activities of material transfer (producing food or objects) interaction is

comparatively non-material. Although it is an activity that we engage in it is nevertheless

ephemeral and intangible. It often certainly concerns labour and work but is itself neither a

product of labour nor work. Work and labour are both activities we engage in due to our

embodiment. Labour out of necessity for the sake of the body, work for the sake of utility

of a physical world in which we live among human artefacts (buildings, tools, etc.). They

are activities with products that are material and locatable, like our physical existence on

Earth. But interaction constitutes the dealings between people; it is non-material and as

such non-locatable. Interaction, “the web of human relationships”, is non-material and is

not necessitated by our embodiment.

We could go so far as to say that conceptually interaction does not depend on our physical-

ity.22 We can grasp this idea when we imagine being ghosts, or Cartesian non-extended

thinking substances, although the latter have the tendency to be singular entities in solitude.

The activities of labour and work would drop out of the range of activities we can engage

in, since we are not embodied. Yet we could, in such an imaginary condition, still interact

with others. If they still feature the same characteristics of individuality and plurality then

the social world would still exist, for example, there could still be gossip, discussions, and

22 A hint of this is also hidden in the problems we are concerned with in interaction, such as goodness, jus-tice, or fairness. These concerns have nothing to do with embodiment. This is also Habermas’ reason to re-ject Marx’s materialist reconstruction of interaction. Marx’ model subordinates language to labour and thus reduces ‘communicative action’ to ‘instrumental action’ (Sherman, 1999, p.210). More about this in chapter 3 and 4.

Chapter II: Arendt

86

also political societies. Contrary to labour and work, the concept of interaction is thus not

negated by non-embodiment. The physicality, so to say, of communication, that is, its ma-

terialisation as sound or sign, is only the mediator but not the communication itself because

the latter is hidden in the content, which, in turn, only unfolds in the mind. This can be

shown in two ways. On the one hand, as before, it is conceptually possible to imagine

communication without sound or signs (sight): a common idea of this is telepathy. On the

other, we can also imagine a scenario in which exist the mediators of communication (its

physicality or materialisation, the sounds and signs) but no minds. In this case the media-

tors would make no sense, because they lack content. In other words, without minds

speech and signs would be meaningless. To be clear, none of these two scenarios are real,

but they help to clarify the point that communication is immaterial and happens in the

mind, or better, directly between minds. (Telepathy may be fiction, but it is certainly not

conceptually impossible). The physicality that is so intrinsic to labour and work is inessential

for communication and interaction.

Being non-material and inter-personal, interactions are direct relations between people.

Whereas the concepts of labour and work have the products of these activities as (literally)

mediating objects, interaction features no such thing. Instead, interaction is immediate and

occurs directly between agents.23 Arendt writes:

Distinguished from both, consumer goods and use objects there are finally the

“products” of action and speech, which together constitute the fabric of human

relationships and affairs. Left to themselves, they lack not only the tangibility of

other things, but are even less durable and more futile than what we produce

for consumption. Their reality depends entirely upon human plurality, upon the

constant presence of others who can see and hear and therefore testify to their

existence. […] Viewed, however, in their worldliness, action, speech, and

thought have much more in common than any one of them has with work or

labour. They themselves do not “produce,” bring forth anything, they are as fu-

tile as life itself. In order to become worldly things, that is, deeds and facts and

events and patterns of thoughts or ideas, they must first be seen, heard, and re-

membered and then transformed, reified as it were, into things. Into sayings of

poetry, the written page or the printed book, into paintings or sculpture into all

sorts of records, documents, and monuments. The whole factual world of hu-

man affairs depends for its reality and its continued existence, first, upon the

23 Cf. Buber (1959, p.11f.). “The relation to the Thou is direct. […] Every means is an obstacle. Only when every means has collapsed does the meeting [with a Thou, U.M.] come about.”


87

presence of others who have seen and heard and will remember, and, second,

on the transformation of the intangible into the tangibility of things. (HC,

p.94f.)

Another way to bring out this difference in materiality between labour/work and interac-

tion is in terms of ontological objectivity/subjectivity (Searle, 2003). Firstly, once created,

products of labour (even for their short period of existence) and work exist independently

of human presence. They are therefore ontologically independent or –objective. By com-

parison, the “products” of interaction, namely the things we say and do, are dependent on

the presence of human beings who remember them. As long as they are not reified in ‘say-

ings of poetry, the written page or the printed book, paintings, sculpture, or any other sort

of record or document’, they do not exist independently but, on the contrary, only in the

minds of those who know about them. For example, fairy tales that are not written down,

or any oral tradition for that matter, exist only for as long as they are told, spoken about or

remembered. Once they lose this merely ‘subjective’ existence they cease to exist com-

pletely.

Secondly, interaction as such, and not just the “objects” in interaction (such as fairy tales),

relies on presence of many (at least two) individuals, since a single agent cannot interact.

Without the recognition of others interaction does not exist at all. We have reached the

requirement of plurality again: interaction is not only subjective, or observer-relative, but

intersubjective, that is, relational and therefore requires the actual presence of others.

In this presence of others I become the unique agent that I am. I am not just another func-

tioning physiological body (labour) and also more than another token of that type of beings

on Earth with the gift to produce ‘universally’, as Marx says, that is, to surround myself

with a physical environment of my making that goes beyond the ability of any other animal

species (work). Above both of these I am an individual agent who is unlike any other agent.

Thus, it is in interaction that every single human can distinguish him/herself as a unique

person. This uniqueness cannot be captured in products of labour or work even though they

may undoubtedly indicate such a presence. This ‘who’ that every single human being is, can-

not be reified.24 In the process of materialisation the artefact cannot embody the character of

maker. We may of course say that something is a ‘typical Rembrandt’ or ‘typical Rodin’, but

here we mean their skill and way of representing something. We do not therefore know who

24 “[The] subjective in-between is not tangible, since there are no tangible objects into which it could solidify; the process of acting and speaking can leave behind no such results and end products. But for all its intangibility, this in-between is no less real than the world of things we visibly have in common.” (HC, p.183)

Chapter II: Arendt

88

Rembrandt or Rodin were. In order to get a sense of the latter we write biographies, or

make documentaries in which an artist’s work, say, is embedded in a story that retells

his/her interactions. In other words, we are presented with the unique persona of the artist:

his life-story, that is, his actions. Individuality is what appears in interaction and through

speech and which cannot be replicated in material products. An artist could produce innu-

merable artworks and yet we would not know what kind of a person he/she is. Moreover,

another person may, however unlikely, produce exactly the same objects, nevertheless we

would not suppose that the two makers therefore identical. The ‘being of man’ therefore

goes beyond his material existence, material activities, and material products. It is not ex-

hausted by theoretical approaches that focus only on these features, such as Historical Ma-

terialism. Human beings are moreover endowed with the capacity for agency which turns

them into unique individuals, where this agency is neither necessitated by, nor objectifiable

through, our material relations with the world. Rather, it remains immaterial in the interac-

tions between agents.

To summarise: we can now see in how far interaction is immaterial, compared to labour

and work. The latter are both prompted by our embodiment and their products are them-

selves embodied, or material. Interaction, by contrast, is neither prompted by our embodi-

ment nor are its “products” embodied, or material, things. On the contrary, in order for

actions to become as objective as products of labour or work, namely to become inde-

pendent of those who are engaged in interaction, the interactions themselves have to be ob-

jectified. They have to be reified into ‘sayings of poetry, the written page or the printed

book, paintings, sculpture, or any other sort of record or document’. These reifications are

then themselves products of work, yet in that case they have ceased to be interactions and

are now records of them. By itself, however, interaction only requires plurality, individuality

and communication – none of which necessitate embodiment, or reification.

Again, this does not deny or downplay our embodiment but only describes the differences between

interaction, labour and work. Contrary to some of Arendt’s critics, one of the aims of The

Human Condition was to give credit to our earthly existence (and thus labour and work) since

so much depends upon it (cf. HC, p.16f.). Yet labour, work, and action can still be distin-

guished concerning their ‘worldliness’, or objectivity, in the way Arendt does and in such a

comparison it becomes clear that interaction, this distinctively human activity, in the way

we practice it, is not material at all, yet nonetheless just as real.

Objections to Arendt

89

2. The objections

In order to further my endorsement of Arendt’s account I will now answer some of the

objections that have been raised against it over the years. In regards to my focus on the

concept of labour in Historical Materialism I focus on objections from this tradition against

Arendt’s distinction between labour and work. It was argued that her distinction is snob-

bish, that it is not applicable, and lastly that it obliterates the dialectic between man and na-

ture which is important for the emergence of self-consciousness along Hegelian and Marx-

ian lines. In what follows I will answer these criticisms.

2.1. Objection 1: Snobbism

An often made objection to Arendt from her opponents has been to accuse her of snob-

bism (e.g.: Parekh, Bakan, Engler, Sayers). The argument goes as follows: the distinction

between labour and work either leads to, or is an explicit expression of, an elitist disregard

for the “lower activities”. Sayers (2003, pp.117,118) for example, writes concerning Arendt

that

[…] she tends to treat those who perform it [labour] as in effect a sub-human

species, animal laborans. In a corresponding way, she elevates ‘work’ (and what

she calls ‘action’) above the material realm. She thus transcendentalises ‘work’

and gives it an exaggerated and false human significance. She treats with disdain

and contempt the labour which meets consumer needs and those who do it.

Such élitist attitudes may have been tenable in the ancient world, where they

corresponded to the prevailing social conditions. They are inappropriate and

unacceptable in the modern world where such conditions have long passed.

In other words, snobbism is apparently a part of Arendt’s theoretical framework which she

explicitly borrows from Aristotle who also had a profound disdain for physical work (cf.

Engler, 2005, pp. 48, 49; Bakan, 1979, p.63). Arendt’s conceptual distinction is therefore

part of a value-judgement that her critics are opposed to, hence the accusation of snob-

bism.

Admittedly, in The Human Condition there are numerous passages that all seem to devalue

labour and praise work. In trying to stress the difference between labour and work Arendt

uses many terms for the former that have a negative connotation (toil, hard, unproductive,

Chapter II: Arendt

90

exhausting, futile etc.) whereas the latter appears mostly in connection with terms of a posi-

tive air (creative, forming, free etc.). Nevertheless, there are passages that do emphasise the

importance of labour. For example, about the labour of menial servants (that Adam Smith

found so unproductive) she says that

what they left behind them in return for their consumption was nothing more

or less than their masters’ freedom, or, in modern language, their masters’ po-

tential productivity. […] It is indeed the mark of all labouring that it leaves

nothing behind, that the result of its effort is almost as quickly consumed as the

effort is spent. And yet this effort, despite its futility, is born of a great urgency and moti-

vated by a more powerful drive than anything else, because life itself depends on it. (HC, p.87,

my emphasis)

Despite their rarity, passages like this already indicate that Arendt cannot have seriously

intended to hail only work and scorn labour. Thus, when Mildred Bakan (1979, p.52) goes

so far as to say that Arendt must have obviously forgotten that “without labor, no work as

world-building would be possible” she has simply not read Arendt thoroughly, who was

fully aware of this fact as the last quote shows. However, we can find more compelling evi-

dence in a lecture she gave in 1967 (nine years after the first edition of The Human Condition)

where she is more explicit about the value of labour and for which it is worth quoting her

at length.

[…] it is in the nature of the human condition that contemplation remains de-

pendent upon all sorts of activities – it depends upon labor to produce what-

ever is necessary to keep the human organism alive […]. (Arendt, 1987, p.29)

Concerning labour-products she notes that “they are the least worldly and, at the same

time, the most natural and the most necessary of all things” (ibid., p.33, my emphasis). And finally

Since labour corresponds to the condition of life itself, it partakes not only in

life's toil and trouble but also in the sheer bliss with which we can experience our

being alive. The "blessing or the joy of labour", which plays so great a part in mod-

ern labour theories, is no empty notion. Man, the author of human artifice, which

we call world in distinction to nature, and men, who are always involved with

each other through action and speech, are by no means merely natural beings.

But insofar as we too are just living creatures, laboring is the only way we can

also remain and swing contently in nature’s prescribed cycle, toiling and resting,

laboring and consuming, with the same happy and purposeless regularity with

which day and night, life and death follow each other. The reward of toil and trou-


91

ble, though it does not leave anything behind itself, is even more real, less futile than any other

form of happiness. […] The blessing of life as a whole, inherent in labor, can never be found

in work and should not be mistaken for the inevitably brief spell of joy that follows accom-

plishment and attends achievement. The blessing of labor is that effort and gratification follow

each other as closely as producing and consuming, so that happiness is a concomitant of the

process itself." (ibid., p.34, my emphasis)

Arendt is thus explicit that “labour is the activity which corresponds to the biological proc-

ess of the human body” (HC, p.7). It is absolutely crucial not only for our survival but also

for our contentment. Contrary to Bakan’s claim, then, Arendt was fully aware of the impor-

tance of labour and did not mean to devalue it.1 In short, insofar as labour, according to

Arendt’s own account, is a necessity it would simply be nonsensical to devalue it. The term

‘animal laborans’ is not a value judgement (although it was for the ancient Greeks, which is

why they had slaves) but a description and a reminder of the fact for all our development

we are still a species on this planet that is dependent on its surroundings like any other. It is

rather part of the human hubris which speaks when we are outraged of reminders such as

Arendt’s: the reminder that we are merely another animal species among all others.2 More-

over, as claimed before, one aim of The Human Condition was to give the vita activa an equal

weighting to the vita contemplativa and accordingly Arendt does not intend to degrade the ac-

tivities that keep us alive and allow for our ability to contemplate (HC, p. 16f.)

2.2. Objection 2: Arendt’s distinctions are not applicable

Another criticism has been the claim that Arendt’s categories of work and labour are not

applicable in real life. There are two reasons for this inapplicability: on the one hand it is

argued that Arendt’s categories are too narrow: namely that there are many more activities

that we actively engage which do not fit into her distinction. On the other hand it was also

1 L.J. Disch (1994, p.27) also argues that Arendt is not elitist. 2 In this connection it is worth mentioning a current debate which embodies this contention concern-ing the distinctiveness of the human species. In the last decade or so there has been an issue concerning the classification of human beings which is fought out on the field of anthropology. It is still customary to repre-sent the class of hominids as a separate branch on the evolutionary tree, splitting from other primates about 7 million years ago. However, ever since molecular geneticists have found out that we share over 98% of our genes with our closest ancestors the chimpanzees, these scientists call for their inclusion into the branch of hominids. Genetically there is simply not enough difference between humans and chimpanzees to warrant the attribution of an entire separate branch on the evolutionary tree. Paleoanthropologists, who study early hu-man culture, by contrast, insist on the customary distinction that distances us so clearly from those beings that we like to watch in the zoo. Currently both systems exist simultaneously in leading scientific journals such as Nature or Science and authors are so far not required to decide on one or the other. However, this issue is becoming increasingly pressing. Prof. Dr. Carsten Niemitz, in regards to this issue, has called humans the ‚animal that does not want to be an animal’. (see Neue Rundschau 117/4, Frankfurt/M 2006, pp. 53-68)

Chapter II: Arendt

92

argued that these categories are too wide and allow for many activities to belong to both la-

bour and work. Thus, there is no such clear cut distinction between these two activities as

Arendt suggests.

For the ‘too narrow’ side of the objection activities like sleep, rest, (Parekh, 1981, Sayers,

1998) and making love (Parekh, 1981) have been used as examples. Sleep and rest, how-

ever, fail immediately because they are not activities in Arendt’s sense. She is concerned

about those activities that we actively engage in and which appear as signs of an active life.

Sleep and rest are not activities that we actively engage in (how do you engage in sleep or rest?),

instead we do the opposite: we let go, we disengage, which is why they are relaxing. If sleep

and rest were engaging activities then they would not be relaxing, thus they are what they are

because we do not engage with anything. Hence, they are not considered activities in the

relevant sense.3 Thus, since Arendt is concerned with those activities that appear as active

engagements that characterise active life as it appears to an observer, sleep and rest simply

drop out of the picture.

‘Making love’ seems a tougher case. It is obviously an active engagement and it is character-

istic of human life. But it is also characteristic of many other species, namely all those that

procreate through sex. It is therefore not distinctive of human beings. But, it will be re-

plied, Arendt also considers labour to be a part of the human condition which is equally

not distinctive. So why is labour a part of the human condition and ‘making love’ is not?

The reason may be that we do not have to engage in it once we are alive in order to be

characterised as human beings. Society as we know would continue until the last person

dies. Ceasing to engage in this activity would surely be very uncommon, but it is possible

and would not deprive us of the status of human beings. It may be a natural inclination but

by no means a necessity for the classification as human. Nuns and monks are still human

beings - indicatively, they engage in those activities that Arendt describes: they live (labour),

they build (work) and they interact.

3 Of course medically speaking sleep and rest are signs that the respective person is alive but they are not active engagements that characterise human life. Maybe a turn of phrase helps explaining here: people sometimes say about the severely disabled that they “do not have a life”, or bedridden patients talk about their life being reduced to this, that, or the other and we can find a similar intuition in us when we think about Nozick’s experience machine. The intuition is that without activities (as active engagements) it becomes hard to talk of a life. Being unable to act or to be an agent (to be unable to act or do something) deprives a human being of a big and important chunk that we, as ‘able-bodied’ persons, take for granted every day. This intuition makes us place a distinction between being alive and having a life. The difference is not, as the phrase may suggest, that the latter person possesses something the other does not, but that one is able to do things the other cannot and this ability to do things is what we take an active life to include. Rest and sleep are usually not considered here: it comforts no bedridden patient that he can rest and sleep all he wants.


93

Also, if ‘making love’ is meant to refer to the particular meaning that sex has between peo-

ple who are in love, then we obviously do not refer to the mere physical act anymore. In-

stead, we refer to the meaning that sex has for those people. But then we have to include

interaction: sex has its meaning due to the interactions (revelations) between people. In this

case, however, the example is in Arendt’s favour.

Thus, the examples that are given to show that Arendt’s list of activities is not exhaustive

expose a misunderstanding of what she was trying to achieve. Her aim was not to catego-

rise every single activity humans are capable of. Then the list would not only be endless

(including scratching one’s head, putting stamps into a book, counting coins, walking,

smoking, etc.), but it would also be a description of human nature, which she explicitly

does not want to give (HC, p. 9f). Rather, her aim was to find those activities that are basic

to our human life, that provide the platform for all else. Her book

[...] deals only with the most elementary articulations of the human condition,

with those activities that traditionally, as well as according to current opinion,

are within the range of every human being. (HC, p.5)

The other side of the claim that Arendt’s distinction is inapplicable is to say to that labour

and work cannot be so rigorously distinguished. Some activities seem to fit both activities.

But I maintain in Arendt’s defence that most activities can be accurately classified, and for

other examples it has to be said that they presuppose the ontology Arendt outlines. This

will become clear subsequently.

The main contention is that several features of labour also apply to work, contrary to Ar-

endt’s argument (Parekh., 1981; Sayers, 2003, p. 116, and 2005). Let’s turn to a particular

case. Sayers (2003, p.116) writes:

it is impossible to detach ‘labour’ and ‘work’ as Arendt suggests: the two are

necessarily and inextricably combined in human productive activity. The ‘la-

bour’ which meets consumption needs also creates a product, it is thus at the

same time a form of ‘work’ in Arendt’s sense.

What has been overlooked here is Arendt’s point about the endurance of objects. It is of

course true that a loaf of bread is as much an object as a pair of shoes but, to answer in Ar-

endt’s own words,

Chapter II: Arendt

94

what distinguishes the most flimsy pair of shoes from mere consumer goods is

that they do not spoil if I do not wear them, that they have an independence of

their own, however modest, which enables them to survive even for a consider-

able time the changing moods of their owner. Used or unused, they will remain

in the world for a certain while unless they are wantonly destroyed. (HC, p.138)

It is this endurance which is one of the hallmarks of products of work and the reason why

this is so important is that

the things of the world have the function of stabilizing human life, and their

objectivity lies in the fact that men, their ever-changing nature notwithstanding,

can retrieve their sameness, that is, their identity, by being related to the same

chair and the same table. (HC, p.137)

Thus, Arendt does not deny that labour-processes create objects, but what is important is

that the environment they create is radically different from the world of the products of

work. The latter can give man a place, belonging, and identity in the world, whereas the

former cannot. Goods of consumption keep man in nature of course, because they keep

him alive, but they cannot give him the objectivity of a man-made enduring environment in

which he can feel at home. Products for consumption, the products of labour, perish: the

gathered fruit, the prepared foods, they all go mouldy, or rot, or evaporate, etc. they are

part of nature’s never-ceasing cycle of the natural processes of creation, withering, and dis-

appearing, in which they are absorbed, so to say, as soon as they are produced. Without

modern means of preservation, like a fridge for example, most products of labour hardly

even last several days, some of them a few weeks, a very small number may last a season.

The fridge, by contrast, is a product of work and lasts longer than any of its contents, yet it is the contents,

not the fridge, that keep us alive and it is the fridge, and not its contents, that we get used to.

The products of work are use-goods, they are meant to last and withstand the forces of na-

ture. Of course they do not last forever: the tools and machines wear down, or disintegrate.

Thus, also those products of human activity that are meant to last, instead of being con-

sumed, gradually disappear. But note first, that, if everything was as we wanted it then they

would last forever: ideal machines would be those that are not subject to wear and tear,

which disturbs their use because it means that we will have to replace them eventually. The

disintegration of use-goods is an annoying fact which counters our intention to use them

forever, if we could, because it is their use, not the wear and tear, that we intent. This matches

the characterisation of work given above: the reasons for the multiplication of use-goods


95

are extrinsic to them. We have to replace them because something happens that we do not

intent with their use, namely wear and tear. Contrastingly, the products of labour have to

be produced repeatedly for reasons internal to them: we have to re-produce them because

their consumption, and thereby destruction, is their intended end.

In other words, the distinction between labour- and work-products is the distinction be-

tween goods of consumption and use-goods. As the names suggest, the former are meant

to be consumed, thus literally destroyed or annihilated, and the latter are meant to be used in

order to perform certain functions. Consequently it is better if use-goods last long and can

be used many times, in other words, they are meant to endure. To those enduring things

we can then become accustomed to.

An illustration of this thought is the feeling of homecoming, since a big part of this feeling is

dependent on familiar objects. Of course we also ‘come home’ to people we love, but the

environment in which the people live is also crucial. We cannot ‘come home’ to an entirely

different place. That we do get attached to use-goods is also illustrated by the fact that

people carry objects or images of places with which they are familiar around with them as

they go through life. Often our attachment to them steps into the foreground and the use of

these items steps into the background and we start talking about the ‘sentimental value’ of

these items. This is only possible for use-goods. By contrast, no one attaches ‘sentimental value’

to a loaf of bread, an apple, or other consumer goods. In ‘sentimental value’ the stabilising

function of use-goods, that Arendt stresses, has become explicit. This function can only be

provided by objects that endure. A constantly changing environment can give us no feeling

of home and no sense of belonging, simply because the ‘something’ to belong to is unavail-

able. This applies to labour-products: since they are part of the natural cycle, they cannot

endure, their life expectancy, as said before, is too short. Again, we do not get attached to a loaf

of bread, a fruit, or a drink, but we can become accustomed to work products, like the knife with which we

cut the bread, the bag with which we collect the fruit, or the cup from which we drink.4 To speak in Ar-

endt’s language, labour products keep us on Earth (i.e. alive) but they do not create a world

of human artefacts.

It is in this way that labour and work create two different aspects of the world we inhabit.

Work creates the world (as distinguished from the Earth as our natural environment) we

live in, the world of human artefacts, but labour is the condition that enables life in the first

4 Arendt writes: “against the subjectivity of men stands the objectivity of the man-made world rather than the sublime indifference of an untouched nature […]” (HC, p.137).

Chapter II: Arendt

96

place. Thus, labour serves life, whereas work produces the artificial surroundings in which

we live. When labour is characterised by necessity, work is characterised by utility. It is possible to live

in mere natural surroundings without any human artefacts. But firstly it would be very un-

practical and secondly without the products or work, our life would lack something very

distinctive, namely the world of man-made objects in which we live and which is typical for

the human species.5 This world is particular to the human species, which is why Arendt

included it in her analysis of the conditions in which human life takes place.

As a final example of the argument that Arendt’s categories are not mutually exclusive,

Parekh (1981, p.109) gives an example of a painting created for monetary purposes which

has a political implication. This painting must then respectively be classed as a product of

labour (since the money is necessary for survival), a piece of work (since it is an enduring

human artefact), and it is also bound up with Arendt’s concept of action because of its po-

litical message. The painting thus seems to belong to all three of Arendt’s categories and

hence they must be too broad.

In one way Parekh is right, seen in this view the painting does belong to all three of Arendt’s

categories. However, it should be said that painting does not feature in Arendt’s scheme

because it is not a fundamental activity of human beings: we are not characterised by being

able to paint. Of course it is one of the many things we can do and it is indicative of the

human species, but so is collecting stamps, participating in the Olympic Games, or smok-

ing a cigarette for relaxation. But are these fundamental activities? Rather not. Painting is

one of the innumerable activities we can engage in because we are alive, live in a world of

human artefacts and interact with other people. In other words, it is dependent on the basis

that Arendt calls ‘the human condition’. Thus, examples like Parekh’s are unsuccessful be-

cause they are cases which rest on the foundation that Arendt wants to illuminate. They

presuppose the condition they want to criticise. That a painting can serve as a means to

survive only shows that people can create artefacts which, via interaction, can serve to fulfil a

need which they otherwise could not satisfy. Here we have labour, work, and action united.

The example therefore does not show the inadequacy of Arendt’s approach, on the con-

trary, it is evidence for the human condition as Arendt describes it. Even though her cate-

gories stress differing elements of his condition it is nevertheless one condition in which we

live.

5 Although there are some human societies (like African bushmen or Mongolian shepherds) who live almost without any tools of human making, no society is completely without them. Even the most tribal com-munities have such early tools as knives, axes, bows and arrows, etc. Again, anthropologically one important element of the human species is its material culture.


97

However, to further respond to Parekh’s point: first and foremost the painting is a product

of work: it is conceptualised beforehand, the production process finishes at a certain point,

the product endures over time, it is a new entity in the world independent of its creator,

and by itself it does not satisfy the painters physiological needs. These traits are intrinsic to

it. Moreover, it has some of the features that only apply to works of art: for example, al-

though, as any other product of work, it is meant to be used, instead of consumed, in the

case of art its use is obviously unlike the use of tools, say. The use of art lies in its percep-

tion and contemplation. That the painting also serves as a means to survive, namely

through exchange for money which, in turn, is used in order to buy food (products of la-

bour), is extrinsic to the painting.6 That is, it is no necessary feature of it, nor is the political

implication. To this latter aspect apply Arendt’s elaborations on action, namely that it relies

on the existence of a ‘web of relations’, that it cannot be exactly foreseen nor controlled

once it becomes part of this ‘web’ and that it retains the power to serve as a cause for ac-

tion for as long as it exists or is remembered. Again, these features are not intrinsic to the

painting as a coloured canvas but as an object in interaction. Thus, in order for Parekh to

construct his example he relies on the basis which Arendt sets up: by itself the painting is a

product of work and therefore unable to keep its producer alive. It can only be a means to

survival when it is exchanged for labour-products that other people produce. For there to

be an exchange the painter has to engage in interaction.

Consequently, the objections that Arendt’s categories are not applicable can be countered.

They are not too narrow, since Arendt did not want to list everything people can do but

only the general activities that are elementary to the way we live and which create the basis

for the innumerable other activities we can perform. These other activities are contingent

on the basis established by labour, work, and interaction. Thus, examples that seem to ap-

ply to several parts of the human condition does not show that Arendt’s categories are too

wide, but only that they have to be presupposed in order for these examples to work. Con-

sequently, her categories are quite broad, but nevertheless with distinctive characteristics

and not as wide and/or blurred as objectors have argued them to be.

6 A closely related point is MacIntyre’s distinction between internal/external features of a practice (A.MacIntyre, 1985, chs.14, 15). I will discuss this approach below with Breen and Honneth (pp.131ff.).

Chapter II: Arendt

98

2.3. Conclusion to the first two objections

As can be seen from the elaborations so far, Arendt is not concerned with the particular

social situation in which labour, work and action are being performed, i.e. whether work and

labour are divided between particular classes in a specific society, say. She is concerned

with those activities in which we engage in order to live as human beings. This does not

deny that we live in societies that are the reason for many of the things we do and the val-

ues we hold. Thus, it is true that labour, work and action are always performed in a given

society. Nevertheless, labour and work can also be performed outside a social environment,

whereas this does not apply to interaction because it establishes the social environment in

the first place. So far, then, Arendt is not concerned with the social status, value, or ranking

of these activities. Her evaluations arise purely out of the significance they have for human

life in general, hence my arguments against the ‘snobbism-objection’. Labour, work and ac-

tion are universal conditions of human life as we know it. Similarly Marx considers the satis-

faction of needs to be a universal human condition.7 Of course these are not metaphysical

necessities but they describe human life as we know it. For example, if people could ever

live without a body, or if bodies could be maintained without consumption, then this

would be an instance of human life without the necessity to labour. A change of such kind

would, however, result in a drastic change of the conditions of life. As far as we know, la-

bour, work and interaction are always performed in any human society. Of course they can

be done under many different social circumstances, but the important point is that they are

being done, not which status they have in a particular society. It is in this way that they are

universal. Hence, Arendt is not talking about the status of labour and work as they are

viewed in society. This is a contingent matter and not Arendt’s concern at a stage where

she wants to find out what we are doing when we are active. In both labour and work we

are active yet these activities do not depend on our social environment. When we engage in

them we are active, whether within a society or as a lonely Robinson Crusoe.

Therefore Arendt is also not offering job-descriptions (for example that labour is the hard

toil of the working class and work the meaningful activities of the upper classes), which

some of her opponents mistakenly assume. In everyday language ‘labour’ and ‘work’ are

used synonymously and mostly in connection with what we call a ‘job’. But in the way Ar-

endt uses these terms ‘labour’ and ‘work’ are not concepts of professional occupations such that

labour and work constitute jobs that one does in order to earn one’s living. A job is a social

7 See chapter 1.


99

invention and does not have to do anything with Arendt’s tripartite distinction at all. What

a job is and which activities can be executed in order to earn money is a contingent fact and

not of interest for Arendt’s analysis because it is part of those further social circumstances

she is not yet concerned with. She focuses on fundamental activities that are distinctive of

humans as a species. Thus, when such points are used against Arendt her objectors misun-

derstand her. What is used to rebut Arendt are social circumstances and marks of our social

system, not of labour or work themselves. The development of our modern “jobholder

societies”, as they are sometimes called, is a social phenomenon and that within these so-

cieties most occupations are executed to ‘make a living’ is a result of this particular system.

When Arendt says, for example, that work is a free activity because the creator’s life is not

dependent on it, this does not exclude that there can be nevertheless social circumstances in

which work is a matter of coercion. Against Arendt it is then sometimes argued that since

work is a matter of necessity here, it therefore has the characteristics Arendt reserves for

labour. In such a situation, however, coercion lies in the system, not in the activity itself.

Arendt herself acknowledges this when she writes:

The impulse toward repetition comes from the craftsman’s need to earn his

means of subsistence, in which case his working coincides with his labouring; or

it comes from a demand for multiplication in the market, in which case the

craftsman who wishes to meet this demand has added, as Plato would have said,

the art of earning money to his craft. (HC, p.143)

Indicatively, Arendt says that working and labour coincide, not they become identical. Al-

though in the situation of Parekh’s painter, for example, it is true that his work is his means

to stay alive, they are distinguishable aspects of his activity. Negating this distinction would

mean that all craftsmanship has no other value than earning money, in which case all artis-

tic value is lost.8 Accordingly, examples to this effect do not succeed in showing labour and

work to be identical, as Parekh, for example, claims in his example of the painting.

That such attempts fail is testament to the correctness of Arendt’s thought, for it would

have to be shown that all work is like labour, or that all labour is as free as work. Marx, as

shown in chapter 1, varies between the two: on the one hand labour is a necessary activity,

on the other hand it is that activity in which man is meant to realise himself. Marx intends

this as a conjunction, but it is exactly this conjunction which is inadequate for the characteri-

8 In reference to MacIntyre, this would be the state of affairs he criticises, namely that all internal val-ues of a practice (e.g. excellence, mastery) become subsumed to its external ones (e.g. fame, wealth, etc.).

Chapter II: Arendt

100

sation of man because he is the only being that is not adequately characterised by what he

has to do. An examination of the necessary activities of man will not provide what is so dis-

tinctive about him, namely that man is free. Man is not necessarily man but possibly man, it is

not a given but an achievement. In short, man is the possibly free being, for if it was guaran-

teed then freedom would be no achievement. Yet if freedom is a possibility to be achieved

then it cannot be a product of his necessary being. Again, as mentioned in chapter 1, it is

not necessity but excess that characterises man. Yet, many opponents of Arendt continue to

confuse necessity with excess or attempt to see excess (i.e. freedom) as the result of neces-

sity. The entire tradition of Historical Materialism is unclear on this issue.9

2.4. Objection 3: Arendt’s supposed opposition to Hegel and self-awareness

As already shown, within Historical Materialism, or the Hegelian-Marxian tradition in gen-

eral, Arendt’s distinction between labour and work has been discounted. But only to a few

did the actual extent of her critique become apparent. In turn they have sought to defend

the standard account of labour with reference to its ontological implications: as a case in

point will serve the already well-trodden arena of Hegel’s dialectic of self-awareness in the

master-slave section of his Phenomenology of Spirit. Some Hegelians have found Arendt to

pose a threat to Hegel’s account and in response play out Hegel’s dialectic against Arendt’s.

I will show how Arendt’ account is not only compatible, but actually improves Hegel’s. In

this way, I will end up agreeing with Hegel but argue that some followers have misinter-

preted him. I will begin by pointing out a weak link in Hegel’s dialectic, namely his account

of labour, which seems insufficient for self-awareness, at least in the way that it has been

defended by his followers. This gives rise to the misunderstanding that then results in the

opposition to Arendt’s account, when the latter actually suits Hegel and, in fact, remedies

the weak link. Thus, after a discussion I will proceed to show how Arendt’s account of la-

bour and work resolves the dilemma that her opponents have put themselves in.

According to Hegel the development of human self-realisation, in short, proceeds as fol-

lows: Animals go directly to the satisfaction of whatever desire they have. They do not la-

bour; they just immediately do things without reflecting on them. They act according to

9 The reason that freedom finds no separate section in Arendt’s Human Condition is not that Arendt forgot about it, but that this book deals with the vita activa, that is, life as it appears to an observer. The capac-ity for freedom (for Arendt in terms of thinking, willing and judging) is, by contrast, part of the vita contempla-tiva, that is, the internal life of agents, which, by itself, never appears directly to others but only via outward manifestations of it in form of action. Hence freedom features in her chapter on action. (See also her Life of Mind, 1978).


101

instinct and have no inner dialogue. Labour, on the contrary, is the first non-instinctual ac-

tivity and therefore the awakening of human self-realisation and self-objectification. What

makes labour so special to Hegel is that the agent does not immediately proceed to the satis-

faction of the desire anymore but defers satisfaction. Sayers (2006, p.264) explains by saying:

Human labour by contrast creates a mediated relation to our natural appetites

and to surrounding nature. Work is not driven by immediate instinct. In doing it

we do not simply devour and negate the object. On the contrary, gratification

must be deferred while we labour to create a product for consumption only

later.10

Thus, deferment indicates a mediated relationship between the subject and its desires in-

stead of immediate reaction according to instinct. Rather than just having desires the subject

can now see itself as having desires and, by deferring, be able to act contrary to them. The

subject therefore develops a mastery over its desires and becomes independent of them.

Bakan (1979, p.53) writes:

Because the slave defers desire – or appetite – he is open through labor to the

object as independent of his desire. So labor, by virtue of its dialectical relation

to nature, as split from and related to nature, is at the origin of the transforma-

tion of animal desire to human want.

Therefore, through labour the first step outside the confines of animal nature has been

taken since it is the first non-instinctual (because contra-instinctual) action and therefore

marks the emergence of self-awareness (or inner dialogue, or second-order thought). Thus,

labour and its relationship with nature is crucial for Hegel’s account concerning the emer-

gence of self-awareness through realisation.

I find this problematic, for what exactly does Hegel mean by ‘deferment’? It simply seems

to refer to the postponement of satisfaction and from this Hegel (1987, pp.140-149) and many

Historical Materialists conclude self-realisation, the existence of second order thought and

therefore the emergence of self-awareness. Bakan also thinks that deferment is distinctively

human behaviour and announces: “deferred desire is not simply natural” (1979, p.53). The

aim here is to drive a wedge between animalistic direct appropriation and human activity in

order find an onset of self-realisation so characteristic of the latter. This wedge is meant to

be provided by deferring, or postponing, desire satisfaction. However, postponement is no

10 Note that Sayers makes no distinction between labour and work; he uses the terms interchangeably.

Chapter II: Arendt

102

sign of a primordial self-awareness or -realisation because the behaviour that Hegel de-

scribes and Bakan calls ‘not natural’ can be found throughout the animal kingdom contrary

to Bakan’s claim: many animals store provisions for the winter; dogs bury bones; in many

species the parents regurgitate food for their young or go through extended periods of

hunger in order to care for them. What else do these examples show other than deferral?

But presumably we equally want to say that these are examples of instinctual behaviour. If so,

then the supposed distinction Hegel wants to draw between deferment and instinct is im-

plausible and we simply have to conclude that deferment can be instinct. Thus, deferment

does not indicate any second order thoughts of the subject about its desires and does there-

fore not show self-awareness. The wedge does not work.

Bakan furthermore claims that deferring satisfaction of a given desire shows man’s independ-

ence from his desires. She writes (ibid, p.53):

According to Hegel the slave must be forced to defer desire, precisely because

deferred desire is not simply natural. Because the slave defers desire – or appe-

tite – he is open through labor to the object as independent of his desire.

Firstly, this scenario is not particularly human. Reference is only made to exhibited behav-

iour that is not exclusively human. For example, it is possible to train a dog not to touch its

food until it has done something for it. Is the dog, because of this deferment, ‘open

through labour to the object as independent of his desire’? Certainly not. However, more

generally, deferring a desire does not show independence from it at all. Being able to elimi-

nate a desire would prove independence from it, but being deferred the desire is merely

staved-off and remains. In fact, in most cases when desires are deferred they grow (hunger

being the most obvious one). Most importantly, the desire will have to be satisfied, this is

unavoidable (except at the expense of one’s life) and therefore we cannot speak of a mas-

tery, or power over, or independence from desire at all. Returning back to the quote above:

the slave is not free because he can defer his desire, since he will have to satisfy it sooner or

later. In a way he only remains longer under its spell.11

According to these considerations we have to judge Hegel’s account as mistaken, since de-

ferment is neither non-instinctual nor does it show, as Bakan, following Hegel, argues, any

11 It is this spell that Arendt (HC) alludes to when she says that labour is a necessary activity, this is the spell of labour.


103

independence from desire. If this is the case then the self-realisation that is meant to be the

result of deferring does not take place.

2.4.1. Labour vs. Labour

However, putting the details about what exactly deferment is aside, there is still something

plausible about Hegel’s dialectical account. It seems intuitive that through labouring the

relationship between man and the object changes. We can easily imagine that creating an

object does afford the maker with a sense of power or realisation – namely the power to

change the world according to his plan.

As already spelled out above, according to Arendt’s anthropo-philosophical account labour

and work are two phenomenologically distinct activities. For the purpose here, the impor-

tant point is that she puts labour into the same category of natural and animalistic features

like desires and strivings. As a result Arendt was accused of undermining Hegel‘s dialectic

by depriving labour of its supposed mediating power. However, I will show that Arendt’s

distinction resolves the dilemma pointed out above, namely that labour is insufficient for

self-awareness and which results from an account of self-realisation centred on mere defer-

ral. Arendt’s account does not threaten the intuitive appeal of the dialectic, as supposed by

her opponents, but explains and resolves the difficulties just pointed out.

To quickly contrast the two differing accounts of labour: in the Hegelian sense, which was

later adopted by Marx, labour is described as distinctively human: Hegel (1991, §56A, 86)

talks of fields and windmills; Sayers (2007, p.436), following Hegel, writes

The simplest form of work, involving the most immediate relation to nature is

direct appropriation from nature, as in hunting, fishing, or the gathering of

plants, etc.[…] such work is a distinctively human rather than a purely natural

and unmediated form of activity in that, in its human form, it is intentional, so-

cially organized and usually involves the use of tools or weapons.

The last few words are the key: labour is seen as already involving man-made instruments.

The typical examples of labour activities are hunting, fishing, baking bread, cooking, and

other general food preparation.12 These are “the most unmediated form of relation of hu-

man beings to nature” (Sayers, 2007, p.436, footnote 5) for Hegel and Marx. Compared to

12 See for example Sayers (2007); Bakan, (1979) does not mention any real examples but also seems to think of labour as involving tools; Engler, (2005), and Parekh (1981), are also stern objectors to Arendt, but completely misconstrue her categories.

Chapter II: Arendt

104

this Hegelian definition, Arendt’s concept of labour is narrower in its definition, but as a

result wider in application. Most importantly for our purposes here, labour does not imply

the use of tools for Arendt. Nevertheless it still exists as an activity we have to engage in,

with or without tools. Labour, the activity to satisfy one‘s physiological desires, with or

without deferral, does not by itself lead to self-realisation and does not necessarily require

tools. This should be fairly intuitive, since all animals engage in activities to satisfy their de-

sires without realising themselves, and without requiring to tools.

2.4.2. Work

Now that Arendt narrowed labour down to the satisfaction of life-sustaining appetites what

does she say about other activities that usually fit under this term? What about the making

of tools for example, or the building of huts? This is where the second part of Arendt’s dis-

tinction comes in, namely work. It is this that affords us self-realisation and allows the as-

cription of self-awareness.

So, what is so different about building or tool-creation13 from the satisfaction of desires?

Firstly, it is not a necessary activity in the same way that labour is. Whereas all living beings

have to engage in activities to satisfy their desires14, it is not necessary to create artefacts.

Work is not strictly necessary for the possibility of life as life does not require artificial ob-

jects. This is quite intuitive, since all animals manage to live without creating objects.

Secondly, tools require instrumental reasoning, whereas just satisfying my hunger does not.

I need to be aware of what is meant to be done with the tool and I have to create it accord-

ingly. I have to realise how to serve the purpose and then I have to search my environment

for the respective parts and assemble them in a particular way. Tools thus require aware-

ness of what is to be done (concerning the use/application) and how to construct this thing

accordingly (concerning the construction/design). Tool-creation and use therefore displays

instrumental reasoning15 and the ability to plan and execute particular steps according to

that plan. This is distinctly different from the satisfaction of physiological needs, even if

this does involve deferment. I cannot simply make a hammer without knowing what I am

doing. Instead I need to know what I want to do with it. Tools are created according to

functional purposes and require planning. Thus I need to know, more exactly, I need to be

conscious of, that purpose.

13 As specified before, by tools I mean ‘composite tools’. Much depends on the distinction between ‘found objects’ and ‘composite tools’ which the term ‘tools’ glosses over. As shown, Elster’s (1985, p.64f., see above p.37f.) objection to Marx on this account fails because he does not recognise this difference. 14 Thus, labour is a necessary constituent in an account of life, because it is the very activity that makes life (as far as we know it) possible. 15 Arendt calls it the ‘in-order-to relation’. A similar account of tools, of which Arendt undoubtedly makes use here, can be found in Heidegger (2001, chapter 3, §15)


105

Thirdly, purpose, here, means use-for-something-else. In other words, the creation of the

tool is not the end of the project but the activities that can then be accomplished with it. At

the end of the construction-process stands a product, an entity in its own right, something

with which another activity can be accomplished.16

All these points are dissimilar to the satisfaction of physiological desires: firstly, it is necessary

that I satisfy physiological desires required for survival. Secondly, I can be absolutely un-

conscious of the purpose of my eating. In fact, animals are. Acting on desires can proceed

absolutely un-reflected, without inner dialogue, second-order thoughts, or self-awareness.

Thirdly, at the end of the labour-process stands consumption, the annihilation of an object,

instead of a finished product for further instrumental use. The reason is that satisfaction of a

need is reached through the destruction of the object of need, not its use. The products of

labour are not used for some further end but destroyed because that is their end. In other

words, the annihilation of the object is the purpose and the goal. Contrastingly, tool-

making is different because the final product is not the purpose of the creation, instead the

use of it is. The goal of eating is eating itself, whereas the goal of creating a hammer is the

use of the hammer for something else.

Summing up, work requires awareness of the purpose as well as awareness of the require-

ments for the construction of the final object. The creator must have the ability to plan and

execute that plan. Thus, the creator must be aware of his intentions and abilities, he must

be aware of himself as an agent with certain needs and capabilities. In this way, work is dis-

tinctly human.17 This is important for the difference between the opponents of Arendt and

Arendt herself. Whereas the former want to tell us that the distinctively human trait is the

(deferred) satisfaction of desires, Arendt makes the more plausible claim that desire-

satisfaction is not a good way to distinguish us from animals, simply because in this respect

we are not distinct from them. Thus, it is the creation and use of tools that is important

(when we want to say what is distinctive about human beings) not the satisfaction of

physiological needs by itself.18 The latter does not require any higher level of reasoning, nor

16 Hence it is subject to the ‘in-order-to relation’. 17 It is due to this that material artefacts play such a role in anthropology concerning the classification of hominids. Not only are they the only traces that actually survive (endure) large amounts of time but they are also evidence for the onset of culture, since the construction and use of tools is learned and not geneti-cally inherited. 18 Nevertheless, however much we work the results will never free us from the necessity of labour because we will not be able to escape the necessary satisfaction of physiological needs. We can only find better ways to do so. Arendt writes: “Tools and instruments ease pain and effort and thereby change the

Chapter II: Arendt

106

self-awareness, nor does it lead to self-realisation, but the construction and use of tools

does.

The Hegelian account of labour, as used by Arendt’s critics, does not distinguish between

tool-making and the satisfaction of physiological needs, which suggests that the reasoning

behind the satisfaction of physiological needs is thought to be the same as, or at least struc-

turally similar to, that behind the creation of tools and instruments. That, however, is a

mistake and it is pointed out by Arendt‘s distinction between work and labour. That in this

mistaken account labour-activities are considered to indicate a mediated relationship be-

tween man and his doings is not surprising because they already involve tools which do af-

ford self-realisation. It is however the creation of tools and not the activity they are meant

to simplify, namely the satisfaction of desires, that has the mediating effect.

Before I conclude let me add three more important points. Firstly, what I have claimed

here applies to emergence of self-awareness and self-realisation and does not prohibit any re-

flection on labour activities thereafter. In other words, of course once humans are self-

aware almost any activity, including labour, can be consciously examined and also be self-

realising. My point is that self-awareness cannot be born from an activity which does not

require it; deferral being the case in point which does not require self-awareness. Once the

latter does emerge it can be applied to any activity since the individual is now able to reflect

on itself.19

Secondly, a likely criticism will be that Arendt’s account prizes apart the intertwined proc-

ess of work and labour (Sayers, 2003). This is true, but only conceptually, not practically.

That is, tool-making is conceptually different from the mere satisfaction of physiological

needs, but practically tools are created in order to simplify and aid this satisfaction of needs. There is

therefore still a strong relationship between work and labour, where the distinctively hu-

man ability of tool-making is a means to help us with our most basic concern of life,

namely being, and staying, alive itself. But again, the satisfaction of physiological needs by

itself is not a sufficient basis for the emergence of self-awareness and -realisation.

Thirdly, I do not claim that work is the only sufficient condition for the development of

human self-awareness. Human culture cannot be explained by reference to work alone.

This would be an equal reduction as the one I am criticising, namely that the essence of

modes in which the urgent necessity inherent in labor once was manifest to all. They do not change the necessity itself; they only serve to hide it from our senses.” (HC, p.125) 19 For example, every student knows how satisfying and seemingly self-realising it is to clean the kitchen when he/she is actually meant to write an essay.


107

human life is to be found in labour. There are certainly numerous factors that play a role in

the development of human culture as we know it, nevertheless, work is more indicative of

the specifically human life than labour.

In Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, for example, we are, apart from work, also provided with

the crucial element of recognition and interaction. The importance of interaction with oth-

ers for the concepts of self and world cannot be overestimated. I have already explained

some of the elements that are part of the experiences of every human being (such as plural-

ity and uniqueness). These elements, and the characteristics of interaction, cannot be ex-

plained by reference to work alone. Labour and work are both ‘monologic’ activities, com-

pared with the relational ‘dialogic’ relations that we have with others. Only in the latter can

plurality and uniqueness emerge. Thus, we need to acknowledge interaction as its own par-

ticular activity. Buber (1958, p.21) writes:

“Consciousness of the “I” is not connected with the primitive sway of the in-

stinct for self-preservation any more than with that of the other instincts. It is

not the “I” that wishes to propagate itself, but the body, that knows as yet of no

“I”. It is not the “I” but the body that wishes to make things, a tool or a toy,

that wishes to be a “creator”.”

Thus, interaction with an other is required and Hegel retains this important dialogical element,

whereas the focus on deferral reduces the emergence of self-awareness to a monologic ex-

perience.

2.5. Resolving the puzzle – Conclusion

Arendt’s opponents think that her theory threatens the Hegelian account of the emergence

of self-realisation because labour, which harbours the all-important mediating effect be-

tween man and nature, is exposed as animalistic. Indeed this is true, but Arendt’s account

of work, so crucial here because it provides the answers, has simply been overlooked. How-

ever, if both parts of Arendt’s account are integrated, the main point about the feedback

that the agent receives from his abilities, namely self-realisation, still stands. It just has to be

acknowledged that the important step is not the satisfaction of bodily needs but the reason-

Chapter II: Arendt

108

ing we developed to create means in order to satisfy those needs easier, i.e. the instrumental

reasoning required for tools. 20

The reason why opponents of Arendt thought that their own account of labour establishes

an instrumental relationship is because their definition of labour already includes the use of

instruments. In other words, labour already involves instrumental reasoning and thus there

is no clear cut off line between this and, what Arendt calls, work.21 However, as just argued,

conceptually there is quite a distinction to make between the two, for they feature vastly

differing cognitive requirements. Moreover, if the distinction is not made, then, as argued

above, we make the mistake of trying to reach the definition of man as a free being out of

activities that feature no freedom at all.

Hegel’s original account in the Phenomenology of Spirit can incorporate Arendt’s distinction be-

tween labour and work. Firstly, there is nothing in the master-slave section that prohibits

reading what Hegel refers to as ‘labour’ as actually referring to (Arendtian) work. However,

secondly, the formulations that Hegel chooses indicate that he has work (in Arendt‘s sense)

in mind. He talks about ‘permanent forms/things’ that ‘acquire the element of endurance

through work’ the activity of which is ‘pure being-for-self of consciousness’ which, in turn,

‘acquires an element of permanence’ through the work outside of it (Hegel, 1977, p.118).

These expressions lend themselves far easier to an interpretation about the creation of use-

goods rather than goods for consumption. There is further back-up for such a reading in

other parts of The Phenomenology of Spirit. When Hegel talks about necessity he is concerned

with desire and its satisfaction, which corresponds to Arendt’s concept of labour. In fur-

ther agreement with Arendt Hegel claims that “the element in which desire and its object

subsist […] is animate existence“ (Hegel, 1977, p.218), in other words the living body,

which requires maintenance, just as Arendt claimed. This necessity pertains only to the sin-

gle individual and is not dependent on the surrounding social environment. Thus, in neces-

sity the individual is concerned only with itself, which before the stage of self-

consciousness means being-in-itself. The step from this to the being-for-itself cannot be

accomplished by necessity (drives and their satisfaction) itself, because if the step from the

in-itself to the for-itself was accomplished by the sheer having and satisfaction of desires as

20 Even one of main critiques of modern work conditions ever since Marx, namely that they are miserable and alienating, can be maintained with Arendt. Insofar as it is maintained that work should be objectifying and a free activity, what these writers, unknowingly, stress is that work, by itself, has exactly the features that Arendt ascribes to it and that those should come to the foreground. 21 Sayers, S., 2003; Bakan (op.cit.) and Suchtig (1962) also make this point


109

such, then any being with desires would be for-itself, which was meant to be a particular

feature of humans. Therefore, labour cannot entail self-consciousness.

But even after the emergence of self-consciousness and self-realisation we can steer an Ar-

endtian course with Hegel, for he says that self-consciousness

comprehends itself as this particular individual who exists for himself, but the re-

alization of this End is itself the setting-aside of the latter. For it is not as this

particular individual that it becomes an object to itself, but rather as the unity of

itself and the other self-consciousness, hence as an individual that is only a

moment, or a universal. […] The transition is made from the form of the one or

unit into that of universality, from one absolute abstraction into the other, form

the purpose of pure being-for-self which has thrown off all community with

others, into the sheer opposite which is thus equally abstract being-in-itself. […]

The abstract necessity therefore has the character of the merely negative, un-

comprehended power of universality, on which individuality is smashed to

pieces. (1977, pp. 218, 220, 221, original emphasis)

Thus, although pleasure and necessity are personal experiences they nevertheless are as

such not individuating and the experiencer is a universal rather than unique being. In con-

trast to these points, one of the last sections of the “Phenomenology” explicitly concerns

the worker (translated as ‘artificer’) and here Hegel writes not only that the

artificer of the self-conscious form at the same time destroy the transitoriness

inherent in the immediate existence of this life and brings its organic forms

nearer to the more rigid and more universal forms of thought. (ibid, p. 422)

but also that

in this work, there is an end of the instinctive effort which produced the work

that, in contrast to self-consciousness, lacked consciousness [i.e. labour, U.M.];

for in it the activity of the artificer, which constitutes self-consciousness, comes

face to face with an equally self-conscious, self-expressive inner being. In it he

has worked himself up to the point where his consciousness is divided against

itself, where Spirit meets Spirit. (ibid, p.424)

Thus, life as pure corporeality (as pure being-in-itself) performing instinctual labour bears

mere transitoriness and no self-realisation, whereas the enduring nature of products of

work break the finitude of being-in-itself and afford their creator with the dualism of con-

Chapter II: Arendt

110

sciousness that is so particular to the human species. Thus, the mistake that has been made

by Arendt’s opponents is the insistence on deferral, which by itself, is insufficient for the

self-realisation we are after.

If we simply shift the emphasis from deferral to the creation of artefacts, then not only do

we realise that Arendt’s account is not opposed to Hegel’s, but that it also remedies a prob-

lem that otherwise produces an implausible distinction between humans and animals. It

cannot lie in mere deferral because that can be instinctual, does not require self-awareness,

and does not, by itself, lead to self-realisation. So we have to look elsewhere for the wedge

with the right levering power and it lies in the active engagement with the environment by

which humans display the use of understanding, reason, planning and execution; in short,

the abilities of a self-conscious agent as exhibited in the creation of artefacts. Here we find

mediation between man and nature in a way that is distinctively human and that affords the

subject with a sense of realisation of his powers.

Mediation, to talk in Arendt’s terms, does thus not occur at the level of labour, but when

work is introduced. My criticism against the writers mentioned above is that too much em-

phasis has been put on deferral. This led to the problem of not differentiating between ac-

tivities that are self-realising and ones which are not. Therefore, my conclusion is that Ar-

endt’s distinction between work and labour, far from threatening Hegel’s dialectical ac-

count, puts it from a shaky basis onto a solid one. The dialectic relationship is thus not de-

stroyed; it is left intact but put on a stronger basis, the conceptual wedge between humans

and animals is not deferment but instrumental reasoning displayed in the creation of arte-

facts which, finally, allow for self-realisation. Note, however, that intersubjective recogni-

tion is also required, as just mentioned, and which Arendt includes in her characterisation

of interaction.

This concludes the first two chapters: the exegesis and criticism of Marx and Historical Ma-

terialism and the defence of Arendt’s approach. Most important is the reductionism inher-

ent in Historical Materialism, namely that it reduces human ontology to a single activity

(namely production) which is meant to provide the explanatory basis for human life in gen-

eral. I have argued that this reduction not only faces internal difficulties but also leads to

particular consequences for the conception of and in the political realm. In response I have

advocated Arendt’s ontology, which cannot only acknowledge the importance of labour for

human life, but which also points out the confusion of two different activities under the


111

term ‘labour’ in Historical Materialism, and which provides and account of human interac-

tion.

The second half of this thesis will be concerned with the remainders of the tradition which

I criticise. Emblematic are, among others, the philosophy of Jürgen Habermas and the re-

cent writings of postmodern Neo-Marxists such as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. I

will show in how far they still follow the Marxian account which considers human material

activity to be the sufficient basis for the analysis of human life. Insofar as they do, their ap-

proaches are mistaken.

In this second half the concept of emancipation will come more into the foreground. For

Marx emancipation was rooted in labour: man emancipates himself through his labour. In

political terms this meant the universalisation of the working class and its ascension to

power. The connection between labour and emancipation, which can already be found in

Hegel, was thus made explicit by Marx. The critique of Marx, for example by Arendt and

Habermas, has often led to the rejoinder that by criticising the emphasis of labour they

thereby deprive it of its value and elementary importance for emancipation. I will show in

how far this objection to the critics of Marx is mistaken because emancipation is not to be

found in labour but in interaction.

Chapter III: Habermas

112

III. Habermas

Jürgen Habermas is one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century. His con-

tributions to social and political philosophy, sociology, and philosophy of language have

had an enormous influence. Furthermore, his intellectual influences and educational back-

ground make him relevant for my purposes. Not only has he been under the tutelage of

Horkheimer, Marcuse and Adorno, all of whom had a significant impact of their own and

who are based in a Marxian approach to social theory, but his further philosophical yard-

sticks are particularly Hegel, Marx, Arendt and the American pragmatists, and one of his

main concerns has been an account of labour and action. Since, above all, he is also a His-

torical Materialist he is a central figure for my concern.

Central to Habermas’ approach is his distinction between instrumental and normative ac-

tion (TCA I), which he develops into the binary of system and lifeworld (TCA II). He has

many precursors for this. Aristotle is often the first one credited with such a distinction and

is often the main source in the debate concerning this issue. He distinguishes between

praxis (doing) and poiesis (making). The distinction re-appears to a certain extent in Schütz’

Structures of the Lifeworld (2003), which Habermas, in turn, makes use of in his description of

social reality. Karl Jaspers (1999) is equally explicit about it and his pupil Hannah Arendt

then uses it as a crucial element in her The Human Condition as I have shown in the previous

chapter. Habermas’ own use is largely based on Arendt (particularly work vs. action). From

a standpoint of differentiation Habermas occupies a position between Schütz and Arendt:

Schütz has the most general account, Arendt the most detailed:

Action (goal directed activity)

Schütz

Affecting (the environment, physical and social)

Non-Affecting (thinking)

Habermas Labour (poiesis) (affecting the physical environment,

instrumental reasoning)

Communica-tive

Action (praxis)

(normative rea-soning)

Subjective internal states

Arendt Labour (necessary in-volvement)

Work (construction of tools, free change of the natural envi-ronment)

Action The life of mind (thinking, judging, will-

ing)

Habermas’ Historical Materialism

113

This distinction between poiesis and praxis is the object of much debate. It is furthermore

connected with the concept of emancipation, which occupies a special place in social phi-

losophy ever since it became the leading value during the Enlightenment. Marx, with his

focus on production, locates the source of emancipation in labour (poiesis). Contrastingly,

for Habermas and Arendt it is clear that emancipation is bound up with action (praxis).

First, however, in order to approach the distinction between instrumental and normative

action, I will present a historical account which also provides the background from which

Habermas is working, namely political theory, broadly construed.

1. Background

Many writers have argued that there is a distinctive change in the understanding of politics

roughly from the Middle Ages onwards, particularly ever since the advances of western

civilisations through the development of science, technology and the merging of the two in

the industrialisation.1 Social and political revolutions in the 18th century (the American

Revolution and the French Revolution) denounced the dogma of a god-given political hier-

archy and governmental structure. The notions of progress, advancement, historical devel-

opment and the centrality of human action therein became dominating.

The increase in kinds and amounts of things we were able to produce led to significant

changes in the way action was perceived. To shorten it unduly: everything was understood

as a matter of making or production: that we can only understand what we can make (Vico),

that we are only what we make of ourselves, that we can only own what we make (Locke),

that only what we make has value, etc. Thus, doing and making not only merged, making

was clearly in the driving seat and Aristotle’s distinction between poiesis and praxis negated.

The critique of this subversion of human action, of the primacy of scientific explanation

and notions of progress that proceed from the domination of nature pervades much of

20th century philosophical literature, for example Heidegger, Jaspers, Arendt, Habermas.

In response these thinkers revive the ancient Greek distinction between poiesis and praxis.

Production (poiesis - the production of things, which has an end “other than itself” Aris-

totle, 1995, Book I, 1094a1-6, Book IV, 1140a1-1140b10) is not done for its own sake, we

do it in-order-to have the finished object at the end, with which we then do something else

1 E.g.: Weber, Jaspers, Arendt, Marcuse, Fromm, Habermas, Taylor


114

(it is an instrument and thus, for Marx, has a use-value). One does not make a hammer, a

table, or a house, just for the sake of the activity but because you want to use the finished

product. Not the production, but the use of the finished product is the intended end. This

corresponds with Arendt’s concept of work above.

Contrastingly, in the case of praxis (action) there is no end outside of the realm of action

but only within it: the aim, “doing well”, is inherent (Aristotle, 1976, Book 6, chapters 4

and 5 (1140a1-1140b7)). Whereas in the case of production we can clearly distinguish the

processes of production from the subsequent use of the product, there is no similar distinc-

tion available in the realm of praxis. We cannot distinguish between a stage in which we do

something that we then use in and on the world once it is finished. Instead, an action is

realised as it is done, it has no other use apart from its sheer realisation, in fact, it is sheer

realisation. Contrary to products of work-processes actions also cannot be undone (HC,

sections 30-32). Whereas we have the ability to destroy everything we make, we cannot

undo our actions (or those of others).2 We could only attempt to erase all memory of

them.3

So, according to this classical understanding, there is a distinction between making and doing.

With the rise of the sciences from the Renaissance onwards this distinction becomes in-

creasingly blurred, until it is simply undermined in the 19th century. All doing becomes a

making. The resulting problem is the instrumentalisation of action, which continues until

the early 20th century. Habermas criticises Marx for making exactly this mistake. The dis-

tinction between normative and strategic action that Habermas makes, is devised in order

to point out that although there is an instrumental kind of action (strategic action) there is

also the normative side (e.g. rule-following) which cannot be reduced to the former. Even

if Habermas' criticism of Marx is quite complex, in short he faults Marx for buying into the

conflation of praxis and poiesis. In Theory and Practice, for example, Habermas writes:

2 The fact that we cannot undo what we have done is the reason for Arendt to highlight the impor-tance of forgiving (HC, section 33) because it is the only salvation from the actions we have committed. We cannot undo but we can forgive. 3 Forgetting, which Jaspers (Chiffren der Transzendenz, Auditorium, 2007) describes as one of the ‘dis-continuities of life’, also plays a major role in Paul Ricoeur’s Memory, History, Forgetting (2004). Already the an-cient Egyptians punished unwanted pharaohs by erasing their names from any man-made thing that may serve to keep their memory alive. Thus, the highest form of punishment available to be unleashed on another is to make it appear as if he/she never existed. A modern example is the final judgement on Captain Vidal in the movie ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ in which he is punished with something worse then death, namely that his son (whom he wanted in order to be remembered) will never even know his name. The highest form of praise, by contrast, is to be remembered forever (which is why we build statues and memorials). An extreme example here is the life of those who only live on being constantly remembered, namely modern celebrities, and for whom there is thus no worse fate then being forgotten and for whom hence no publicity is bad publicity.


115

Marx declares the will to make to be the precondition for the ability to know

[…]. (p.248, original emphasis)

Thus, Habermas accuses Marx of endorsing the Vico-principle (verum esse ipsum factum),

namely that only what can be made (by man) is truly known. Habermas himself, by con-

trast, vigorously supports the distinction between, as he calls it, communicative action and

(instrumental) labour.

Marx does not actually explicate the interrelationship of interaction and labour,

but instead, under the unspecific title of social praxis, reduces the one to the

other, namely, communicative action to instrumental action. […] everything is

resolved into the self-movement of production. (J. Habermas, 1996, p.147)4

Yet, despite his criticism, Habermas does, or at least did then, consider himself a Historical

Materialist and therefore heir to the project that Hegel, and particularly Marx, started,

namely the conceptualisation and realisation of the emancipation of society.5 Again in The-

ory and Practice Habermas writes:

Historical materialism aims at achieving an explanation of social evolution

which is so comprehensive that it embraces the interrelationships of the the-

ory's own origins and application. The theory specifies the conditions under

which reflection on the history of our species by members of this species them-

selves has become objectively possible; and at the same time it names those to

whom this theory is addressed, who then with its aid can gain enlightenment

about their emancipatory role in the process of history. (Theory and Practice,

Boston 1973, pp. 1f., quoted in Keane, 1975)

Habermas wants to revitalise Historical Materialism by differentiating between instrumental

and communicative action (i.e. realm of facts and realm of norms) because reducing one to

the other leads into a dead end. The instrumental side has been sufficiently developed over

the 19th and early 20th century but the normative side has been left out and thus Habermas’

main task is to provide an account of norms. This is his main task in TCA I. Yet exactly

this distinction that he employs in order to escape the results of a reductive Historical Ma-

terialism is what many others object to. The argument is that Habermas not only differenti-

ates between instrumental and communicative action, but that he splits them to such a de-

gree that they become separate spheres. They become independent and, at times, even op-

4 See also Knowledge and Human Interest, (London, 1972), esp. chap.3 5 See for example: Habermas (1975, 1987, ch.VIII, section 2,3); Honneth (1991, p.261); Smith (1984); Eyerman (1981)


116

pose each other (Habermas’ claim of the ‘colonisation of the lifeworld’ in TCA II). Haber-

mas is therefore accused of depriving the instrumental realm (and thus labour) of all con-

nections to emancipation, since emancipation is a normative phenomenon and all norma-

tivity seems banned from instrumental action, thus from labour, and therefore from the

working subject. The question is therefore whether there is any space for emancipation in

Habermas’ approach. I will answer this question with respect to two critics of Habermas.

But first I have to explain Habermas’ approach further.

2. Habermas’ labour-action distinction

Habermas’ distinction between labour and communicative action is very closely modelled

on Arendt’s distinction between work and action but also refers to sources such as Aris-

totle (poiesis and praxis), Marcuse (realms of necessity and freedom), and Hegel (family, lan-

guage and tools).6 Since I have already explained Arendt’s account I will only reiterate

Habermas’ version as far as required, even though they differ. Subsequently I will describe

Habermas’ development of the distinction between lifeworld and system.

For a start, Habermas follows Arendt. The only difference noteworthy for the moment is

that Habermas omits Arendt’s category of labour (in distinction to work) and only has one

term, namely ‘labour’, just like Marx. He simply joins labour and work as activities of ‘ma-

terial reproduction’. Whereas, as shown above, Arendt sees important differences between

work- and labour processes, Habermas combines them because, to him, they are both in-

strumental relations with the natural and objective world which we inhabit. They both

comprise the material reproduction of our species.

Contrasting to this material reproduction are the processes of cultural reproduction, social

integration and socialisation which are the result of communicative action (see e.g., TCA II,

pp.138ff.). In Theory and Practice, for example, Habermas outlines his distinction in the fol-

lowing way:

In the functional sphere of instrumental action we encounter objects of the

type of moving bodies; here we experience things, events, and conditions which

are, in principle, capable of being manipulated. In interactions (or at the level of

possible intersubjective communication) we encounter objects of the type of

speaking and acting subjects; here we experience persons, utterances, and con-

6 J. Keane, 1975, p. 89


117

ditions which in principle are structured and to be understood symbolically.

(p.8)

Keane (1975) explains:

Interaction or communicative action, the other moment of conscious human

activity, includes that sphere of social institutions (such as the family, mass me-

dia, etc.) mediated by language and governed by social rules. It is the socio-

cultural life-world. […] It is logically irreducible to the technical cognitive inter-

est, for the truth of social rules depends not on testable laboratory processes,

but on the promotion of mutual understanding of obligations and expectations.

Therefore inquiry in this realm must be concerned not with behavior and its

manipulation (cf. positivist social science), but with the meaning and interpreta-

tion of that behavior and the question: How can the social world be rendered

intelligible and meaningful to its interacting constituents? (p.88)

The similarity to Arendt’s account is unmistakable: labour is an instrumental relation with

the material world whereas action is a non-instrumental relation between persons.

As a further source for the distinction between the normative and the instrumental,

Habermas refers to Durkheim for whom the distinction is apparent when we consider the

differing consequences of non-compliance. Instrumental activities intervene in the natural

world which we inhabit: we extract minerals, we plough fields, or build houses. These in-

terventions have to follow particular laws so that, if we make a mistake or break the rules

of instrumental activities, we will simply not succeed in reaching the intended end (ex-

tracted minerals, ploughed fields, housing). The normative realm is different: the result of a

broken moral rule, say, follows neither necessarily, nor is it merely non-success. Instead, the

person will experience a sanction or punishment conferred upon him by other agents. The

connection between action and outcome is contingent.7

Already in TCA I Habermas touches the difference between the understanding of commu-

nication among two agents and the knowledge of instrumental actions. For the develop-

7 Habermas writes: “The violation of a valid technical rule leads to consequences that are internally connected with the action in a certain way: the intervention fails. The goal striven for is not realized, and the failure comes about automatically; there is an empirical, a lawlike relation between the rules governing action and the consequences of action. By contrast, the violation of a moral rule brings a sanction that cannot be understood as a failure that automatically follows. The relation between the rules of action and the consequences of action is conventional; on this basis, behaviour conforming to norms is rewarded, behaviour deviating from norms is punished.” (TCA II, p. 47)


118

ment of norms it is crucial that participants in communications learn to distinguish the suc-

cess of communication from the success of their respective instrumental actions. The telos

between communication and action differs: for the former it is understanding, for the latter

is instrumental availability (TCA I, p.11).8 Instrumental actions can fail when the desired

end was not attained, communication fails when no consensus can be reached. Even if

both ends (a different state of the world, or an agreement) are said to be equal because

both are outcomes of a person’s doings, it is clear that there is a difference: the means by

which the end is reached (if you want to view communication in a such a means-end way)

changes between particular movements and conditions we have to fulfil and the under-

standing that guides communication. Plus, in order to succeed in an argument you have to

comply with the recognised rules of argumentation and thus Habermas can say that ration-

ality is also evident in communication.

Once communication is thus available, effective instrumental interventions in the world are

not enough anymore: actors also have to be successful also in communicating and they are

only accepted as capable agents if they can conform their actions with intersubjectively ac-

cepted guidelines for reasons.

In the context of communicative action, only those persons count as responsi-

ble who, as members of a communication-community, can orient their actions

to intersubjectively recognised validity claims. (TCA I, p.14)

This will suffice for an initial account of Habermas’ distinction between instrumental- and

communicative action. I want to pick up the trail when the distinction between communi-

cation and labour leads to the binary division of lifeworld and system. It is particularly this

8 At the very emergence of symbolically coordinated action, when two organisms are meant to use a system of shared and identical symbols, they will have to distinguish between their act of communication and that of the subsequent action which the communication is meant to coordinate. Being in communication the organisms know that at this point they are not acting but are communicating about an action that is to be undertaken. They do not merely react adaptively yet instinctively to behavioural signals which usually mean x, instead they utter or convey symbols in conscious expectation of the fact that the other organism will understand the symbol in the same, that is, identical, way. Communication here appears as just that, communication, not action – the two are not synonymous anymore. Instead, certain expectations of the other’s behaviour are connected with an utterance. Again, the main fact is that the organisms now distinguish between communication and action. In doing so they can now distinguish between failures in communication and failures in action: the other may fail to do what I expected because he/she did not understand what I wanted to convey, and the other may also fail to act appropriately he/she simply failed to execute the action correctly. Already at this early stage of language development, then, two spheres separate: that of linguistic competence and that of competence in action (see TCA I, p.13). Habermas also finds his views confirmed in Durkheim’s studies. Human interaction is aimed at establishing consensuses, instrumental action is not (a person wants to create/manipulate a thing and not establish a shared basis for action). In instrumental actions there is no ‘shared world’ to be established precisely because, in that instance, my relationship is with a thing, not another actor. Habermas says later: “Because communicative action demands an orientation to validity claims, it points from the start to the possibility that participants will distinguish more or less sharply between having an influence upon one another and reaching an understanding with one another.” (TCA I, p.74, original emphasis)


119

latter distinction that evokes much criticism and which is the focus of the objections I will

discuss subsequently.

2.2.1. Lifeworld and system I

The reasons for which Habermas comes to the binary division between lifeworld and sys-

tem are manifold but the main reasons are these: firstly, there is the difference between ac-

tion and labour as just described and secondly there are two prevalent approaches in soci-

ology (at least when Habermas wrote most of his early works up until the early 1980’s) that

can almost be viewed correspondingly. One approach was to conceive a society as a life-

world, that is, sociologists viewed and explained societies from the inside and especially tried

to understand the normative relations between people (e.g.: Durkheim, Luckmann, Schütz).

The other approach was the system-theoretic perspective (e.g.: Parsons, Luhmann) in

which sociologists viewed societies from the outside as observers instead of as participants.

Here the structural features of society are viewed as the salient ones. Habermas spells out

the advantages and disadvantages of either approach in TCA I and II and ends with his

own approach which combines both strategies, preserving the best insights and avoiding

the worst mistakes of each.

The lifeworld-approach has the characteristic of equating the social integration of individu-

als with the differentiation of society. That is, societies differ and develop only in how and

how many individuals are integrated. With this approach Durkheim, according to Haber-

mas, reaches the conclusion that through the rationalisation of society a universalist moral-

ity ought to be forthcoming. In other words, if a society becomes increasingly rational

through the sciences and the liberation from mythical worldviews and it is only defined from

the point of view of the participants in a shared lifeworld (i.e. from the inside point of view

that a member of a group has), then through communication it ought to be possible that all

members come to an agreement. If societies function like large groups and there are no ex-

ternal features that differ from those of the inside perspective, then it should be possible for

all members to adopt a universalist morality.

Yet for some reason this does not happen and Durkheim, according to Habermas, cannot

solve this problem because for Durkheim all of society is a shared lifeworld, thus a univer-

sal consensus must be possible. It must be possible for a group to come to an agreement.

For Habermas the problem is clear: there is obviously something missing from Durkheim’s


120

account. Something external to the lifeworld affects it in such a way as to prevent a universal

morality. Thus, a theory of society is obviously not exhausted by the lifeworld-perspective:

the inside view of society is not enough.

In order to prevent Durkheim’s dilemma Habermas looks at the relation between the dif-

ferentiation of society as a whole (as a system, hence ‘system-differentiation’) and social

integration.

It is only possible to analyze these connections by distinguishing mechanisms of

coordinating action that harmonize the action orientations of participants from

mechanisms that stabilize nonintended interconnections of actions by way of

functionally intermeshing action consequences. In one case, the integration of an ac-

tion system is established by a normatively secured or communicatively

achieved consensus, in the other case, by a nonnormative regulation of individ-

ual decision that extends beyond the actor’s consciousness. This distinction be-

tween a social integration of society, which takes effect in action orientations, and

a systemic integration, which reaches through and beyond action orientations, calls

for a corresponding differentiation in the concept of society itself. (TCA II,

p.117, original emphasis)

In other words, contrary to Durkheim's singular characterisation of society as a lifeworld,

the term ‚society’ has to differentiate between social and systemic mechanisms:

1) social mechanisms bring action orientations of single individuals in agreement

(harmony) with those of others; that is, integration is reached through

normative consensus

2) systemic mechanisms stabilise non-intended relations of actions through the

functional connection of action-results; that is, integration is reached through the

non-normative organisation of individual decisions

The issue Habermas is concerned with here is the regulation of action: to verify how this

happens and which requirements actors have to fulfil in order to do it successfully. He

turns to G.H. Mead to attain an approach of actions and speech-acts for individuals in gen-

eral, namely that they are socially regulated. But on the level of society as a whole Mead’s

theory remains too idealistic for Habermas because Mead does not adequately address the

material reproduction of society. In simpler terms, Mead’s social theory only concerns


121

speech and communicative action but ignores the fact that individuals have to survive and

reproduce.9

Durkheim’s sociology has the advantage of addressing exactly what Mead misses: Durk-

heim (1984) focuses on material reproduction through the concept of the division of la-

bour. Yet, as just claimed, he has the disadvantage of ignoring the systemic mechanisms of

society for the sake of the social ones. Marx’s analysis, in distinction to Mead and Durk-

heim, has both parts, the focus of socially regulated action and material reproduction. This

is why Marx remains so important for Habermas and so dominant in social theory gener-

ally. The mistake in Marx’s account is that action and material reproduction are interwoven

to such an extent that they are not discriminated any more: systemic changes are meant to

be identical with social ones – changing the system of production means changing the so-

cial system. As claimed above: Habermas faults Marx for confusing praxis (communicative

action) and poiesis (material reproduction).

With Mead and Durkheim we see societies from the inside perspective of the participating

individuals: society is conceptualised as the lifeworld of a social group. But from this per-

spective the process of socialisation (Habermas calls it 'sociation') of individuals appears to

be an intended and controlled one.

If society consists only of relations entered into by subjects acting autono-

mously, we get the picture of a process of sociation that takes place with the

will and consciousness of all adult members. (TCA II, p.149)

Yet it is equally evident that:

Actors never have their action situations totally under control. They control

neither the possibilities for mutual understanding and conflict, nor the conse-

quences and side effects of their actions; they are, to borrow a phrase from W.

Schapp, “entangled” in their (hi)stories. (TCA II, p.149)

Thus, Habermas concludes concerning this approach that

A verstehende sociology that allows society to be wholly absorbed into the life-

world ties itself to the perspective of self-interpretation of the culture under in-

vestigation; this internal perspective screens out everything that inconspicuously

affects a sociocultural lifeworld from the outside. (TCA II, p.148, original em-

phasis)

9 This focus on material reproduction shows again Habermas' continuation of Marx's project.


122

In other words, the lifeworld approach (Durkheim and Mead) has its limits because to ex-

plain society in the way it presents itself from the internal standpoint of a participant is not

enough. We have to add those structural characteristics which are visible only from the ex-

ternal observer standpoint (the system-theoretic approach). This latter approach, however,

also has its flaws:

In contrast, form the observer’s perspective of someone not involved, society

can be conceived only as a system of actions such that each action has a functional

significance according to its contribution to the maintenance of the system.

(TCA II, p.117, original emphasis)

Here the integration of society is identified with the integration of the system - and society

appears like self-controlled system. This observer viewpoint, as the quote highlights, has

the disadvantage that relations between actions can only be explained functionally and

Habermas spends much time in TCA I to argue that human actions cannot be adequately

explained in this way. Human actions are not the same as biological behaviour but a pure

functional approach would treat them exactly in this fashion. Thus, the internal perspective

of the participants has to be included in the account of society (while being aware of its

disadvantages) because otherwise we cannot understand that processes such as social inte-

gration and socialisation constrain actors also through internal limits. We could only con-

ceive of them from the outside, as part of the system, but we could not account for, or

adequately address, the internal restrictions that moral imperatives, for example, place on

individuals. We could not conceive of them as internal limits, only as functional external

impositions. Instead of either identifying the lifeworld with society or reducing it to sys-

temic relations Habermas thus endorses a joint approach, which, as can be seen from the

quotes, is overall still materialistic.

This materialist approach to disturbances in the symbolic reproduction of the

lifeworld requires a theory that operates on a broader conceptual basis than that

of “the lifeworld”. It has to opt for a theoretical strategy that neither identifies

the lifeworld with society as a whole, nor reduces it to a systemic nexus. (TCA

II, p.148)

Every theory of society that is restricted to communication theory is subject to

limitations that must be observed. The concept of the lifeworld that emerges

from the conceptual perspective of communicative action has only limited ana-

lytical and empirical range. I would therefore like to propose (1) that we con-

ceive of societies simultaneously as systems and lifeworlds. This concept proves


123

itself in (2) a theory of social evolution that separates the rationalisation of the

lifeworld from the growing complexity of societal systems so as to make the

connection Durkheim envisaged between forms of social integration and stages

of system differentiation tangible, that is, susceptible to empirical analysis.

(TCA II, p.118, original emphasis)

From the above we can now distinguish at least three reasons for Habermas’ distinction

between lifeworld and system:

1) Analytically: the distinction between poiesis and praxis (with Aristotle): production

and interaction are two different things, the former can be organised non-

normatively and then becomes the system, the latter can endure increasing

rationalisation but remains the lifeworld.

2) Concerning Marxism (or previous Historical Materialism): orthodox Marxism fails

in Habermas’ eyes because of its reduction of the lifeworld to norm-free

imperatives of the system. Habermas, by recognising the difference and non-

reducibility of the two, improves this approach to society.

3) In terms of social theory (closely linked with 2): social theory tended to vary

between two extremes: either to explain everything from the inside, i.e. as lifeworld,

or to explain everything from the outside, i.e. the system-theoretic approach. The

former identifies system and lifeworld and the latter cannot account for the internal

meaning that actions have for actors. Habermas finds either approach by itself

mistaken, so he combines them: from the internal perspective we are concerned

with action-orientations as they appear to the agents themselves, i.e. the lifeworld

converges action intentions; from the external perspective we are concerned with

consequences of actions, i.e. the system exists in order to regulate these consequences,

unintended by-products and developments.

In short: a) the lifeworld perspective cannot account for the systemic features of society

(Durkheim); b) the system approach (Luhmann, Parsons) subsumes all relations between

persons under systemic and thus functional imperatives, thereby misses out the internal

perspective of the participant in social relations and cannot account for meaning and un-

derstanding of communicative action; and c) the orthodox Marxist approach does not dif-

ferentiate enough between those two aspects of society.

At least in Habermas’ own mind, it therefore seems that the Marxist approach is the most

promising one but it needs his theory of communicative action in order to be adequate. The

Historical Materialist account of society requires, if we go along with Habermas, a theory


124

that differentiates between lifeworld and system (in order to make Historical Materialism

viable) and yet combines both of them in an integrated way (in order to overcome the lim-

its of both the lifeworld and the systems approach). To supply such a theory is Habermas’

goal.

2.2.2. System and Lifeworld II

When society and lifeworld are no longer treated as synonymous we are no longer prone to

see the integration of society as a process solely accomplished by communicative means.

The inclusion of the external perspective of the systems-theoretic approach allows us to

adequately explain functional (non-normative) relations and action consequences that are

not intended. The best example of such an external and functional system is the market in

capitalist societies.

In capitalist societies the market is the most important example of a norm-free

regulation of cooperative contexts. The market is one of those systemic mecha-

nisms that stabilize nonintended interconnections of action by way of function-

ally intermeshing action consequences, whereas the mechanism of mutual under-

standing harmonizes the action orientations of participants. Thus I have proposed

that we distinguish between social integration and system integration: the former at-

taches to action orientations, while the latter reaches right through them. In one

case the action system is integrated through consensus, whether normatively

guaranteed or communicatively achieved; in the other case it is integrated

through the nonnormative steering of individual decision not subjectively coor-

dinated. (TCA II, p.150, original emphasis)

According to Habermas communication itself harbours a certain ‚potential for rationality’

(i.e. we only take someone to be a capable agent if he can supply his claims with reasons).

We cannot argue in any way we want to, if an argument is to be accepted it has to adhere to

certain standards respected in the group. Increasing communication will then uncover

more and more of these standards and they become increasingly defined. In other words,

once we realise that claims have to fulfil certain conditions in order to be accepted as valid,

we can then question previously unquestioned claims: we can problematise previously sim-

ply accepted opinions and start to rationalise the lifeworld that we share. Thus, the ‘ration-

alisation of the lifeworld’ can be understood for Habermas as the “successive releases of

the potential for rationality in communicative action” (TCA II, p.155). The problem is that


125

this ‘rationalisation of the lifeworld’ increases the possibility for the growing complexity of

the system, which then impacts back on the lifeworld in a negative way:

The rationalisation of the lifeworld makes possible a heightening of systemic

complexity, which becomes so hypertrophied that it unleashes system impera-

tives that burst the capacity of the lifeworld they instrumentalise. (TCA II,

p.155)

Thus, the rationalisation of the lifeworld triggers an increasing complexity the system (i.e.

here: the market) to such an extent that this external feature then influences the lifeworld.

Durkheim’s approach, which omits the system, is therefore sufficient only as long as the

lifeworld remains understandable (überschaubar) for the participant. Anything further,

namely the system with its imperatives, remains neglected. Such an approach is adequate

for societies in which lifeworld and system have indeed not yet reached the level of differ-

entiation.

The sketch of a collectively shared, homogeneous lifeworld is certainly an ide-

alisation, but archaic societies more or less approximate this ideal type by virtue

of the kinship structures of society and the mythical structures of conscious-

ness. (TCA II, p.157,)

In such societies the family system plays the role of the relations of production and the so-

ciety is still base-level and superstructure in one. But if the differentiation proceeds further

lifeworld and system start to separate: social integration and systemic mechanisms only re-

main combined as long as the kinship system (Verwandtschaftssystem) continues.

With the formation of genuinely political power that no longer derives its au-

thority from the prestige of leading descent groups, but from disposition over

judicial means of sanction, the power mechanism detaches itself from kinship

structures. (TCA II, p.165)

When the state thus becomes organised in a way that is independent from the system of

family relations it can be viewed as a mechanism. Of these regulating mechanisms (medi-

ums) that transcend particular lifeworlds (i.e. communities) and apply nationally there can

be several and they can continue to develop (the market is one of them). Once state and

economy have become such mechanisms and go separate ways this development reaches a

new climax. In the history of the western world, the emerging capitalist economy com-

pelled the states to reorganise themselves.


126

However, this medium has a structure-forming effect for the social system as a

whole only when the economy is separated off from the political order. In

Europe during the early modern period, there arose with the capitalist economy

a subsystem differentiated out via the money medium – a subsystem that in turn

necessitated a reorganisation of the state. In the complementary relationship be-

tween the subsystems of the market economy and modern administration, the

mechanism or steering media – which Parsons referred to as symbolically gen-

eralised media of communication – finds its appropriate social structure. (TCA

II, p.165)

Only now, claims Habermas, are relations of production economically manifested and

base-level and superstructure start to part ways.10

In place of the stratification of similar social units, we find a political organisa-

tion of dissimilar social units, in place of hierarchised descent groups, stratified

classes. […] Disposition over the means to sanction binding decisions provides

the basis for an authority of office with which organisational power is institu-

tionalised for the first time as such – and not merely as an appendix to, and fill-

ing out of, pregiven social structures. (TCA II, p.169f., original emphasis)

The state now becomes subdivided into several governmental and non-governmental sys-

tems of action (governmental: e.g. administration, military, judiciary; non-governmental:

e.g. economy). For Habermas it is clear that only the capitalist system of economy could

lead to this level of differentiation of the system (TCA II, p.171). The economy can no

longer be conceived as an institutionalised order. The medium of exchange (money) is in-

stitutionalised but the subsystem in which it functions (i.e. the market) is a piece of ‘norm-

free sociality’. Money, however, has the characteristic of invading almost every other sys-

tem and lifeworld: it appears in the state, in wage labour and in private households; it thus

becomes an ‘intersystemic medium of exchange’ and has structural effects.

The state apparatus becomes dependent upon the media-steered subsystem of

the economy; this forces it to reorganise and leads, among other things, to an

assimilation of power to the structure of a steering medium: power becomes as-

similated to money. (TCA II, p.171)

The phenomena guiding lifeworld and system are power (Macht) and money (Geld) respec-

tively. This results from and fits Habermas’ analysis: the lifeworld is constituted by com-

10 Note that Habermas does not equate the base-level with the economy or the forces of production as Cohen (1978) does.


127

municative action, through which power and power-relations are established; the system,

being partially independent of (particular) lifeworlds, is structured by a non-normative me-

dium, namely money. The system of the capitalist economy, for example, has ‘liberated’ itself

from the lifeworld to such an extent that it does not have to respect the particular life-

worlds that it affects.

The traditional state is an organisation that structures society as a whole; in de-

fining its membership, shaping its program, and recruiting its personnel, it

therefore has to link up with the established lifeworld of a stratified class society

and with the corresponding cultural traditions. By contrast, the capitalist enter-

prise and the modern administration are systemically independent units within

norm-free subsystems. (TCA II, p.172)

Lastly we now come to the uncoupling of lifeworld and system. The uncoupling of action

orientated at success and orientated at understanding corresponds to the difference be-

tween system and lifeworld; and they now go separate ways. But the system, due its me-

dium of money, has by now such an influence on the lifeworld that it restructures it, since

money pervades an increasing number of communicative relations. The media can now

play the role of either focussing communicative action or replacing it (and thereby uncou-

pling it from the lifeworld context). The lifeworld becomes increasingly problematised

since its rationalisation proceeds further. This, in turn, increases pressure on understanding

and also increases the demand for communication. The extent and effort of interpretation

therefore increases the possibility of criticism and consequently the risk of disagreement.

The media can buffer this threat and from the perspective of the lifeworld, effort and risk

decrease but it becomes more and more technical.

The transfer of action coordination from language over to steering media

means an uncoupling of interaction from lifeworld contexts. (TCA II, p.183)

The more consensus formation in language is relieved by media, the more

complex becomes the network of media-steered interaction. […] Delinguistified

media of communication such as money and power, connect up interactions in

space and time into more and more complex networks that no one has to com-

prehend or be responsible for. (TCA II, p.184)

In other words, money and power substitute processes of communication while the steer-

ing media can only focus and/or relieve them. This, according to Habermas, is our present

condition. The uncoupling of lifeworld and system dissolves a unity between the single per-


128

son, her society, and the role she plays within it, which critics deplore. On all three levels we

encounter problems.

On the level of society we encounter no homogenous whole anymore but a complex set of in-

terwoven organisations. These organisations fulfil various functions and occupy various

positions within the state depending on whether they are civil, governmental or economic

ones, which, in turn, determines the hierarchy and means of influence they have on other

institutions.

The government must attempt to order such levels of complexity by an equally complex

system of administration.11 The principles guiding this administration, but also the justifica-

tion of most organisations, are not embedded in a particular moral tradition, but are func-

tional (in the economic sphere often utilitarian) considerations and abstractions in terms of

positive rights. The state and all the organisations it contains therefore gain independence

from any particular moral background. In terms of secularisation we often see this as pro-

gress (unless one is against secular states) but it brings with it problems of legitimacy be-

cause, at least traditionally, legitimacy was build into the spiritual world order. Today, with-

out recourse to a transcendental ordering, the ground for legitimacy has vanished and func-

tional explanations cannot replace it because they leave the final question, as to what

grounds their particular station and approach, open.

On the level of social roles people fulfil particular roles within the institutions and organisations

that make up the state. Here we encounter the same problem. The organisations are not

guided by an overall normative domain or fit a place within an all-pervasive cosmology.

These spiritual aspects have been lost in what Weber would have called secularisation and

rationalisation. In other words, people evaluate these roles, and the actions they commit as

a part of them, not in terms of a transcendental order but purely in functional terms (hav-

ing a job to earn money, acting in a particular way because the organisation requires it).

Thus, the individual can and often does separate herself from this part of her social life.

On the level of identity the knowledge of this functional ordering of the state according organ-

isational principles and the separation of the self from the role that the individual plays in

this administrative economical-political machine (both of which do not have to correspond

with the individuals’ own values), lead to problems. In this set-up the person does not iden-

tify herself with the state or her role within it. This, however, for the longest time of human

history has been the source of people’s identity. The questions are thus whether any sense

of identity can be attained in these conditions of unprecedented social complexity and in-

11 “However, the politically supported, internal dynamics of the economic system result in a more or less continuous increase in system complexity – which means not only an extension of formally organised do-mains of action, but an increase in their internal density as well.” (TCA II, p.351)


129

strumental rationality and whether modern states can somehow fill the gaps that they have

opened up. To pursue and maybe answer these questions is however, unfortunately, far

beyond the scope of the present investigation. It is clear, however, that the problems

Habermas identifies here, are all aspects of what Marx would call alienation.

This oversimplified summary of Habermas' two-volume magnum opus that I have just

given serves two purposes: 1) it was necessary to provide at least a sketchy background of

Habermas' theory in order to do it justice and make the criticisms that I will go on to dis-

cuss understandable. 2) Habermas' attention to the relationship between material reproduc-

tion and institutional superstructure, so to say, indicates once again his adherence the

Marxian project and explanation, namely Historical Materialism. Habermas' approach in-

voked a varied reception. Among other criticisms, important for my purpose are those at-

tending to the link between labour and emancipation.


130

3. Is there space for emancipation in Habermas action-labour

distinction?

3.1. Critics of Habermas

Often those who criticise a particular view for being too extreme later have to face the very

same accusation, or its opposite. When Habermas criticised Marx for being too instrumental

in his argument, i.e. treating the normative sphere too much like the instrumental one,

Habermas himself is now being criticised for treating the instrumental sphere not normative

enough. He ‘instrumentalises’ work too much, that is, his classification of work as purely in-

strumental activity in contradistinction to communicative action strikes some writers as too

functional. Honneth (1982) and Breen (2007), for example, want to re-infuse labour with

emancipatory potential which, they argue, Habermas has distilled out of it. I focus on

Honneth and Breen because they both instructively represent the general direction in

which critiques of Habermas have tended to go.1

3.1.1. Breen

Breen’s criticism, because it radicalises Honneth’s, can be answered quite easily: Breen

seems to think that work activities cannot even be looked at normatively under Habermas’

scheme when he says that

Habermas’s dualist theory of society […] excludes work and the economy from

ethical reflection. (2007, p.381)

But this is simply false: just because the activity is instrumental that does not mean that the

person doing the work becomes a mere lifeless instrument. She remains a person with re-

spective abilities, preferences, etc. Furthermore, because the person is embedded (with her

work) in a communicative group or context, there is obviously scope to have a debate

about how satisfying or humane work is for her. So, when Breen’s argument is the follow-

ing:

In short, what Habermas ignores in interpreting modern economic institutions

in systemic-functional terms is the dependence of these institutions on specific

moral-ethical attitudes, the fact that they are never norm-free.

1 For similar criticisms see for example: J. Keane (1975); Axel Honneth (1982); Charles Taylor (1991); Ron Eyerman (1981)

Habermas and Emancipation

131

Habermas replies in seemingly direct response in TCA II that

Instrumental actions are set within the cooperative interrelations of group

members and presuppose regulated interactions. The functional circuit of instrumen-

tal action cannot be analysed independent of structures of cooperation, and cooperation requires

social control regulating group activities. (TCA II, p.44, my emphasis)2

But Breen continues on this typical line of argument and argues that Habermas’ distinction

between labour and interaction results in a purely instrumental view of labour also for the

labourer herself. That is, Habermas’ scheme undercuts the connection between the single

agent and her labour, i.e. due to its instrumentality the labourer cannot identify with her

work any longer. This technical approach to instrumental action then develops into the

functional ordering, or administration, of society (Weber’s rationalisation). It is characteris-

tic of what Habermas calls the ‘system’ (in contradistinction to the ‘lifeworld’) which then,

in its cold and purely functional rationality, starts to interfere (colonise) the normative

realm. Thus Breen claims that

Habermas’s ‘colonization’ thesis, as a result of the communicative versus in-

strumental reason binary which provides its foundation, has the decidedly un-

critical effect of effacing the ethical-political significance of work and produc-

tion for people’s everyday lives. (op.cit., p.381f.)

This argument misfires. Habermas is simply, at this point, not concerned with the significance

that someone’s work has for that person. But this does not mean that he rejects it, it is just

a different question that is not Habermas’ target. Whether someone identifies with her labour or not

remains an empirical question and cannot be decided on the theoretical level. Habermas is only inter-

ested in outlining the differing rationalities pertaining to different kinds of action. Apart

from that a person may or may not identify with her work, this is a conditional matter

which Habermas does not undermine conceptually. The ‘system’ is not norm-free because

actions therein are purely rational, as Breen sees it, but because it does not have to concern

itself with particular lifeworlds.3

2 Also: “In introducing the concept of communicative action, I pointed out that the pure types of action oriented to mutual understanding are merely limit cases. In fact, communicative utterances are always embedded in various world relations at the same time. Communicative action relies on a cooperative process of interpretation in which participants relate simultaneously to something in the objective, the social, and the subjective worlds, even when they thematically stress only one of the three components of their utterances.” (TCA II, p.120, original emphasis) 3 To repeat a passage already quoted above: “The traditional state is an organisation that structures society as a whole; in defining its membership, shaping its program, and recruiting its personnel, it therefore has to link up with the established lifeworld of a stratified class society and with the corresponding cultural


132

Honneth’s (1982) project, in contrast to Breen’s, is rather more basic: he wants to rescue

that emancipatory element inherent in the work activity itself that Hegel4 pointed out and

which allows him to understand

work as one constitutive aspect of self-consciousness. […] Hegel can thus in-

terpret work as the self-actualisation (Veranschaulichung) of cognitive capabilities

and thus as a process of intellectual self-development (Bildung), because he sup-

poses that the product of work has a retroactive significance for the working

subject. (p.32f.)

The question is thus not, as Breen seems to think, whether we can debate (subsequently)

about the humaneness of work (the answer is a simple ‘yes’), but whether there is a reflec-

tive and therefore potentially educational element in labour. The answer is of course ‘yes’,

again, from all participants: Honneth, Breen (who refers to MacIntyre), but also Arendt and

Habermas. Firstly, the worker becomes aware of his own instrumental abilities (this also

Habermas would allow), but Honneth, Breen, and MacIntyre are interested in the norma-

tively emancipatory potential hidden in work. Does the worker become a (normatively) better

person? This is where the arguments diverge: Honneth, Breen, and MacIntyre want to say

‘yes’, Habermas and Arendt rather ‘no’.

The crux lies, as before, partly in the definition of work as social. Breen advances examples

that are meant to show how normativity is inherent in all instrumental action. A first exam-

ple, applying to the functional practice of contractual relations is this:

Durkheim famously made clear that the market mechanisms of contract and

exchange are impossible without trust, without the assumption that agreements

will be honoured. Such trust is not secured by coercive legal enforcement alone,

but also by a scheme of social conventions and mores that render capitalist ex-

change both desirable and normal, indeed the ‘natural’ order of things. (op.cit.,

p.388f.)

But Habermas could respond to this. A contract requires communication, in fact, a con-

tract is a piece of communication and is therefore part of the normative realm. Particularly

since we regard it as a pre-condition of a proper contract that both parties understand what

traditions. By contrast, the capitalist enterprise and the modern administration are systemically independent units within norm-free subsystems.” (TCA II, p.172) 4 For example: “This is the infinite right of the subjective individual, to satisfy himself in his activity and work.” (Hegel, 1988, p.25).


133

it entails. That is, the involved parties must agree on the relevant expectations, actions,

rules, and sanctions. Of course a contract is intrinsically normative and as Breen quite

rightly says, it relies on ‘social conventions’ - and Habermas would agree. Thus, Habermas

can happily acknowledge what Breen denies him.

Furthermore, Habermas himself makes much use of Durkheim’s approach to norms,

agreements and contracts because he is acutely aware that coercion cannot be the reason

for people’s compliance with them. Compliance and duty are not binding because non-

fulfilment would result in punishment; it is rather the other way round: punishment is justi-

fied because of the rule or norm (see TCA II, section 2). A contract may be of instrumental

use, but it is, so to say, a piece of objectified communal understanding and can thus hardly

be used as an example against it, as Breen intends.

But Breen also focuses on work itself. According to him and MacIntyre, the work activity

will teach the person firstly to be honest with herself, namely to properly judge her powers.

This, so it is argued, immediately puts the worker into the normative domain. But this is

unconvincing and plays on a double-meaning of ‘honesty’. For surely, honesty towards

yourself and your own abilities it is not the honesty we demand of someone whom we sus-

pect of cheating in an exam, say. The kind of honesty work teaches is simply being realistic,

that is, judging properly whether one’s actions will lead to the outcome that is envisaged.

This is not honesty as it is valued in communicative action, this is merely instrumental: I

face an objective world of facts in which my actions either lead to success or failure. Learn-

ing to judge my abilities properly is elementary for success. ‘Success’, here, is meant non-

normative: it does not mean climbing up the social ladder, or gaining esteem but being able

to deal with the world of facts adequately. Of course in this way it does not only apply to

humans anymore: analogously we may say that any cat, before it jumps from one roof to

another, has to be honest to itself. If not, it will be unsuccessful, i.e. it will misjudge and

fall. Thus, the honesty that Breen talks about and which he considers an intrinsic part of

work and the respective learning-process, is hardly the intersubjective, and therefore nor-

mative, honesty he is after. He is talking about true or false judgements of my own technical abilities,

not evaluations concerning right and wrong. His argument commits the error of equivocation.

3.1.2. The Master-apprentice relationship

Another example Breen uses to show how the normative domain is part of work is the

master-apprentice or teacher-pupil relationship that is involved in learning. This relation-


134

ship, it is argued, is constitutive also of technical aspects of a craft that the apprentice has

to learn. Thus, the instrumental and normative realms are immediately interwoven. But by

introducing interpersonal relationships we are providing a communicative environment and

thus Habermas can happily agree that this environment is normative. To the law-governed

relationship between man and the world is now added the norm-governed relationship be-

tween man and other men. In the same way Adam’s world was enriched when he encoun-

tered Eve, or Robinson Crusoe’s world when he discovered Friday. Thus, that the social

environment, here the master-apprentice relationship, is guided by norms is one of Haber-

mas’ main points and thus in no way critical of him.

Furthermore, the ideal of work that Breen advances together with MacIntyre is much ideal-

ised.5 Much emphasis is put on the ethical relationship between teacher and pupil which is,

apparently, required for learning. This may suit some learning-situations but not all of them.

We wish that learning had more of that kind of connection, but much learning today is, for

example, ‘distance-learning’: there is no noteworthy ethical relationship, nor does this rela-

tionship have a necessary impact on learning. A good ethical relationship is no guarantee

for internal (excellence) or external (fame, money) success in a trade. I can get along bril-

liantly with my teacher, yet maybe I am simply not good at what I do. The existence of ‘dis-

tance-learning’ and the fact people also discover new things by themselves strongly sug-

gests that that normative relationships are not a necessary part of labour. Nevertheless, inso-

far as we grow up in a social environment almost all labour takes place within the norma-

tive realm. Yet that the two coincide is a contingent matter. The social norms are part of the

communicative environment in which a craft takes place (the social relations between peo-

ple); they are not part, as such, of the mastery of the craft (the man-world relation). Con-

versely, the rules guiding the craft are only effective in the man-world relation, not concern-

ing the social man-man relation.

Note that I am not arguing that a good teacher-pupil/master-apprentice relationship is un-

important for many areas of learning. Also I would wish that more pupils had the chance

to enjoy more attention. But only on this basis I cannot conclude that a good master-

apprentice relationship is constitutive of labour. Nor can this relationship be conceived in-

5 It is indicative that the activities that are mentioned in arguments against Habermas are all crafts: sculpting, carpentry, mining, building, etc. This is quite a narrow focus and the same as Marx’s occasional romanticism about work activities, although Marx is otherwise not a romantic. See Sayers (1998, 2003, pp.122ff, 2007, p.449f.). However, note also that, as Svendsen (2008, p.36) points out, when Marx gives ex-amples of non-alienated activities he never mentions factory work. Thus, industrial labour does not really seem to be an ideal either.


135

strumentally, that is, it cannot be viewed as a means to an end in the same way that a ham-

mer is a means to hit a nail in the wall. I cannot say “I want to learn well therefore I will

have a good relationship with my teacher.” Such an opinion would strike us as too calcu-

lated and the relationship dishonest, or, in the worst case, deceiving. The pupil is not valu-

ing the teacher for who she is, but only what use she is to her. Habermas calls this ‘strategic

action’. If anything, we would consider such an approach blameworthy. In other words, the

instrumental approach that appropriately guides labour (namely, what am I doing this for

and what is the best way to reach this end) is exactly inadequate for the relationship be-

tween people. To this normative dimension between agents apply different rules than to

the relation between an agent and the material world. These normative rules are established in

communicative action, not in labour. Thus, the normative side that Breen wants to establish can itself only

be explained in terms of social norms that have developed independently of the (technical) rules of work.

Although the instrumental and communicative realms are connected insofar as they both

belong into the lifeworld, we should not discard the analytic distinction between them.6

This inclusive yet differentiated approach is the advantage that Habermas has over Breen.

The inclusion of instrumental and normative realms in the lifeworld is one of Habermas’

own later realisations. He admits that:

In "Technik und Wissenaschaft als Ideologie" (1968) I still tried to separate the

action-systems of state and economy in terms of purposive rational orientation

or success-oriented action on the one hand and communicative action on the

other. This parallel approach of action-systems and action-types led to difficul-

ties which led me, already in “Legitimation Crisis”, to combine the concept of the life-

world, which I introduced in “Logic of the Social Sciences”, with the concept of the

system. This resulted in the double-sided concept of society as lifeworld and system in “The

Theory of Communicative Action”. (translation U.M., emphasis added) .7

The claim that Habermas cannot account for the teacher-pupil relationship nor internal

standards of excellence can thus be answered: Habermas includes all labour-activities, prac-

tices, etc., in the lifeworld, i.e. the social world, which means that they are embedded in

6 Also Keane (1975, p.87) says: “Habermas stresses that this distinction [between communicative and instrumental action] is analytical only, and that the two interests are always empirically interwoven.” 7 This is my translation of a later (1990) edition of Habermas’ Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Earlier editions do not feature this admission by Habermas of this change in his approach. For the original quotation see Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit, Suhrkamp Taschenbuch, 1990, p.35f. The ‘difficul-ties’ to which Habermas refers concern those pointed out in Honneth (1985, so far not translated, U.M.)


136

communicative surroundings. Thus, the normative realm is connected with instrumental

activities, contrary to Breen’s argument.

The differentiation between communicative action and labour within the lifeworld, as de-

fended by Habermas, allows the intuitive realisation that one does not have to be a good

person in order to be a good labourer and vice versa. Breen, in his critique of Habermas,

ends in a position in which it is increasingly difficult to separate the mastery of the material

world from the mastery of interpersonal relationships when it is obvious that one can be

successful in one while failing in the other.

The inclusion of communicative action and labour within the lifeworld, contrary to Breen’s

claims, allows Habermas to conduct a normative debate concerning the labourers and con-

sider, for example, standards of humaneness or decency (Zumutbarkeit). After all, it is still

human beings who work, not machines. Habermas’ intention is to locate the emergence of

norms in the realm of communicative action. This does not mean that norms are therefore

restricted to that domain. It only means that this is where they originate: it is in interaction

that we come to know normative standards.

3.1.3. Labour and the social

The crux in debates such as the above with reference to Habermas concerns the sociality of

labour. I have discussed this already above with reference to Arendt’s characterisation of

labour and work vs. interaction and I will now return to this issue. The claim often ad-

vanced is that labour is ‘intrinsically’ or ‘necessarily’ social, thereby indicating that there is

special weight behind this assertion. Labour, it is said, always takes place in a social world,

shared with other people. But this is trivial, for insofar as humans are always in a social

context it is not insightful to say that labour is necessarily social. On this level, all human

actions, in fact, human existence in general, is social. I do not consider this point controversial.

So when Breen asserts, repeating MacIntyre, that “all practices are communal endeavours”

(2007, p.393), last but not least because they are bound up with past generations, then this

is surely not just particular to practices but applies to human life in general. Yet more can

be said because it is obvious that we can differentiate further. Some activities are ‘more so-

cial’, or ‘communal’, than others: playing tennis is more social than watching TV, having a

party is more social than laying puzzles in your room, playing in a band is more social than

practicing scales, and going to a concert is more social than doing research for a PhD. That

is, we want to distinguish between things you can actually do on your own (as a single per-


137

son, despite the fact that you live in a shared world) and those you can only do in concert

with others.

With Arendt we can say that I can labour and work on my own, even if we often do it to-

gether with others. In fact, it must be possible to engage in these activities by oneself be-

cause otherwise it would be impossible to be a hermit, Robinson Crusoe could not have

survived and feral children could not exist. Contrastingly, as I have shown above, I cannot

interact on my own. The claim is therefore that for some activities the presence of other

people is required and for some it is not.8 In fact, for some it is important to be in solitude,

to ‘left in peace’, as during research for example or writing a play, or novel, or working out

a scientific formula. Such solitary engagements also allow learning things about oneself: one

probably even wants to do one’s work as well as possible and perfect it, etc. That is, Adam

and Robinson would have been able to pursue the good in their instrumental actions

(which Breen, following MacIntyre calls ‘internal good’, e.g. standards of excellence).9 But

the normative rules that apply to our societies can only be gained through interaction, not

through instrumental action. Adam and Robinson Crusoe were only able to become nor-

matively good persons after Eve and Friday arrived.

This issue also persists in Breen’s own argument, because when he describes the features of

a practice he says:

Third, as implied by the terms ‘co-operative activity’ and ‘goods internal’, each

practice is defined by ‘standards of excellence’ which both determine the goal of

the activity, its telos, and regulate its internal functioning. That is, to be able to

perform within a practice one must initially submit to the authority of the im-

personal standards which encapsulate the highest level of achievement attained

within that practice at a given point in time. (ibid., p.394)

With ‘co-operative activity’ and ‘goods internal’ Breen wants to refer to the normative di-

mension of practices that Habermas, he claims, cannot capture. But exactly in this regard I

find the claim above counter-productive because it rather seems to enforce a Habermasian

perspective. The ‘authority of impersonal standards’, in the second half of the quote, are

8 A rejoinder here might be to claim that even solitary activities presuppose a level sociality (this is in fact what Breen does). But notice that neither Arendt nor Habermas disagrees with this. This is discussed below. 9 See Breen, 2007, p. 393f. “External goods are the generic goods of money, power, status, and pres-tige, whereas internal goods are specific to an individual practice, that is, can only be known and achieved through sustained engagement in the practice itself.”


138

surely the technical demands that any labour/work activity is ruled by, otherwise why would

they be impersonal. It must be the objective laws that constrain and limit the practitioner in

what he can and cannot do and what means he can use to achieve particular effects (for

example the painter must know which ingredients to mix in order to get a certain colour, or

which painting techniques to use in order to attain a certain effect). Yet surely this is the

instrumental dimension that Habermas points out. Even if painting methods change over

time they cannot escape the objective borders given by the way in which our world works.

Although these changes are due to social development this does not mean that they are any

less impersonal, or technical. ‘Co-operative activity’ and ‘goods internal’ as the opposing

sides must then refer to the normative dimension. Thus, it seems to me that in distinguish-

ing between ‘goods internal’ on the one hand and ‘impersonal standards’ on the other,

Breen is invoking a distinction which weakens his own argument against Habermas, be-

cause this relies on the distinction between the instrumental and the normative that he

criticises Habermas for.

But it is clear that such a separation of technical and instrumental demands from interactive

ones is very sensible. Breen attempts to cover up this divide by linking impersonal (instru-

mental) standards as ‘internal goods’ to co-operation (thus interaction) or the role of au-

thority. ‘Standards of excellence’ is meant to refer to both dimensions the normative and

the instrumental. To be a true paragon of a given trade is to have acquired the technical

knowledge, mastered the available techniques and internalised the intrinsic (normative)

good of the practice. Yet, again, this unified account does not erase the analytic distinction

that Habermas puts forward. There are two sides to being a master practitioner and neither

can be reduced to the other. To argue this is Habermas’ main concern, he does thereby not

deny that they interact. Therefore, Habermas’ account is not only defendable against criti-

cisms such as Breen’s, but it also has the advantage of being more discerning. This advan-

tage is given away by moving from the general claim that all human practices are social to

the more specific, and contentious, claim that they are necessarily social, require the presence

of others and that the relationships we have with those others are constitutive of the excel-

lence concerning those practices, even when those practices are instrumental.

3.1.4. Honneth

Contrary to Breen, according to whom the labourer himself becomes non-normative under

Habermas, Honneth (1983) argues for the more plausible claim that there is emancipatory


139

potential in the labouring activity. By making labour purely instrumental and locating all

emancipation in communicative action, Habermas is firstly decidedly unmarxian and sec-

ondly deprived of the means for a critique of labour practices. He is unmarxian because

Habermas undercuts the emancipatory function of labour that Marx relies on:

[…] Marx’s […] world history is defined as the self-creation, self-preservation

and self-emancipation of society through work. (op.cit., p.34)

Thus, Marx counts on the emancipatory potential of labour and requires it for his theory of

revolution. Habermas, contrastingly, by reducing labour only to instrumental activity de-

prives it of its emancipatory potential and therefore the labourer of his chance for Bildung

(education, intellectual self-development). The reason that Honneth points out for this dis-

tancing from the emancipatory potential of labour is the following: the gradual de-

emancipation of the concept of work in the literature is due to the increasing division of

labour and automation in the course of the 19th and 20th century. Because labour-processes

became dissected into smaller and smaller parts (particularly through Taylorism) the intel-

lectual content was gradually eradicated. This is often referred to as de-skilling.10 And so

the causal relation which Marx believed to exist between the intensification of

labour productivity and a constant increase in the workers’ level of qualification

has ceased to be empirically plausible; the revolutionary notion that an intellec-

tual and strategic socialisation of the proletariat is possible within the frame-

work of capitalist industrial work has foundered upon the reality of massive

disqualification. […] thus, it is the fundamental structural change in capitalist

industrial labour which has finally brought to light the categorical difficulties in

which Marx involved himself when he attempted to develop a theory of revolu-

tion on the basis of his conception of work. (op.cit., p.37f.)

In short, the deskilling in industrial labour prevents the development of a class qualified

enough to stage a revolution. Industrial labour, contrary to Marx’s claims, does not pro-

duce revolutionaries but docile workers. This is difficult for Marxian theory because it

means that the industrial labour required for the adequate satisfaction of everyone’s needs

prevents emancipation. The satisfaction of needs stands in opposition to emancipation. The

difficulty is not only that this goes against Marx’s thoughts on emancipation and revolution

but also that it coheres with his thoughts on production: also Marx endorsed a rigid en-

forcement of labour and hailed the productive success of capitalism. However much he

10 See also Braverman (1974) particularly chapter 3.


140

disliked the division of labour, he also knew that it was necessary for the scale of produc-

tion he envisaged. We are thus left with a dilemma: either one has to increase the division

of labour to keep up the rate of production, in which case even Marx would have to ac-

knowledge deskilling (but it may be argued that this would be outweighed by the amount of

spare-time every one has if every one is working, like in More’s ‘Utopia’); or one has to opt

for automation and envisage a future in which machines do all of the work and humans can

engage in other activities (e.g. Marcuse), or a mixture of these two. In both cases we have

abandoned the central Marxian idea of emancipation through labour: work is now clearly

marked as necessary toil which is unfulfilling and that truly human activity starts when

work is over. On the one hand, this is inherently un-Marxian insofar as Marx thinks that

work is the distinctive characteristic of our species. On the other hand, however, it fits with

Marx’s own call for the ‘abolition of labour’ in the early German Ideology and the ‘shortening

of the labour-day as the first step towards the realm of freedom’ in the late Capital III. In

short, first de-skilling is accepted for the benefit of a high production rate, and secondly it

must be admitted that work is merely instrumental and not fulfilling. As Arendt (HC, p.123)

rightly contends: on the one hand, work is the unmistakable and central element of eman-

cipation for the human species under Marx, on the other hand man’s future lies in time that

is not used for labour.

So, by explaining Habermas’ instrumentalisation of labour as an outcome of modern labour

practices, Honneth also issues his own critique of Marx’s theory of revolution: namely that

industrial labour has the opposite effect to Marx’s claims. This confirmation of the missing

emancipatory potential in labour is, however, not due to labour itself but, and here Hon-

neth can return back to Marx and Hegel, due to modern labour conditions. More ‘whole-

some’ labour, that is, labour that has not been divided, does still have emancipatory potential.

Here we come to Honneth’s second argument, namely that Habermas has deprived himself

of the means for a critique of labour practices. According to Honneth, Habermas has ac-

cepted divided and deskilled labour as the nature of labour as such. But if Habermas had

“differentiated the category of instrumental action internally as much as he differentiates

the spectrum of social action normatively” (op.cit., p.53) then he would have to recognise

the existence of a type of practical and moral knowledge which is based not

upon the consciousness of systematically distorted relations of communication,

but upon the experience of the destruction of true acts of work in the course of

the rationalisation of production technique. For when the argument is first ad-

mitted, that only those instrumental acts may be called acts of work which the


141

actor himself independently shapes and directs, then the possibility emerges of a

process of intellectual self-development (Bildung), in which working subjects can

systematically maintain their right to the control of the work process, i.e., to the

work character of their instrumental acts. (op.cit., p.53)

Thus

the concept of instrumental action itself is too thin thematically to be able to

grasp the moral tension inherent in established work relations. (op.cit., p.54)

For Honneth, this criticism of Habermas’ scheme also applies to Arendt: due to the in-

strumentalisation of labour they are both unable to distinguish alienated from non-

alienated labour. But Arendt commented on modern work-conditions that with the in-

crease of the division of labour and automation, they resemble rather the repetitive cycle of

labour. In other words, if productive activity (of whichever kind) becomes as repetitive and

enforced as (Arendtian) labour then it becomes equally oppressing and features the same

amount of self-realisation – none. Accordingly, Arendt’s approach retains its critical poten-

tial. But this reply will not be sufficient for Honneth. For him Arendt still instrumentalises

labour too much. What he really attempts is, on a socio-genetic level, to preserve the edu-

cational content of labour, on the critical-analytical level the ability to distinguish between

‘wholesome’ and alienated labour, and on the normative level, possibly the person’s right to

demand fulfilling work.11

Honneth is using the standard ‘social labour’ argument in which labour is a priori defined as

a social activity.12 The trick is again to move from the general social existence of human

beings to the far more narrow meaning of ‘social’ in which labour is bound up with the

personality of the agent. The argument therefore combines the activity of labour with the

normative aspect of ‘working together’ (Zusammen-arbeit). But here we are clearly not just talk-

ing about the general social existence of human beings but the actual presence of others during

one’s work. That is, there is already a mixing of the technical and the normative aspects, the

former belong to labour itself, the latter to the social interaction of the members of a group

of labourers while they are working. Not labouring itself is normative but the social aspect of

11 However pressing the normative element is for Honneth, I think it was simply not Arendt’s con-cern. Whether the increasing division of labour is to be resisted or not is not part of her study in The Human Condition. Many commentators made the same mistake with the result that they see Arendt as an aloof aristo-crat who simply despises all labouring/working activities as low (see chapter 2). But Arendt would have agreed that working on a conveyor belt is stultifying for a human being. Yet whether we judge the historical development good or bad is another question. 12 As discussed above, see: chapter 3, 3.1.3. Labour and the social.


142

labour, that is, the actual presence of others at the same place and time. This ‘togetherness’

while working is responsible for the normative dimension. Thus, this is not the general social

aspect of labour which applies to all human existence but the much narrower sense of the

actual presence of other people. Neither Habermas nor Arendt would deny the normative di-

mension of labour while working together with other people. But they do deny that the activity of

labour itself, which can be accomplished in solitude, has this dimension. The normative

structures of human groups arise out of the interactions of the group members. I need to

be in contact with other people, not just the world, in order to learn the social rules, expec-

tations, values and in order to have access to Bildung in order to debate my labour. Thus,

with Habermas we can say that the normative structures have to be established first through communi-

cation-processes. Again, this does not deny that people interact while they labour, but these

interactions are not the productive activity itself. A carpenter is productive when he crafts

wood, not when he is talking to his customer. At least at some point the customer wants

him to stop interacting and get on with the work that he ordered from him. Thus, instru-

mental and normative levels overlap and flow into each other, simply because human be-

ings are social agents. But although we are involved on both levels this does not mean that

we cannot distinguish instrumental engagements from normative interactions.

The advantage of the ‘social labour’ argument, as advanced by most writers in the Hege-

lian-Marxian tradition concerning labour, is that descriptive and normative claims can be so

easily connected.13 The argument against de-skilling is that it stupefies the workers when

the ‘practical and moral knowledge’ inherent in ‘wholesome’ productive activity is crucial

for them as persons: they have a right to Bildung. Intellectual self-development, apparently

inherent in un-alienated forms of labour, thus becomes the basis for a rights-attribution.

Does Habermas have to be concerned by this? He can quite happily agree that a more

complex task challenges a person more than a less complex one. But whether this can be

turned into a claim-right on behalf of the workers will depend on functioning channels of commu-

nication and debate. Thus, Habermas will bring the communicative dimension right back in.

Furthermore, even if we acknowledge this claim-right then Habermas will point out that

the discovery of it presupposes a process of emancipation. That is, we are not born with

the realisation that we may have a right to ‘wholesome’ labour. Instead, this realisation will

be part of a historical process of labourers emancipating themselves. Emancipation, in turn,

is only possible through communicative action since it is viewed as a process of under-

13 This connection is also pervasive in Honneth’s recent Reification (2008) and is the (justified) object of criticism of Judith Butler, Jonathan Lear, Raymond Geuss (published with Honneth) and Sayers (2009).


143

standing and self-realisation which depends on communication.14 Therefore, the communi-

cative dimension not only appears when it comes to the actual event of claiming this right,

but already beforehand in the process of realising this right in the first place, irrespective of

whether we then claim it or not.

From this historical vantage point we can now criticise Honneth. According to his claims,

‘wholesome’ labour has far more emancipatory potential than its modern divided forms in

industrial labour. In this case we should expect more revolutions before the industrial revolu-

tion. Yet there is no evidence for it. Why did all those groups of oppressed workers (e.g.

Greek slaves) that did engage in ‘wholesome’ labour not emancipate themselves? If the an-

swer is that the conditions were not right, this clearly refers to the ‘social conditions’ which

must lie outside the actual activity of labour itself. In short, other conditions than those con-

cerning labour are responsible for emancipation: other interactions outside of labour had not

yet happened. But this answer is unavailable to the critics of Habermas since they dispute

exactly this difference, namely the distinction between labour and interaction. Therefore,

the emancipatory potential, or reflection, inherent in work, this “retroactive significance for

the working subject” that Honneth (1982, p.32f.) is concerned with, is not sufficient for the

emancipation Honneth envisages. It is the interaction between people, not the reflection

inherent in work, which allows for emancipation.

Let me, finally, just point out one danger. The assimilation of instrumental and normative

sphere, as defended by Honneth, Breen, MacIntyre and others, however well it is intended,

must not lead to collapse the distinction between objective facts and normative claims.

This would lead to the inability to distinguish factual from normative errors, which Haber-

mas (TCA I, p.48f.) outlines as one of the features of the mythical understanding of the

world, in which failures in instrumental activities are seen as being the result of normative

wrongdoings. The overemphasis, to my mind, of the ethical dimension within the master-

apprentice relationship sometimes likens objective and normative world too much. A criti-

cal understanding of labour should retain the ability to distinguish instrumental and norma-

tive aspects, even if these are interwoven because we are dealing with human agents that

are at home in both worlds. Habermas, as I have argued here, retains this critical aspect.

14 See for example Collins (1965)


144

It is important to consider these objections to Habermas since the distinction between in-

strumental and communicative action is so similar to Arendt’s distinction between work

and action. Thus, similar criticisms can be, and, as we have seen, have been, wielded against

Arendt. Her critics I have already considered above (Chapter 2 above), here I have replied

to exemplary criticisms levelled against Habermas. Although I recognise the dangers and

deficiencies that writers such as Honneth and Breen point out in Habermas’ account, I

think there is enough scope within his account to reply to these concerns. My own critique

of Habermas will be presented in the next section and has another target.

Overall, it seems to me that the original intention behind Habermas’ distinction between

instrumental and communicative action has been obscured if it is alleged that he relies only

on the differing telos that already Aristotle pointed out. The introduction of the sphere of

communicative action is important for Habermas because a material account of human his-

tory merely in terms of forces of production and the resulting relations thereof, as in classi-

cal Historical Materialism, cannot explain the normative changes in human history which

often occur prior to material changes as in the forces or relations of production.15

Furthermore, the theses of the uncoupling of lifeworld and system and the colonisation of

the former by the latter are intended by Habermas as critical concepts. That is, although he

sees the uncoupling as a necessary condition in order for western societies to develop the

shape and structure that they now have, he is also critical of this development, particularly

when it progresses into what he considers the colonisation of the lifeworld by the system.

In this respect Habermas has the same aim as most of his critics, namely to point out and

trace the ills of modern life in our post-industrial and post-modern states and societies.

4. End of the debate

15 See Habermas (1975), esp. pp 288-294 “The structures of role behaviour mark a new evolutionary threshold compared to the structures of social labour; the rules of communicative action, that is intersubjectively valid norms of action, cannot be reduced to rules whether of instrumental or strategic action. (p.289) […] for the introduction of new forms of social integration, as for instance, the replacement of the kinship system with the state, demands a knowledge of a practical-moral kind. Technical knowledge, which can be implemented with rules of instrumental and strategic action, or an expansion of our control over external nature, is not what is required, but, rather, a knowledge which can seek its embodiment in structures of interaction. (p.293) […] the species not only learns technical knowledge relevant for the development of the productive forces, but also the decisive dimension of moral-practical knowledge which can be embodied into structures of interaction. The rules of communica-tive action do not automatically follow changes in the field of instrumental and strategic action; they develop rather by virtue of their own dynamics.” (p.294). see also TCA II, ch.VIII, section 1. Compare also S. Weil (1958, pp.42 ff.)


145

This labour debate, concerning the degree of normativity in labour, comes to a halt here.

Marx’s connection between labour and emancipation, and the role that labour played in his

theory of history, has been heavily criticised in the 20th century (e.g. Jaspers, Arendt, and

Habermas). The last development in this debate has been the opposition to Habermas, rep-

resented here by Honneth and Breen. As interesting as the publications on this issue are,

the debate is a mere continuation of the arguments that are already known. I have defended

Habermas’ distinction between instrumental and communicative action because there is

sufficient scope within Habermas’ writings to reply to the criticisms levelled against him on

this matter.

This means, however, that we are now merely discussing whether the characterisation of

labour, as spearheaded by Habermas, is correct or not. Whatever the outcome of this de-

bate is, the role that labour plays in the theory of Historical Materialism has been signifi-

cantly lessened and even if Honneth’s argument proved to be pervasive, it seems unlikely

that the direct connection between labour and the normative issues in our modern societies

(be it at the social level of the division between capitalists and proletarians or the individual

level of pathologies such as alienation) will ever be as strong as it is in Marx’ writings. No

one thinks any longer that a re-structuring of the labour-sphere will have an automatic cor-

responding re-structuring effect in the normative sphere as its consequence.

Thus, even if Habermas was proven to be guilty of ‘instrumentalising’ labour too much this

would not result in a return to orthodox Marxism. The impact that the critique in the 20th

century has had on the role of labour in original Marxian Historical Materialism, is a lasting

one. If a Historical Materialist theory of society is to be developed then it will have to take

far more factors into account than those that seemed sufficient before this critique. In this

way, Habermas’ theory of communicative action is, as far as I can see, still the most sys-

tematic and exhausting approach that is available. Of course there have been various disci-

plines which have developed since Habermas published his theory, but in terms of the

range of factors and explanatory potential that his theory offers, it is unsurpassed in its en-

tirety. The task of the Historical Materialist critical of Habermas would be to provide an

account as integrated and extensive as Habermas’ and yet without distinguishing between

labour and communicative action to the extent that Habermas has. But without this dis-

tinction many of Habermas’ insights will be rendered unavailable, which would be a serious

disadvantage.

In the meantime a new area has opened up in which the theorists consider themselves to

be neo-Marxists, to be precise, postmodern neo-Marxists. It is within these writings that


146

labour has once again returned as a central concern. In this field, however, the traditional

labour-debate is simply bypassed because a different phenomenon is the focus: the so-

called ‘immateriality’ of labour in our post-industrial societies. In a way, here it does not

matter whether labour is originally inherently social and emancipating or not, the more im-

portant fact is that it does have these features now. The advances in telecommunication, pro-

duction techniques, and producer-consumer relations have introduced communication into

almost every kind of labour. Again, it seems that capitalism has produced its own gravedig-

gers, or rather, the tools for the potential gravediggers: namely the means of communica-

tion.

But before I come to this final part there is one more section to go through. I have argued

that Habermas is still pursuing a Historical Materialist approach to society. More than any

other Historical Materialist before him Habermas has focussed on actions and language,

one of the main outcomes of which it is to be able to account for action materialistically.

The problem of orthodox Marxism is the confusion of praxis and poiesis, as argued by

Habermas. He wants to solve that problem by finding a theory that presents an integrated

account of both praxis and poiesis without confusing them. In the course of doing so he

thereby attempts to render praxis materialistically available – it is no longer meant to be the

missing element but part of a materialistic account.

Arendt argued that one main problem of Historical Materialism is its second half: its mate-

rialism, because for Arendt praxis (or action) is non-material. This is not a mere termino-

logical debate, for Arendt the outcome has important political consequences: attempting to

capture action materialistically has, for Arendt, so far led to the political consequence of

undermining individuality (and therefore freedom) when this is one of the most distinctive

features of human beings. Therefore, she is opposed to such projects.

The next section will therefore briefly outline the differences between Habermasian and

Arendtian action and argue for the latter. Thus, after a defence of Habermas I will now

turn to my critique of his approach. This critique does not focus on his binary division of

instrumental and communicative action, but his approach to communication and action in

general.

Habermasian vs. Arendtian action

147

5. Habermas and Arendt on action

Habermas is still a materialist, he only thinks that Marx' Materialism is a reductive version

that conflates instrumental and communicative action (1969, 1971). He accepts Arendt's

concept of action and tries to pin down its essence in his linguistic theory (TCA I & II).

But in his effort to explicate Arendtian action through his linguistic analysis he does exactly

what Arendt denies: he tries to materialise a phenomenon Arendt understood to be imma-

terial. Doing so, Habermas thinks that he can construct a materialistic social theory that can

escape the pitfalls that Marx could not. Margaret Canovan (1983, p.108) claimed contrast-

ingly that Habermas substitutes “talking for acting, consensus for disagreement and unity

for plurality in politics”. This claim is quite considerable; after all, Habermas wants to be

the thinker who is able to develop a theory of Historical Materialism that can make sense of

action, contrary to most other theorists in this tradition before him, including Marx. His

worry about previous materialist theories of history is exactly that action was insufficiently

categorised, or rather analysed mistakenly (namely that communicative action was under-

stood as instrumental action). Thus, to say that Habermas conflates talking and action, that

he still does not really grasp action, is substantial.

In a simple way, the truth of Canovan's claim is already displayed in the title Habermas

chooses for his theory of action: 'communicative action'. It is therefore clear that he ties the

concept of action to that of communication. The reason for this connection is his thought

that action is the goal-directed cooperation of one’s own actions with those of others. This

requires communication and hence the link between action and communication.1 His

analysis of language, particularly in his Theory of Communicative Action (1981, translated 1984),

focuses on the telos of communication and the rationality of the actors engaged in it. He

distinguishes three kinds of utterances: evaluative utterances, expressive self-

representations, and statements of fact. Each of them features differing characteristics and

truth conditions. What is missing, however, from his analysis of language is an idea that is

central to Arendt's thought on both speech and action: namely the sheer performance, the

fact that we do something that appears to others, puts the performer in a certain light that

1 “In actions, the factually raised claims to validity, which form the underlying consensus, are as-sumed naively. Discourse, on the other hand, serves the justification of problematic claims to validity of opin-ions and norms. Thus the system of action and experience refers us in a compelling manner to a form of communication in which the participants do not exchange information, do not direct or carry out action, nor do they have or communicate experiences; instead they search of arguments or offer justifications.” (Haber-mas, 1974, p.18)


148

emanates with every single action but which the performer himself cannot control. Arendt

considers this aspect of action immaterial in that it cannot be grasped in any objectified way

as the sciences do. Habermas, in his effort to rectify and enlarge the concept of Historical

Materialism, tries to objectify language in his theory of communication. In this way he in-

tends to capture Arendt's thoughts, but he either misses, or simply neglects, this aspect of

action that Arendt considered immaterial. This has implications for the realm of politics.

Particularly in Theory and Practice (1971, translated 1973) Habermas is concerned with ac-

counts of history and conceptualisations of human action.2 According to him political

thinking underwent a fundamental shift during the Middle Ages: politics as a matter of the

good and virtuous life, as it had been in ancient Greece, was replaced by new understand-

ing, according to which pure physical survival and practicality are the guiding considera-

tions. Action was thereby gradually increasingly instrumentalised – away from the virtue in

action (praxis) and towards the satisfaction of strategic goals through action (poiesis). This in-

strumentalisation of action continued until the early 20th century and Habermas also criti-

cises Marx for adopting this view. The distinction between normative and strategic action

that Habermas makes, is devised in order to point out that although there is an instrumen-

tal kind of action (strategic action) there is also the normative side (e.g. rule-following)

which cannot be reduced to the former. Habermas' basic criticism of Marx, for all its com-

plexity, is that Marx adopted the conflation of praxis and poiesis. Yet, despite his criticism,

Habermas does consider himself a Historical Materialist.3 In order to make this possible he

widens the concept of Materialism by advancing his own theory of rationality and language

and in this way makes communication ‘materially graspable’. In other words, he conceptu-

alises communication in such a way that he thinks it falls under the broad approach of His-

torical Materialism.

6. Habermasian vs. Arendtian action

At first sight Habermas and Arendt are similar in their thoughts on action, but in a more

detailed comparison he changes her approach considerably.4 The origin of this difference is

rooted in Habermas’ pragmatism. Even though the communicative realm is clearly bound

up with the normative domain, he views communication in a very functional fashion. All

2 See particularly Habermas (1974, p.50f.) 3 See p.115, footnote 5 4 Cf. Habermas (1996, originally in Habermas 1974)


149

communication is aimed at the establishment of consensuses and the successful coordina-

tion of subsequent action. Its telos is ‘communicative understanding’ (kommunikative Ver-

ständigung (TCA I, p.11). I do not argue that this false when it is used with caution, but it

does encounter problems when it is regarded as exhaustive, which is what Habermas does.

For him communicative understanding is the only dimension there is to communication.

Particularly (in view of Habermas’ differentiation between the objective, social and subjec-

tive world), language becomes a tool to: a) coordinate instrumental actions in the objective

world, b) coordinate norm-regulated action in the social world, and c) have a reflexive rela-

tion to one’s own inner states, i.e. to be able to see one’s subjectivity as a world. Accord-

ingly, for Habermas language requires only a functional analysis.

For the communicative model of action, language is relevant only from the

pragmatic viewpoint that speakers, in employing sentences with an orientation

to reaching understanding, take up relations to the world, not only directly as in

teleological, normatively regulated, or dramaturgical action, but in a reflective

way. […] The concept of communicative action presupposes language as the

medium for a kind of reaching understanding, in the course of which partici-

pants, through relating to a world, reciprocally raise validity claims that can be

accepted or contested. (TCA I, p.98f.)

[…] one does not understand the theory of communicative action unless one is

prepared to acknowledge a formal-pragmatic theory of meaning. (1991, p.233)

To sum up, we can say that action regulated by norms, expressive self-

presentations, and also evaluative expressions, supplement constative

speechacts in constituting a communicative practice which, against the back-

ground of a lifeworld, is oriented to achieving, sustaining, and renewing consen-

sus – and indeed a consensus that rests on the intersubjective recognition of

criticisable validity claims. (TCA I, p.17)

Of course it is not required of speakers themselves that they are cognitively aware of the

instrumental function of their language, but this function is constitutive for the ability to

differentiate and reflect on the objective, social and subjective world. It is constitutive and

thereby instrumental for this differentiation.

What Habermas neglects, yet what is of utter importance to Arendt, is the revelation of the

individual in speech and action. Habermas only touches on this feature once, namely when


150

he describes the dramaturgic approach to action in sociological literature (TCA I, pp 85-

95). This approach attempts to understand interaction as an actor-audience relation. It is

conceived as an encounter in which “the participants in interaction constitute a public for

one another, to which they present themselves” (TCA I, p.86). The actors are aware of this

meaning as actors for each other and self-presentation thereby becomes the central concept

of this approach to action. It is understood as “stylising the expression of one’s own ex-

periences with a view to the audience” (ibid.).5 In other words, I am aware of you as my

audience and express my experiences accordingly. With such a cognitive focus it is no sur-

prise that for Habermas

each agent can monitor public access to the system of his own intentions,

thoughts, attitudes, desires, feelings, and the like, to which only he has privi-

leged access. (TCA I, p.86)

Although we do not do this all the time (i.e. there are times when we do not attend to the

performance aspect of our action), ‘self-representation’ therefore is conceived cognitively.6

Although Arendt also conceives of interaction as an actor-audience relation she does not

emphasise the conscious ‘acting out’ or ‘stylising’ of ‘what I want them to know’. Even

though this can obviously be achieved it does not feature in the majority of our interac-

tions. The intentional presentation of oneself is not the main point. For Arendt it is more im-

portant that all of one’s actions, once they enter the public domain, become representative

of oneself, whether one is aware of it or not, and whether this is intend or not. The particular

representation of oneself, one’s uniqueness, is not an intentional part of action nor need it

be, in fact, it is not even a matter of choice: no one can help but act in his own way. This is

what Arendt at one point refers to as ‘daimōn’:

In acting and speaking, men show who they are, reveal actively their unique

personal identities and thus make their appearance in the human world, while

their physical identities appear without any activity of their own in the unique

shape of the body and sound of the voice. This disclosure of “who” in contradistinc-

tion to “what” somebody is – his qualities, gifts, talents, and shortcomings, which he

may display or hide – is implicit in everything somebody says and does. It can be hidden

only in complete silence and perfect passivity, but its disclosure can almost never be

achieved as a wilful purpose, as though one possessed and could dispose of this

“who” in the same manner he has and can dispose of his qualities. On the con- 5 TCA I, p.86, Goffman is an often-mentioned exponent of this view. 6 Hans Joas has also pointed this out (Honneth, 1991, p.101).


151

trary, it is more than likely that the “who” which appears so clearly and unmis-

takably to others, [but] remains hidden from the person himself, like the daimōn

in Greek religion which accompanies each man throughout his life, always look-

ing over his shoulder from behind and thus visible only to those he encounters.

(HC, p.179f., my emphasis, except for the last sentence)

This feature of action is so important to Arendt that only several pages later she makes the

connection between this self-revelatory aspect in interaction and the error of materialism:

The basic error of all materialism in politics – and this materialism is not Marx-

ian and not even modern in origin, but as old as our history of political theory –

is to overlook the inevitability with which men disclose themselves as subjects,

as distinct and unique persons, even when they wholly concentrate upon reach-

ing an altogether worldly, material object. (HC, p.183)

Habermas does not mention this dimension at all. For him interaction is exhausted by the

establishment of consensuses and the successful coordination of subsequent instrumental

action (as in the quote from TCA p.17 above). This focus maybe partly a result of the area

in which he is working: academic writing and political action. The prevalent aims in these

fields are to understand in terms of consensuses and to act in terms of coordination. The ideal of

communication and action in these fields is indeed, as Habermas envisages, a self-

transparent and clear (eindeutig) debate aimed at solving problems and coordinating actions.

The content must have the form of communicable information and so it is unsurprising

that, in light of such debates and their content, Habermas construes knowledge as having a

‘propositional structure’ at the very outset of his Theory of Communicative Action (TCA I, p. 8).

The subsequent view of the person that he develops in TCA I and II leaves out any non-

linguistic or linguistically ungraspable element. The presence of such an element would not

just constitute an obstacle to both understanding and action, that is, one’s relations to oth-

ers, but also for one’s relation to oneself and thus for self-emancipation. Yet in the tradi-

tion within which Habermas is writing, emancipation can only be complete if we have a

total understanding of ourselves; that is, if there is nothing that an actor himself cannot re-

flectively get hold of.7 In short, for true emancipation we must be fully transparent to our-

selves and thus things that are impossible to communicate as the propositional content of

an utterance are therefore a threat. It is as if Habermas took Wittgenstein’s ‘whereof one

cannot speak, thereof one shall remain silent’ too seriously, because for Habermas, what-

ever one cannot talk about is simply irrelevant for communicative action. Arendt argues the

7 Cf. Benhabib (1986, ch.4)


152

opposite: interaction is not exhausted by an analysis of talk and what is being talked about,

the particularly human element of action is the ‘who’ that is talking.

This ‘who’, although we can talk about it, nevertheless evades the control of the speaker:

you may debate about the presentation of yourself to others but while so doing you are al-

ready engaged in self-presentation again. That you appear as a particular actor remains an

uncontrollable feature of yourself, however much one reflects on it. This revelation of one-

self is therefore impossible to objectify because no one can get hold of his own representa-

tion. For this reason Arendt invokes the analogy of the daimōn. Again, even in articulating

this daimōn you cannot help but reveal yourself to others as someone who is doing so. It

remains a part of every single person that is constitutive of him/her and which is not under

one’s control. The actor on stage is playing out a character which is, obviously, not himself,

but even an actor impersonating a role reveals something about himself in playing out this role.

Thus, whereas under Habermas communicative action is reduced to mere transferral of

information, for Arendt it is more than that (HC, p.175ff.). If the only purpose of talking

was the exchange of information, then a sign language, as it is used in mathematics or other

sciences, would be sufficient and less distractive, lose, uncertain, vague, etc. than any natu-

ral language (which is why these special linguistic means have been devised, HC, p.179).

Insofar as for Habermas all linguistic interaction is aimed at the establishment of consen-

suses he defines language in such a way that it becomes a mere debating process over

things that can be resolved, or decided upon.

Thus the rationality proper to the communicative practice of everyday life

points to the practice of argumentation as a court of appeal that makes it possi-

ble to continue communicative action with other means when disagreements

can no longer be repaired with everyday routines and yet are not to be settled by

the direct or strategic use of force. (TCA I, p.17f.)

As if in direct communication, Arendt argues exactly against such a view by saying that

[…] if nothing more were at stake here than to use action as a means to an end,

it is obvious that the same end could be much more easily attained in mute vio-

lence, so that action seems a not very efficient substitute for violence, just as

speech, form the viewpoint of sheer utility, seems an awkward substitute for

sign language. (HC, p. 179)


153

Thus, communication is exactly not just a means to reach consensuses which could be oth-

erwise resolved through violence (but which we merely shy away from). In all of Habermas’

characterisation of language he defines it as a useful tool, so to say, namely to come to an

agreement and/or coordinate actions.8 What he neglects is what is of utmost importance to

Arendt, namely that persons reveal themselves in their actions, that they link themselves

irrevocably with their deeds and utterances. Arendt would not deny that language does

have the function that Habermas attributes to it, but she would be against a reduction of

the nature of interaction to that function. She is concerned not only with what action and

communication does factually in the social realm (i.e. whether it leads to agreement or co-

ordination) but also with the connection between people and their words and actions, that

it is indeed this which is an important part our human being.

In his pragmatism Habermas identifies language as a means to establishing consensuses

and coordinating actions. The content of language is therefore information that is truth-apt

with identifiable truth-conditions for the various claims a speaker can make: statements of

fact, claims about norms, evaluative utterances and self-expressions.9 In his way of conceiv-

ing language pragmatically Habermas has found a way to make all communicative action

materialistically available, that is, open to investigation and thereby reflective control

(emancipation). He has managed to fit his entire account into a wide Historical Materialism

which was his project from the outset, but at the price of neglecting that which lies outside

the content of one’s utterances. My claim against Habermas in this respect, contrasting to

Canovan’s, is that he does not confuse talking with interaction, but that he reduces com-

munication to the propositional content of what is said.

Habermas tries to 'objectify' or, in other words, 'materialise' communication and corre-

spondingly he argues for a pragmatic account. I do not claim that this is wrong, but, as with

Marx and production, I argue that it is wrong to assume that it exhausts all there is to human inter-

action. Interaction is not exhausted by propositional content or the truth-aptness of what it is

said in communication. In evolutionary terms it may of course very well be true that the

ability to convey information to an ever more abstract degree is an advantage, but what

Habermas seems to forget, and what distinguishes him from Arendt, is that more than the

mere transferral of information takes place. By reducing communication to the conveyance

8 As already quoted above ‘language is relevant only from the pragmatic viewpoint that speakers, in employing sentences with an orientation to reaching understanding, take up relations to the world […]’ (TCA I, p.98f.). 9 Here it would be worth asking at which consensus, argument, or debate, say, ‘expressive self-displays’ aim? This can only be maintained by construing these concepts very widely.


154

of truth-apt information Habermas also succumbs to the materialistic tendency of locating

the origin of politics within the single agent – that it is something within one’s constitution,

or in what one says. Arendt argues contrarily that politics can exactly not be located in one

human being, or the human being. Instead, the realm of politics, like interaction, can only

exist in-between agents and is not reducible to ‘material factors’ or the truth of statements

that one agent makes (HC, p.182ff.). It is not an analysis of the propositional content of

language that will reveal politics. The origin of politics does not lie in the propositional

content of truth-apt utterances but in the prior and underlying fact that people interact, that

they initiate things and thereby influence the web of relationships that exists between them.

Without being a necessity in the way that labour is, politics is thus intrinsic to human life

but not locatable within one agent or any amount of facts about him/her. Every individual

also presents his/her unique self in this act of communication where this is not an intentional

part of one’s doing. This links to the difference between Habermas and Arendt concerning

their views on the 'dramaturgic' explanation of action: in reducing language to the inten-

tional transferral of information, Habermas thus claims the dramaturgic approach to be

one of intentional self-presentation. Arendt, contrarily, says the opposite: self-representation

is simply a part of all of our actions and utterances, whether we intend this or not (HC, section

24). We simply cannot help representing ourselves. Importantly, this means that, although

self-representation is open to reflection, it is not thereby open to control and emancipation. The

self is, contrary to Habermas, neither transparent nor controllable. Both aspects go against

underlying presuppositions inherent in Historical Materialism. Self-representation is there-

fore contrary to Habermas’ Historical Materialism. Whereas Marx sought emancipation in

labour, Habermas seeks it in communicative action and in order subordinate it to analysis and

control he advances his pragmatic account of language. In this way he supposes to gain the

same insight that Marx thought to be available from an analysis of labour – namely to open

social development (i.e. history) to human control. Where Marx outlines ideal labour-

conditions Habermas outlines criteria for ideal speech situations. Both suppose that their

respective proposal will, if put into practice, allow mankind to emancipate itself from the

shackles of fate, arbitrariness, chance, the irrationality, or however else they conceive what

they think is an eliminable aspect of human life.

Summary

155

7. Summary

Habermas’ critique is, so to say, too linguistic. Canovan’s criticism, namely that he substi-

tutes talking for acting, is not quite right. Habermas (1984, 1987, 1991, esp. p.242f.) is ex-

plicit about the difference between communication and action at several points, but what

he does do is to put all communication in the service of reaching consensuses and coordi-

nating subsequent instrumental action in the world. He thereby instrumentalises language

as such: it is a means to an end, which is not surprising given that he still considers himself

a Historical Materialist (for whom, in his very Marxian moments, the aim is still to make

possible a historical progress that is directed by man).1 Habermas thus occupies a middle

position between Marx and Arendt: unlike Marx and like Arendt, he has shifted the basis of

emancipation from labour to interaction, but unlike Arendt he supposes interaction to be

reducible to the propositional content of assertions. In this way he supposes interaction to

be fully transparent to reflection and unguided historical progress therefore merely to be

due to a lack of reflection. What Habermas simply does not mention at all is the performa-

tive aspect of communication in which a person always reveals herself. This may not be the

telos of communication, but it is an undeniable part of it. Interaction between people cannot

be reduced to the transferral of truth-related (wahrheitsbezogen) information. In the actual

1 “There is no reason for assuming that a continuum of rationality exists extending from the capacity of technical control over objectified processes to the practical mastery of historical processes. The root of the irrationality of history is that we “make” it, without, however, having been able until now to make it consciously. A rationalisa-tion of history cannot therefore be furthered by an extended power of control on the part of manipulative human beings, but only by a higher stage of reflection, a consciousness of acting human beings moving forward in the direction of emancipation.” (1974, p. 175f., my emphasis). This is evidence for Habermas‘ conviction that a rationalisation of history can still be achieved, only not through ‚an extended power of control‘ but through ‘a higher stage of reflection‘. Arendt, by contrast, separates history from reflective access in the moment of action. That is, of course we can reflect on the past, but not on the present: we do not have reflective access when we are still engaged in action. In order to reflect we have to stop acting and vice versa, so that the two never meet. Habermas tries to circum-navigate Arendt’s critique by locating the flaw that prevents the ‘higher stage of reflection’ in a mistaken con-cept of rationality, in order to then introduce his own wider understanding of rationality and thereby be able to make history accessible to reflection once more. But also Benhabib (1986) denies reflection the power to fully contemplate man and his relation to the world in total. In short, there is no complete transparency of man and his situation in the world. Habermas, by contrast, is still committed to a ‘forward directed reflection’, that is, the idea that if one only knows enough about oneself and the world, one could fully understand and predict it. Marx and Engels thought this could be achieved through the calculation and control of consump-tion and production once all class differences have been eradicated. Although Habermas adds the manifold characteristics of communicative action, he also cannot resist wanting to re-appropriate them for reflection and control. In a ‘higher stage of reflection’ they can then serve as materials for a ‘rationalisation of history’. This idea, that history ought to be a rational and thus controllable movement, is a remainder of Habermas’ Historical Materialism. See Benhabib (1986, esp. ch.4) for a further critique.


156

experience of direct one-on-one communication there is always much more transferred

than only what is being said.2

However, if it is Habermas’ expressed goal to ‘supply a concept of action that includes the

relation to the social and the subjective as well as the objective world’ as he claims 3, then

the theory of communicative action is either incomplete or, at worst, a failure. I would opt,

respectively, for the former because I still consider Habermas’ approach very insightful.

But the revelation of the person with which Arendt was so concerned does simply not ap-

pear in his theory of communicative action at all. It is pragmatically reduced at the price of

neglecting what was so important to Arendt and which is so evident in our daily life: that

every person is unique. Habermas cannot capture this uniqueness because it lies outside of

what he considers relevant for communicative action. It is also what lies outside of his His-

torical Materialism, despite Habermas’ efforts.

To bring this back to labour: we can now see why labour and action are so separate for Ar-

endt and why glorifications of labour (as in Marx) are so unfit: in these productive activities

people do not act, instead they are engaged in a process of production (whether of goods of

consumption or of use-goods). Furthermore, they do not come across as unique individu-

als, but as replaceable workers. Conceptions of human beings that focus on productive ac-

tivity as the salient feature easily come to the point where people are nothing more than

‘human material’ (Menschenmaterial) in the service of production. Here everyone can be re-

placed in what he produces.4 If it is only the material products that count, then the produc-

ers count only half as much.5 Habermas attempts to circumnavigate this threat by focussing

on action, i.e. on the feature that makes people the unique personae that they are. But with

his pragmatic perspective on language he immediately turns the ‘material results’ of lan-

guage (namely consensuses and action-coordination) into the main task and the meaning of

language. He considers the connection between person, speech and action only insofar as

in psychological and ontogenetic terms the person can then conceive of herself as a person.

Since Habermas’ focus is the establishment of consensuses it is not surprising that he is

2 In psychological studies it has been verified that what a speaker actually says makes only a small percentage of the experience a listener has. 3 “There is no corresponding concept in philosophy that includes relations to the social and the subjective worlds as well as to the objective world. The theory of communicative action is meant to remedy this lack.” (TCA I, p.45) 4 The ‘ausführende Künste’ (peforming arts) constitute an exception, which have, since antiquity, been counted as those closest to human life. But this exception is exactly due to the fact that they are immaterial. They do not produce anything tangible but represent the direct relations between persons. 5 “If the measure of the human being is the average labour-power, then the individual as individual is meaningless. No one is irreplaceable.” (Jaspers, 1999, p.46, translation U.M.)

Summary

157

interested in analysing formal features of speech, argumentation and consensus-formation.

But just for that reason he should not neglect that speech and action do more than that.

The feature that differentiates interaction from labour and work in its connection to the

individual person is that without interaction there would be no person. Action is the only

activity without which the single human agent cannot do. As claimed above, people who

never produce either goods of consumption or use-goods are nevertheless still persons

(even though in a Marxian vain we may call them unproductive), in fact in today’s society

the majority of people live in this way. To use another analogy, Hegel’s master is still a per-

son, even though he may be morally reprehensible. But no one could be a person in any

meaningful way if he/she would never speak nor interact. Importantly, and in contrast to

Habermas, the uniqueness of a person is not adequately conveyed by a collection of the

propositional contents of their utterances, that is, what they have said. An actual encounter

with the person tells us far more about them than mere statements ever could, it is here

that we get a real sense of who the person is, even if we are often unable to convey this in

words.

Furthermore, as claimed above, Habermas makes no distinction, as Arendt does, between

labour and work and simply joins both work and labour together as activities of ‘material

reproduction’. This is also indicative of his remaining Marxism. Arendt distinguishes the

two because they have differing results even if they are both instrumental relations with the world.

To invoke her distinction once more: labour maintains our survival and creates no artificial

environment; it creates the goods of consumption that we live on, not use-goods. Work,

vice versa, produces nothing we can ‘live on’ but the things that we ‘live with’, namely our

artificial environment (buildings, roads, tools, cars, computers, artworks, fridge magnets,

footballs, etc.) that is so distinctive of the human species. When Arendt already criticises

Marx for neglecting this difference, Habermas follows Marx in this neglect. When consid-

ering instrumental activities Habermas focuses, like Marx, only on the instrumental process itself

and from such a perspective the difference between producing a loaf of bread and a table is

indeed merely marginal.6 Concerning communicative action however, Habermas is much more

aware of the outcome, but again in instrumental terms. That is, Habermas has done much

work on the process of communication but what he is really interested in is the outcome,

namely consensuses and action-coordination. This is the pervasive grounding that Haber-

6 Whether in labour or work the labourer/worker has to submit to the objective facts and laws of nature or else he will fail to produce what he intended. Hence the difference between the two processes is neglectable. But from the perspective of whether we can ‘live on’ or ‘live with’ the product there is a massive difference. (see Arendt, HC, p.94)


158

mas asserts for communication in TCA I and II. Communicating, however, the act itself, is

viewed only as a means to these ends; but what happens in the meantime, namely that a person

makes herself a participant in the society she lives in, and automatically appears as a unique

being, is left out.

8. Deliberation, Consensus and Emancipation

I have claimed that Habermas leaves no room for the uniqueness and thus individuality (or

identity) of an agent because he does not recognise that in being an agent, that is, perform-

ing actions, one communicates more than merely what one says. Are there any developments

that support my conclusion that Habermas is missing something fundamental in his theory

of communicative action? That is, are there arguments which fault Habermas for his negli-

gence of the individual in his theory? These arguments do indeed exist. I will now present

two issues within recent political theory that are linked to my critique of Habermas.

Habermas and other theorists like him, who see the most apt and viable view of politics as

one of discussion and consensus formation, have been classed to pursue so-called ‘discour-

sive democracy’ or ‘deliberative politics’.1 This approach has its critics ever since ca. the

mid 1980’s.2 How could such an approach come under fire? What could be wrong with a

conception of politics which is aimed at consensus? The problems emanate once again

from the pragmatic interpretation of language which, in connection with politics, often

leads to a very formal interpretation of deliberation. But also the aim of consensus itself

has been attacked. Thus, there are two issues: one on the level of argumentation and an-

other on the level of ontology.

1) A formal analysis of argumentation serves in no way to establish apt criteria for the

‘strength’ of arguments that Habermas is so interested in. We rather have to stress

‘informal’ elements of argumentation. (B. Yack, 2006)

2) Agonist critiques of deliberative democracy point out that plurality is not properly

valued, i.e. consensus is not all there is to be had in politics, in fact, in the pursuit of

consensus plurality is actually undermined: consensus does not value plurality

intrinsically (e.g. C. Mouffe, 1993).

1 For example: J. Bessette (1994); J. Cohen (1989); J. Elster (1998); C. Nino (1996). 2 For example: B. Honig (1993); E. Laclau (1985); W.E. Connolly (1987), J. Rancière (1992).

Two examples of the missing of uniqueness in Habermas’ account

159

Both attack Habermas’ model of ‘discursive democracy’ and aim exactly at the issue of

uniqueness of agents.

8.1. Concerning 1

Bernard Yack (2006) has recently argued against analyses of communication that attempt to

define the constitutive elements of arguments and processes of argumentation in terms of

such formal attributes as consistency, non-contradiction, clarity, etc. Habermas’ formal

analysis of language is an example of the approach Yack attacks because due to its pragma-

tism it leads to accounts of deliberation that are guided merely by formal factors.3 As much

use as such analyses may have, for Yack they do not serve to establish the criteria for what

counts as a stronger argument. The strength of an argument sometimes depends on criteria

that formal accounts discard. Aristotle, for example, considered appeals to emotion, which

formal analyses judge to be illegitimate or even fallacious, to be some of the strongest

means of argumentation. Firstly, emotive appeals are important and telling because they are

instructive. They have at least, so to say, educational purpose.4 If a speaker is already in ad-

vance forbidden to use appeals to authority or emotion then we cannot find out why, when

and in how far such appeals may indeed be insufficient.

Arguments that no one could reasonably defend or reject particular proposals

have an important part to play in public reasoning, but as part of a practice of

persuasion, not as its precondition or regulatory principle. In other words, it

does not disrupt the relationship between speakers and listeners in public rea-

soning to complain about each other’s unreasonable behavior. But it does

threaten that relationship and the practice it sustains when we demand some

norm of reasonableness as a condition of public engagement. (Yack, 2006,

p.430)

Secondly, such appeals also display something about the engagement of the speaker with

the topic about which he is talking. If uttered sincerely and not just in order to deceive the

audience about the speaker’s emotional attachment to a certain topic, then such appeals can

indicate how much someone cares for the issue under consideration. In the choice between

one detached and one involved speaker on a particular issue, there are often good reasons

3 See for example Knops (2006) who explicitly takes his analysis to develop Habermas’ approach further. 4 A similar argument can be found in Mill’s (1978) defence of freedom of speech, where any rejection of arguments on merely formal grounds is dismissed because it would prevent the engagement and thus re-flection on such arguments.


160

for preferring the involved one. Important for Yack is that we should not rule out such

strategies merely for the sake of complying with a pragmatic conception of language or

formal accounts of argumentation because there are cases in which appeals to authority or

emotion are justified.

Decisions about future action, as Aristotle insists in the Nicomachean Ethics

(1139b, 1113a), draw on an inseparable mix of desire and intellect, emotion and

reason. In other words, it requires a live reason propelled by desire out into the

world rather than the dead, emotionless reason that best serves legal judgment.

(op.cit., p.432)

Note that Yack specifies ‘decisions about future action’, thus, exactly those discussions for

which Habermas endorses a rigorous straightjacket when it comes to determine the

‘stronger argument’.5

Dead reason, impartial reasoning without emotion, may be worth trying to rec-

reate when adjudicating cases. But deliberation about what serves the common

advantage requires a living reason, reasoning informed by the emotions that in-

terest us in the consequences of our decisions. Since we need to call on our

emotions to help us judge the value of competing proposals, we must be willing

to accept the risks that they will mislead us as well. (op.cit., p.433)

All in all, we find here a much richer concept of discussion, particularly one which does not

hide the speaker behind ‘impartial reasons’ but brings him out. Even though no one can

hide his/her uniqueness completely (even if someone was to present something as impar-

tial as a scientific theory or mathematical theorem), Yack’s proposal emphasises this feature

when most accounts of reasoning still attempt to prevent it. Yack therefore implicitly ac-

knowledges that communication and coordination of future action is not merely a transfer-

ral of information, but that in every such instance the actor reveals himself in his action.

The individual element is not denied but recognised as a valuable part of arguments. The

5 Note also that Aristotle’s and Arendt’s account of politics and public deliberation differs from Habermas’: for Habermas, in typical Franfurtian but also postmodern style, the realm of politics is beset with power, it almost seems to be its telos. For Aristotle and Arendt public deliberation and politics is not aimed at power but at recognising different points of view. The aim of public deliberation is not to endorse only my view and criticise that of others, but simply to allow differing views to be heard so that it can be realised that there are such differing views. “Decisive is not to turn arguments around or claims on their head, but that one gained the ability to really see the issue from various points of view. Politically that means that one is able to occupy the many points from which the same issue can be viewed, revealing its various aspects.” (Arendt, 2005, p.96f., translation U.M.). It is clear to Arendt that “every issue has as many sides and can appear in as many perspectives as there are people involved in it.” (p.96). cf. Disch (1994, p. 42ff.)


161

intrusion of ‘partial reasons’ and ‘informal arguments’, etc., which most theorists try to pre-

vent, is here acknowledged as something valuable.

The reason why it proves so hard for the defenders of formal accounts of argumentation to

extinguish all partial reasons and/or informal arguments is that it is an inevitable part of an

acting person that she reveals herself (and that includes subjectivity) in every act. Whenever

one attempts to purify a statement from all traces of partiality one separates it from the

person who said it and the context in which it was uttered. In this case, however, state-

ments become either increasingly meaningless or unintelligible.6 ‘Purified’ approaches to

argumentation (i.e. the attempt to give formal guidelines for successful arguments) leave

out the person, it leaves out who speaks. As Yack points out, such approaches have only a

very limited use and often prevent, or rule out, appeals that we should better include. An

Aristotelian understanding of deliberation, such as Yack endorses, does not exclude such

appeals.

A formal analysis of argumentation, which follows from Habermas’ pragmatic account of

communication, does not do justice to deliberation as it is experienced and practiced. Pub-

lic reasoning

[…] relies heavily on appeals to character and emotion as well as the giving of

reasons. In short, Aristotle places rhetoric, the art of identifying and using “the

available means of persuasion” (Rhetoric 1355b), at the heart of political delib-

eration. That makes the Aristotelian model of public reasoning much more fa-

miliar than its currently popular counterparts, much closer to the actual practice

of political deliberation in our world as well as his. But it also distances his

model from recent theories of deliberation, theories that are designed to correct

the deficiencies of the past and present practice of democracy. (op.cit., p.417f.)

Thus, according to Yack, attempts to ‘purify’ or ‘de-personalise’ communication actually

weakens public deliberation and thus have the opposite effect of what was intended since

these attempts actually deprive us of strategies we often use in arguments. For my pur-

poses, critiques such as Yack’s point towards the inadequacy of pragmatic and formalised

accounts of communication because they ‘de-personalise’ it to an extent that does not co-

here with the entirety of features that play a role in it.

In other words, formal accounts of deliberation actually neglect features that have their justi-

fied use. In this case, a pragmatic account of communication such as Habermas’ is not ex-

6 In the case of action such an attempt becomes even worse. We may be able to deal with a statement all on its own (although in order to understand it we would have to know more about the social environ-ment), but actions cannot be conceived without an actor. Action and uniqueness cannot be separated.


162

haustive, as claimed above. It does not account for those features of communication that

lie outside the propositional content of utterances. Even more, since according to formal

approaches all strength, meaning and extent of communication is located solely in the pro-

positional content, any features that lie outside this boundary are judged as disturbing influ-

ences that are to be avoided. According accounts will thus attempt to eliminate this disturb-

ing factor. Ultimately that means that the speaker himself stands outside of what he says.

Evidence for this exclusion of the speaker is the castigation of partial reasons as an intru-

sion, threat and distraction on what is said. In short, if we conceive of communication as

nothing else than the transferral of information then anything apart from the information is

an intrusion that is to be avoided. Yet, such purification of communication does not do

justice to our daily experience, in which every act of communication conveys so much

more than merely what is being said. This ‘more’ includes such features as the relation be-

tween a person’s utterance and the person herself, her involvement with a particular issue,

but also the kind of person she is and which is so difficult to put into words. It is the sense

of the person that we, as the ones spoken to, get yet which the speaker herself is unaware

of. Hence Arendt refers to the image of the daimōn that appears to everyone else yet not the

person herself. To shrink all communication merely to the propositional content of utter-

ances is to remove the speaker from what he is saying and therefore to remove the who

from the what. Yet without the context in which something is said and without the mention

of who said it, the meaning of statements often evaporates. With the exclusion of the who

we also loose our grip on the what. It turns out that the uniqueness of persons has a vital

role to play, just as Arendt argues.

8.2. Concerning 2

If we follow Habermas’ views on language, according to which understanding and agree-

ment are the most crucial elements, we get a picture of politics according to which consen-

sus is the highest aim. Particularly the legitimacy of regimes and institutions relies on the

consensus of the respective citizens. Good, one should think. But some writers have come

to criticise the quest for consensus in the political sphere. The core argument is that this

does not cohere with our actual social ontology: everyone is an individual therefore every-

one will have a slightly different view on things, therefore not consensus but difference lies at the

root of the political sphere.7 Concerning deliberation we may thus oversimplify: people differ

7 Such an argument is indeed easily available from Arendt, who constantly points out that there is never just one person, but that we are always many, i.e. that human existence is one of plurality.


163

more than they converge. In the pursuit of consensus, advocates of discursive political

theories therefore neglect, or label as negative, any unresolved differences when these

ought to be accepted.

This line of argument constitutes so-called ‘agonist critiques’ as pursued by C. Mouffe, W.

Connolly and B. Honig (Fossen, 2008). They argue against political theories such as liberal-

ism or ‘deliberative democracy’ as advanced by Rawls and Habermas that embed this ideal

of consensus (in fact we have seen that for Habermas it is the telos of communication).

Homogeneity (in terms of social identity) is contrasted by Mouffe with “a conception of

identity to which difference is essential” (Mouffe, 2000, p.12f.).8 Thus, for agonists the ex-

aggerated valuation of consensus undermines the value of difference, which they see as

constitutive of personal identity as well as communities. The advocates of consensus, so it

is argued, pride themselves with valuing difference because they let every different voice

contribute, but in the next step, namely the formation of consensus, they disrespect that dif-

ference: many voices are meant to become one, difference is supplanted by unity.

In general I am sympathetic to the agonistic approach and expressions of it can be found

throughout the history of political thought.9 But I would not go so far as to endorse differ-

ence over consensus. As Fossen (2008) also remarks, it is one thing to acknowledge the exis-

tence of antagonisms but another to elevate this to a value. According to the agonists, there

are fundamental ruptures and differences that make politics. Liberalism and the consensus

view either neglect or eradicate them. Thus there is no appreciation of difference and plu-

rality. So far, so good. But at times agonists go too far: even if it is true that politics is beset

with conflict, it would be wrong to narrow politics down only to the occasions of conflict.

Furthermore, the notion of conflict is in need of definition since it is a short step from

conflict to violence.10 Although the acknowledgement of violence as a formative feature in

the genesis of societies is mostly historically accurate, this does not make it a political phe-

nomenon. If politics is a phenomenon of our ability to speak (as Aristotle, for example,

argues, see Politics, Book 1, ch.2, 1253a10-20) then violence cannot be part of the realm of

8 See also Fossen (2008), p. 379. Canovan can also be situated here. 9 See for example Aristotle, (1995), Book 2, ch.2; Kant (2000) 10 These points pertain particularly to Mouffe. Due to her allegiance to Carl Schmitt’s conception of politics she only views friend-enemy (and therefore antagonistic) relations as political relations. Not only is this a reductive approach to politics but it also burdens Mouffe with the task of explaining why and how antagonistic (friend-enemy) relations can be changed into agonistic (friend-adversary) relations without thereby ceasing to be political relations as she herself conceives them.


164

the political anymore.11 When confronted with violence there is no scope for talking or dis-

cussion, thus we are deprived of that feature that makes us political beings, namely the abil-

ity to speak.

But maybe this entire stage of the debate (i.e. consensus vs. difference as the basis of poli-

tics) is a dilemma. In the same way that “what is primary: individual or society?” is a di-

lemma, the same applies here where we ask “what is at the basis of politics: consensus or

disagreement?” It is a dilemma because two mutually exclusive intuitions strike us as

equally true: a) there must be agreement on some issues, otherwise there simply is no com-

munity (arguments for this case can be found in Aristotle, Rousseau, Durkheim, Haber-

mas), and b) the sheer fact of human plurality (Aristotle, Arendt, Mouffe, Honig), i.e. the

fact humans live in communities of individual actors.12 But is either of these intuitions ex-

haustive? Only then would they have to be mutually exclusive. It seems that this is not the

case: in the same way that we cannot conceive of individuals without societies and vice versa, we are also

unable to conceive of a community that either only agrees or only disagrees.13 Both cases are contrary to

our experience. In the first case, if we all agreed constantly, we seem to have no individuals

and rather be members of anonymous communities, like those of ants and bees. Plurality is

lost and there would therefore also be no politics. In the second case, if we never agreed on

anything, we would simply have no community but would be isolated individuals living

alongside each other. In the light of this, more work has to be done on the side of the ago-

nists because so far their conception cannot stand on its own, but I will not pursue this

route any further here.

Arendt’s conception of action and politics, by contrast, avoids this debate and the di-

lemma.14 Action is differentiating insofar as it is always an expression of uniqueness and

thereby difference. Yet it is not antagonistic because it occurs in a public space, i.e. a space

that is shared. To act and experience in a community means to encounter the same world, to

have a shared understanding, and thus consensus, of the issues that one is faced with.

Thus, presenting difference and agreement as exclusive opposites misrepresents social life.

Either one constitutes a mistaken reduction of our communities. As just stated, we have

neither complete agreement, this would eradicate the realm of politics, nor constant differ-

ence, for then we would not inhabit the same world and would therefore not constitute a 11 Even though Arendt criticises that the phenomenon of violence is not paid enough attention to (Macht und Gewalt, 2006, p. 12f.), Arendt would be far from considering violence to be a political phenome-non, for where violence begins, politics ends. 12 “Action, [...] corresponds to the human condition of plurality, to the fact men, not Man, live on the earth and inhabit the world.” (HC, p.7) 13 See for example Aristotle, Politics, Book 2, ch.1, 1260b37-1261a5, ch.5, 1263b30-35 14 Cf. Disch (1994, p.70f., 84-90), Benhabib (1992, pp. 91ff.)


165

community. Thus, difference and agreement are both essential elements of our social exis-

tence and do not eradicate each other. To either side of the debate we can reply that the

irreducibility of human differences does not mean the incommensurability of differences as its

necessary result.15

9. Conclusion

As I have claimed, Habermas’ consensus-model of politics neglects the differentiating

qualities of interaction. But the uniqueness of persons cannot be overlooked and it

emerges, for example, not only in people’s differing views but also in their choice of argu-

ments (Yack), their deliberation, and the inevitability of dissent (agonism). In short, difference

is part of uniqueness, in fact, we cannot conceive of one without the other. We have seen that on the

level of argumentation the neglect of uniqueness leads into reductive accounts of commu-

nication and we have seen that on the socio-ontological level the neglect of uniqueness un-

dermines plurality: the sheer fact that we are always many, capable of speech and action,

due to which we are able to have political societies. Agonists argue that difference is over-

looked by the consensus-model because here consensus is valued only as the start of delib-

eration, not as the end. The consensus model therefore does not value difference intrinsically

but only as something to be overcome. Political theories that do not value difference intrinsi-

cally are, for agonists, based on a mistake. Again, it is evident that the feature of uniqueness

confronts us here.

As I have argued above, uniqueness is the feature that appears nowhere in Habermas’ ac-

count and which is actually neglected, or at worst undermined, by his theory. In this way he

still cannot escape Arendt’s argument against Historical Materialism, namely that it cannot

account for uniqueness; politically this has the consequence of undermining it. The two

critiques of his theory that I have mentioned, Yack’s on the level of argumentation and the

Agonist critique on the political and socio-ontological level, point exactly to this omission

and show that uniqueness cannot be neglected. They are two issues in which the lack of

uniqueness in Habermas’ theory emerges.

15 We can ‘visit’ each others’ perspective without thereby forgetting one’s own. Disch (1994) expresses this concisely when she writes: “Arendt defends the possibility of visiting on the premise that human differences are irreducible to one another but not incommensurable. Thus, although there is no reason to expect public debate to produce consensus, there is no reason to assume that differences obviate understanding and render all consensus suspect.” (p.164)


166

I therefore conclude that Habermas, despite his efforts to widen Historical Materialism and

include action, does still not succeed in avoiding Arendt’s critique. His pragmatic approach

of language is meant to account for the immateriality that Arendt claimed of speech, but it

is thereby not avoided. Even if communication is conceived in Habermas’ way, the unique-

ness that Arendt claimed to be so essential of human beings still manifests itself. The

pragmatism to which Habermas takes recourse in order to supply a theory of communica-

tion that still fits under Historical Materialism, cannot account for the crucial feature of ac-

tion that persons, more than just propositionally conveying information, also expose them-

selves as individuals. This exposing, or revealing, is not the ‘monitored public access’ of ‘styl-

ised self-representation’ that Habermas views it as, but the inevitable revelation of one’s

identity in a way that is not accessible for the agent him/herself. It is not only impossible to

focus on it while acting without ceasing to attend to the interaction itself, but also subse-

quently in reflection. Despite reflection, the part of oneself that appears to others does not

become subject to one’s control, simply because it only appears to others and not to oneself.

One therefore remains non-transparent to oneself in the way that one appears to others. There is hence a

limit to emancipation which is fatal to approaches that see the telos of history as man’s

complete transparency of himself to himself. Also Habermas’ enlarged Historical Material-

ism cannot escape this limit.

Although Habermas, through his criticisms, re-interpretations and endorsements of Marx,

has succeeded in employing a Historical Materialist approach that suits our current post-

industrial societies, he is nevertheless unable to circumnavigate Arendt’s argument. The

omission of uniqueness from his account is telling and the mentioned criticisms of his the-

ory are manifestations of the pervasiveness and strength of this phenomenon. It not only

affects his account of persons but also his Marxian view of history as one of man’s mastery

of Nature as well as himself. But the self, as shown, is not open for inspection in the same

way that the laws of nature are, not even with his account of communicative action. In this

way, then, also Habermas’ Historical Materialism fails on grounds that are inherent to the

approach as a whole, namely the disparity between its goal of complete emancipation and

the reality of human interaction which it cannot adequately address.

For the last chapter, it remains to be seen whether current postmodern revivals of Histori-

cal Materialism can escape this fate. It is again in the political realm that the consequences

are most readily visible and again their roots lie in the account of labour.

Hardt and Negri

167

IV. Postmodern Neo-Marxism

This final chapter will concern some of the most contemporary writings which continue

the project of Historical Materialism and in which the relationship with labour is again cru-

cial. As indicated at the end of the last chapter, alongside the debate between Habermas

and his critics, a separate strand of Historical Materialist writing has developed ever since

the 1980’s. Whereas the debates described so far are influenced primarily by German

commentators and analytic philosophers across the world, this new strand is majorly conti-

nental in tone and originates specifically in 20th century French and Italian philosophy. The

main influences are the writings of Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, and Guattari. These writers

have generally enjoyed a wide reception, my focus, however, will be the writings of a par-

ticular group of Italian Marxists, who adopt many of the concepts developed by these

French writers for their own project of postmodern Neo-Marxism. The important names

for this group are writers such as Negri, Lazzarato, Hardt, and, to an extent, Agamben and

Virno. These authors employ Marxian terms and strategies in order to describe contempo-

rary developments in politics, economics, the state and society. At the centre stands a the-

ory of labour which is directly linked to the possibilities of emancipation. These writers

therefore continue the relation between labour, emancipation and politics with which I am

concerned.

Particularly Hardt and Negri’s writings have had a considerable impact within postmodern

circles. Their book Empire (2000) and its sequel Multitude (2004) are attempts to further the

Marxian project for the 21st century.1 Both have been, and are being, widely discussed.2

Hardt and Negri are concerned with several important issues such as the growing disparity

between a globalised economy and state-bound governmental action and the ensuing social

effects, the enforcement of law and jurisdiction on foreign sovereign states (such as the

USA’s refusal to have its soldiers subject to any, even international, agreements) and con-

nected issues of sovereignty. Central to the possibilities of restructuring the current global

political-economic capitalist empire is an analysis of modern labour conditions (‘immaterial

labour’) and the corresponding working subject (the ‘multitude’).

1 They state at the outset of Empire: “Two interdisciplinary texts served as models for us throughout the writ-ing of this book: Marx’s Capital and Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus.” (p.vxii, footnote 4) 2 See, for example: positive receptions: Morris (2004), Sassen (see Tilly, 2002), Coward (2005); Negative receptions: Tilly (2002), Seth (2002), Clark (2005); In between: Steger (2002), Ninkovich (2000), Vazquez-Arroyo (2002)

Chapter IV: Postmodern Historical Materialism

168

There may be doubt about whether Hardt and Negri can be considered to be Historical

Materialists but there are sufficient reasons that ground them comfortably in this tradition:

at least seven claims that show their alliance with Marx.

1. Everything is production.

‘Immaterial labour’ (see below) facilitates the “productions of communications, re-

lationships and forms of life” (M, p.xv). Again, as with Marx, all action is under-

stood as, or under the guise of, production. ‘The common’ that biopolitical produc-

tion brings about, for example, is not so much discovered but produced (M, p.xv).

2. The tight relationship between labour and emancipation is simply reasserted. There

is, however, no engagement with the debate that I have considered so far. It is sim-

ply ignored.

3. Politics is again seen as domination.

4. Capitalism, as in Marx, has the advantageous effect of simplifying divisions (M,

p.32). It thus serves again as a catalyst to bring about change (i.e. its own downfall

in connection with the increased communication between labourers).

5. The characterisation of the ‘multitude’ is an exact copy of Marx’ characterisation of

the working class (although Hardt and Negri distinguish the ‘multitude’ from the

working class, because the latter no longer plays a hegemonic role, thus they need a

new subject which does play this role, i.e. the ‘multitude’):

a) it expresses the desire for a world of equality and freedom

b) it demands an open and inclusive democratic global society

c) it provides the means for achieving both of the above (M, p.xi)

d) it functions beyond the imperial sovereignty of the bourgeoisie and looks to-

wards a global society (i.e. it has no homeland, it is global, just like Marx’ work-

ing class)

e) it is inherently democratic and ‘capable of forming society autonomously’ and

globally (M, p.xvii).

6. The castigation of private property (it destroys ‘the common’).

7. History is again seen as an unfolding of what is meant to come (namely the global

democracy of the ‘multitude’) and we just have to speed up the process. This mir-

rors Marx’ thoughts on communism.3

3 The following two quotes, for example, embody several of these points: “The multitude is working through Empire to create an alternative global society. Whereas the modern bourgeois had to fall back on the new sovereignty to consolidate its order, the postmodern revolution of the multitude looks beyond imperial sovereignty. The multitude, in contrast to the bourgeoisie and all other exclusive, limited class formations, is

Hardt and Negri

169

Before I describe the project in more detail let me make a preliminary note in comparison

with the previous chapter: compared to Habermas, Hardt and Negri are not really developing

Marxism: the success of either party concerning this matter may be an object of debate, but

for me it is clear that Habermas engaged far more with the philosophical background of

Marx’ theories than Hardt and Negri. Habermas does not just apply Marx to a new social

situation but investigates how Marx defines what a social situation is and how it operates.

Hardt and Negri, by contrast, are less concerned with this scholarship side of Marxism.

The extent of their development of Marxism is the application of Marx’ approach to our cur-

rent social conditions. Whereas with Habermas we have seen that he intentionally alters the

scope (the ‘philosophical backbone’ so to say) of Historical Materialism in order to arrive at

a new social theory that still incorporates Marx but avoids what Habermas considers its

pitfalls, Hardt and Negri are content with the direct application of Marx’ theories. What

they consider their development of his approach is its application to a different social set-

ting in which there are some new elements and some of Marx’ terms have changed refer-

ent.4 In itself this does not constitute a judgement on the viability and/or appropriateness

of Hardt and Negri’s project but is merely a difference between them and Habermas.

Concerning the content of their theory I will continue the theme that has been running

through all chapters so far: I will first consider Hardt and Negri’s thought on labour (see ‘B

Immaterial Labour’) and then on politics (see ‘C The Multitude’). I will argue that their analysis

of labour is inherently flawed and that the ‘multitude’ does not constitute a political agent.

Before, however, I will give a brief exposition of their approach.

1. Hardt and Negri

On the whole Hardt and Negri analyse our current social, political and economic outlook

and tendencies in a postmodern fashion and draw conclusions about current and future

developments. As already stated above, they adhere to various typical Marxian understand- capable of forming society autonomously; this we will see, is central to its democratic possibilities. […] It is up to us in the remainder of this book to convince you that a democracy of the multitude is not only neces-sary but possible.” (M, p.xvii f.) “The biopolitical production of the multitude, however, tends to mobilise what it shares in common and what it produces in common against the imperial power of global capital. In time, developing its productive figure based on the common, the multitude can move through Empire and come out the other side, to express itself autonomously and rule itself.” (M, p.101) 4 It is due to this direct application of Marx’ thought that Hardt and Negri also inherit some of the problems that Marx already had to grapple with, for example his ambiguous position on labour. See below “Marx’s inheritance – the unsolved labour puzzle”. In addition, Slavoj Zizek (2006), claims that “if anything, the problem with NH [Negri and Hardt, U.M.] is therefore that they are TOO MUCH Marxists […].” (http://www.lacan.com/zizblow.htm)


170

ings of what the key-elements of these developments are and how they are to be conceptu-

alised.

In true Marxist tradition Hardt and Negri consider labour and its conditions to be the cen-

trepiece of a social analysis. Crucial for their later political claims is the ascription of a new

element in labour: communication. In short, their idea is the following: a particular and

crucial element of our postmodern societies is its postmodern labour condition. Techno-

logical advancement has guided us from a Fordist to a post-Fordist model of production.

In this model, communication plays a far more important and essential role than ever be-

fore, in the relationship between producer and consumer as well as between the various

workers, work-teams and contributing suppliers to the production of the final good.5 This

increase in communication and interconnectedness therefore affords the subjects of the

post-industrial capitalist economy with the means to undermine it.

This picture is familiar: Marx claimed the same about the working class in his time: the pro-

letariat is capitalism’s gravedigger. The novelty in the postmodern development concerns the social

structures that the new means of communication allow: because there is no monopoly on communi-

cation technology, i.e. because everyone can contribute equally since we are equal members

of virtual social networks and communities, there does not have to be a hierarchical struc-

ture in these communities. There is no vertical but only a horizontal structure in which

numerous flexible cells act autonomously. Modern communication technology and labour

practices have thus enabled the communication, connection and mobilisation of many

more subjects than ever before.6

The development of telecommunication has changed many aspects of life: most people in

western industrialised countries have a mobile phone and the internet is an ever-present

and increasingly important virtual world in which information is disseminated and commu-

nication is conducted. On a personal level we already are in direct contact (i.e. communica-

tive contact) with far more people than our parents would have thought possible (or neces-

5 Production has become more dynamic and flexible and the product is more personalised insofar as it is meant not only to fit a general need of a general public, but fits in and contributes to everyone’s individ-ual lifestyle. All these developments affect our social life: persons are meant to be dynamic, flexible and indi-vidual. For a critique on the applicability of post-Fordist production see: ‘Keep on smiling’ (2006) the authors of which remain anonymous. 6 Modern telecommunications also caused the structure of movements organised on this basis to change from that of spearheaded party to that of a swarm, which, for Hardt and Negri, means that they are more democratic. The swarm is said to have several advantages: 1.) since empire is a decentred global system of sovereignty and capital, a likewise structured subject is the best weapon against it, i.e. the resistance adopts the structure of its oppressor. 2.) Such a structure has all the advantages of a guerrilla resistance, which can-not be fought easily by empire’s armies or police, since it has no centre of command but feeds on the auton-omy of its contributors and the support by the social environment due to its grass-roots appeal. 3.) The ‘de-centredness’ and the autonomy of the various cells turn the resistance movement inherently democratic; this lastly leads to 4.) that all contribute and no one rules.

Hardt and Negri

171

sary). In fact, modern telecommunications allow us to be potentially able to be in direct

contact with anyone who also uses these modern technologies. On an indirect level this is

already far more developed: all of us, in our daily activities, rely on the labour and services

of a vast number of other people (e.g. those who produce mobile phones, their suppliers,

and those who supply them with the raw materials in turn, the companies that own the

mobile networks, the people who install their antennas, the ones that make the software for

the phone or the computer, the person in the call centre who tells us the number of the

business that we have forgotten, the people that pack the fruit somewhere in the world that

ends up in your local supermarket, etc. etc. The list is endless.). As we all know, our mod-

ern global economy has changed the life of most people on Earth in some way or other,

whether in a positive or negative way.

This new situation of increasing interconnectedness and communication also allows, in

Hardt and Negri’s eyes, new political developments. In fact, rather than merely ‘allow’ it

produces them. Also the ‘average person’ can get hold of more information, can double-

check the truth of what they are told, can find out more about different people and their

conditions, can find out their needs, wants, and demands. People from various strands of

life can discover their similarities and dissimilarities, can organise themselves and can make

their voices heard. Modern labour conditions, i.e. post-Fordist production, triggers and en-

forces these conditions. In short: in producing a willing consumer, postmodern capitalist production

also creates the critical activist. This is a very well-known picture: capitalism produces its own

gravediggers by affording them with the appropriate means: telecommunications. If the

production of the working class has been, for Marx, the creation of capitalisms gravedig-

gers, the development of telecommunications is, for Hardt and Negri, the creation of the

nail that will seal the coffin.

Where Hardt and Negri differ from Marx explicitly, is that they do not consider the working

class as a viable revolutionary subject anymore - the historical development since the 19th

century has simply rendered it obsolete.7 In contrast, they put forward the concept of the

‘multitude’ which is meant to be a class-concept but less restrictive than that of the tradi-

tional proletariat. Modern telecommunications fit this situation perfectly, since they allow a

far greater number of people to participate: they allow the inclusion of all those subject to

the global economic-political regime of the western industrial countries with the potential

7 This point, however, is neither new, nor exclusively Hardt and Negri’s, Habermas, for example, al-ready made the same claim in the 1970’s.


172

to organise themselves autonomously via the new means of telecommunication that capi-

talism devised in order to expand and streamline its production.

One initial approach is to conceive the multitude as all those who work under

the rule of capital and thus potentially as the class of those who refuse the rule

of capital. (M, p.106)

This all-embracing definition, I will argue later, is too wide and vague: according to the

quote above, it is difficult to think of anyone who would not be part of the ‘multitude’. In

any case, in virtue of its structural features the ‘multitude’ is meant to deliver the goods that

the working class has not, and can no longer, bring about. Thus, (postmodern) labour is

again meant to have a direct link with emancipation: it affords the labourers (now the ‘multi-

tude’) with the insight and access to change the global economic-political regime. Hardt

and Negri’s analysis of labour is my first target.

1.1. Immaterial Labour

The centre piece of the post-modern labour analysis is what Hardt and Negri have called

‘immaterial labour’, which has since its inception found many supporters and from which

they distil analyses of the social realm, the state of capitalism, and/or human nature.8 I will

argue that currently ‘immaterial labour’ cannot even be used as a helpful characterization of

a particular kind of labour, because the concept is a misnomer. One main reason is that it

includes activities of such vastly differing qualities that one wonders what they might have

in common. The reason for the supposed commonality is a theoretical mistake which then

takes its toll on the empirical investigation. This theoretical mistake is the negation of the

distinction between products and services, which are, I will argue, very different phenom-

ena. The following quotes will serve to outline ‘immaterial labour’. Hardt (1999) divides it

into

three types of immaterial labour that drive the service sector at the top of the

informational economy. The first is involved in an industrial production that

has been informationalized and has incorporated communication technologies

in a way that transforms the industrial production process itself. Manufacturing

is regarded as a service and the material labour of the production of durable

goods mixes with and tends towards immaterial labor. The second is the imma- 8 For example, we find such claims as: “the anthropology of cyberspace is really a recognition of the new human condition.” (M, p.291, my italics)

Hardt and Negri

173

terial labor of analytical and symbolic tasks, which itself breaks down into crea-

tive and intelligent manipulation, on one hand, and routine symbolic tasks, on

the other. Finally, a third type of immaterial labor involves the production and

manipulation of affects and requires (virtual or actual) human contact and prox-

imity (pp. 97, 98).9

These passages reappear in Empire one year later.10 The clearest and most succinct formula-

tion is the following:

Since the production of services results in no material and durable good, we

might define the labor involved in this production as immaterial labour-that is, la-

bor that produces an immaterial good, such as a service, knowledge, or com-

munication. (Hardt, 1999, p.94)

The development of immaterial labour is for Hardt and Negri an important indicator of

our post-industrial era. They write:

the process of postmodernization or informatisation has been demonstrated

through the migration from industry to service jobs (the tertiary [sector of in-

dustry, UM]), a shift that has taken place in the dominant capitalist countries,

and particularly in the United States, since the early 1970’s. […] the jobs for the

most part are highly mobile and involve flexible skills. More important, they are

characterized in general by the central role played by knowledge, information,

9 Hardt and Negri have already been, rightly, criticised for type 1 (e.g. Sayers, 2007). The fact that the production of material goods today often involves modern computer-, network-, and communication tech-nologies does not change the fact that what is produced is nevertheless a material thing. This applies also to the Toyota model of production (see footnote 13 below). Types 2 and 3 are harder to distinguish and the reason is the same that led Hardt and Negri to the erroneous type 1 of immaterial labour. For what has been confused here is the distinction between production and service which I will describe below. In fact, with Hardt, Negri, and Lazzarato, all the main sources on immaterial labour confuse this distinction and the result is that the concept of immaterial labour is still relatively elusive. Also ‘affective labour, i.e. the manipulation of emotional responses as described by Hart (1999) is bogus. On a very abstract level every activity has some con-nection to an emotional response. Whether I bring my car to the garage because I am anxious for it to pass the next MOT, or I go to hospital because I am worried about my health, it would be possible in both cases to say that it all comes down to affects anxiety and worry. Such claims are not unfamiliar. The reduction of human activities, and sometimes life in general, to more or less particular affective states has its precursors: for Hobbes it was fear and egoistic gain, for Bentham it was happiness, for Nietzsche the will to power. 10 Hardt and Negri, 2000, pp.289-294. We are furthermore referred to an essay by Maurizio Lazzarato (Immaterial Labour) who writes: “immaterial labour […] is defined as the labour that produces the informa-tional and cultural content of the commodity. The concept of immaterial labour refers to two different as-pects of labour. On the one hand, as regards the “informational content” of the commodity, it refers directly to the changes taking place in workers’ labour processes in big companies in the industrial and tertiary sec-tors, where the skills involved in direct labour are increasingly skills involving cybernetics and computer con-trol (and horizontal and vertical communication). On the other hand, as regards the activity that produces the “cultural content” of the commodity, immaterial labour involves a series of activities that are not normally recognized as “work” - in other words, the kinds of activities involved in defining and fixing cultural and ar-tistic standards, fashions, tastes, consumer norms, and, more strategically, public opinion.” (http://www.generation-online.org/c/fcimmateriallabour3.htm)


174

affect and communication. In this sense many call the postindustrial economy

an informational economy. […] all production tends toward the production of

services, toward becoming informationalised. (E, pp.285, 286).

To summarise the above, the features of immaterial labour are:

a) the production of information and affects

b) increasing communication and abstraction

c) the completion of symbolic tasks

The examples given are:

health care

education

finance

entertainment Hardt, Hardt and Negri (E, p.285)

advertising

fast food services

transportation

audiovisual production

fashion

software production Lazzarato (Immaterial Labour)

photography

cultural activities

The question is whether there is a connection between the features and the examples. I am

sceptical because I wonder what feature photography and transportation11 share, or fast

food services and health care. To make it short, ‘immaterial labour’ is used for a range of

activities that can hardly fit under any single descriptive term regarding the nature of these

activities. There must be some strange theoretical goings-on in order to put activities to-

gether that differ so vastly on the empirical ground: the primary reason for why there is

such a vast range of activities including radically differing ones under one single concept is

that the concept of immaterial labour negates the distinction between products and services, as pointed out

by Peter Hill (1999).12 We will see that Hardt and Negri’s categorization of goods and ser-

vices does not cohere with the actual understanding of these terms as they are commonly

11 How is transportation immaterial? If it was then what is being transported? 12 Hill uses slightly different terminology: he calls material goods ‘tangibles’ and immaterial ones ‘in-tangibles’. This, however, makes no difference to this investigation.

Hardt and Negri

175

used. Moreover, Hill, unknowingly, also confirms Arendt’s characterisation of work and its

distinction from interaction.

1.2. Goods and services

The decisive feature, in economics, for the status of a product or a good is that it can be

owned, not whether it is physical. It is something over which ownership rights can be estab-

lished and exchanged, which means that goods are tradable. They are distinct entities inde-

pendently of their producers and/or owners. The production takes place separately in

space and time, the finished product can be distributed and traded, and it can be consumed

long after production. Importantly, these features can apply to both material as well as immaterial

products: literature, music, theories, plans, designs, films, programs, etc. may be immaterial

products because they have no spatio-temporal coordinates of their own and have to be

recorded onto a medium, or at least be remembered. They nevertheless have all the charac-

teristics of material products because for all their immateriality they are still produced, are

separate entities from their makers, they can be owned, traded, copied, used, etc. all of

which takes place independently of their production which thus remains a separate process.

Services, by contrast, differ from both material and immaterial goods. They involve relations

or agreements and therefore are not separate production processes resulting in separate entities inde-

pendently of the people involved; thus, they cannot be owned and hence not traded, distributed,

or copied. Services can only be rendered. Nor is it possible to distinguish a production-process

from the ‘use’ or ‘consumption’ of a service, as you can in the case of goods. Thus, products

are made, whereas services are rendered. Films, ideas, etc. may be immaterial but are made prod-

ucts, not rendered services. Hardt and Negri confuse these categories because they wrongly

declare the physicality of something to decide over its status as a good or a service. But

goods are not just physical objects (they also include non-physical products), nor are non-

physical objects automatically services. The difference between material objects and non-

material things is not the same as that between labour and service. Therefore, it is wrong to

claim that “the division between manufacturing and services is becoming blurred” (Hardt,

1999, p.92). Goods and services remain distinct and the use of such terms as ‘production’

or ‘consumption’ with reference to services is metaphorical: services can only be offered, ren-

dered, and consumption is often rather a taking part.13 Production, poiesis, making things,

13 Although under the Toyota-model of production the service relation is established first, this does not mean that the production-process therefore adopts the characteristics of a service because production remains a separate process in space and time. ‘Service’ describes the producer-consumer relation, not the production. Furthermore, we can also distinguish service from production by realising that production has to feature


176

whether material or immaterial, is something you can do by yourself (even if specialization

and the division of labour brings with it the need for the helping hand of others), but a so-

cial relation can, by definition, not be established individually. It is a ‘doing’ rather than

‘making’, or, in other words, it is praxis. Thus, the distinction between poiesis and praxis,

which has confronted us in every chapter so far, reappears here as well.14 In the same way that

Marx has been accused of not distinguishing sufficiently between the two, adherents of the concept of ‘imma-

terial labour’ commit the same mistake. I will show that Hardt and Negri, in adopting Marx’

scheme so uncritically, also inherit its fundamental flaws and ambiguities.

When we look back to Hardt‘s definition now we can see the mistake more clearly:

Since the production of services results in no material and durable good, we

might define the labor involved in this production as immaterial labour-that is, la-

bor that produces an immaterial good, such as a service, knowledge, or com-

munication. (1999, p.94)

According to this quote any non-material product is a service and vice versa, i.e. the distinction

between services and immaterial products is clearly negated. 15

However, maybe there are some less clear examples of activities that seem to cross the

production-service divide, instances of maintenance, like car-repair, for example. It seems

as if here the service is constituted by the material processes, i.e. the mechanics’ labour on

the car. But Hill’s point remains: the mechanic is not producing anything but maintains or

changes an existing state of affairs. In order for this maintenance to be possible, the service

is dependent on the prior production of the good. In contrast to production, services also

rely on being geographically located where the service is required. For example, the produc-

tion of cars can be located anywhere on the globe. (Customary locations are today often

outsourced and abandoned when the manufacturing can be accomplished more efficiently

elsewhere. This, however, has no significant effect for the availability of cars for the poten-

some kind of new thing (whether material or immaterial) at the end of the process, whereas a service does not. Here it is often enough to maintain or re-create a particular state of affairs (like a clean house for exam-ple) instead of producing anything. 14 In neglecting this distinction between goods and services Hardt and Negri also neglect the poi-esis/praxis distinction for which Marx has already been criticised (see Habermas, 1974). 15 Even critics of Hardt and Negri nevertheless fall for immaterial labour. It is claimed, for example that “‘immaterial production’ affects the substance of value since immaterial products can be duplicated.” (Keep on smiling, p.27, 2006) Can material products not be duplicated? It seems to me vice versa: ‘immaterial products’ can rather not be duplicated. Services, for example, are individual agreements according to often unique specifications. Particularly some of the ‘immaterial’ phenomena Hardt and Negri are talking about (a feeling of ease, for example) seem to me to withstand duplication more vigorously than any material item, exactly because they are social relations.

Hardt and Negri

177

tial buyer.) Garages, contrarily, that do not produce but only service cars, have to be located

where cars are owned. They rely on the fact that cars have already been produced and that

those need to be maintained in a particular working order. The same holds for ‘immaterial

goods’: the film-making industry in the USA is primarily located in Hollywood. That most

films are produced there has no significant impact on where the films can subsequently be

shown. The cinemas that show the films and thus offer a service, however, have to be lo-

cated close to where the film-audience lives, or simply no one will attend the viewings.

Again, contrary to production, a service involves a relation with the ‘consumer’ that cannot

be separated from the actual rendering of the service. The reason for this is the following:

Because it is not an entity, it is not possible to establish ownership rights over a service and hence to transfer ownership from one economic unit to another. In contrast to goods, therefore, services cannot be traded independently of their production and consumption. (Hill, 1999, p.442)

The best general, or multi-purpose, definition of a service is that it is some change in the condition of one economic unit produced by the activity of an-other unit. […] They are not entities and for this reason cannot be stocked. A hospital can hold stocks of medical goods and equipment ready for use but it cannot hold stocks of appendectomies ready to meet an epidemic of appendi-citises. The notion of a stock of appendectomies that exists independently of both surgeons and patients is pure nonsense. The notion of a transport firm holding a stock of ton or passenger miles is equally absurd. This is not a physi-cal impossibility attributable to the fact that ton miles are highly perishable (as it would have to be if a ton mile were a good) but a logical impossibility stemming from the concept of a service. (ibid., 441f.)

These examples are intended to illustrate the fundamental point that the distinc-tion between goods and services, and the industries which produce them, is a distinction in which terms such as ‘tangible’ and ‘intangible’, or ‘material’ and ‘immaterial’ are irrelevant, unnecessary and misleading. (ibid., p.443)

Production and service can (and should) therefore still be distinguished, but this distinc-

tion, as Hill states, is independent of such factors as ‘materiality’ or ‘immateriality’ and

hence the use of such terms is misleading. Hardt and Negri’s concept of ‘immaterial labour’

is an example of the consequences that the use of such misleading terms can have.

Anything we produce for use has to be maintained in some way or other, depending on

what the product requires, since all reified things are subject to natural decay. Immaterial

things, which are things nevertheless, often require remembrance as the final kind of main-

tenance. Ideas, stories, poems, events, plans, theories, as long as they have not been reified

in some way or other, in which case we have to maintain these materializations, have to be

remembered or else it is as if they had never existed. It is true that with the ongoing pro-

duction of things more maintenance (which then shares characteristics of labour in Ar-

endt’s sense) is required simply because all products (of work in Arendt’s sense) would


178

otherwise slowly decay. This, however, does not mean that all production therefore be-

comes a service. Production and maintenance are two clearly distinguishable processes, the

former, for example comes to a definite end while the latter does not because the processes

against which it is directed (e.g. decay, wear and tear) do not come to an end either.16

1.3. What is new about ‘immaterial labour’?

‘Immaterial labour’ is supposedly a new kind of labour with unprecedented features: that it

follows demand, that it is more social, that it homogenises (due to the universal use of

computers) in abstract labour, often accompanied by an increased distance between the

worker and his object.17 These are claimed to be new features that only the post-industrial

world developed and which now affect labour practices globally. But that production fol-

lows demand is not new: even agricultural societies function in this way.18

Secondly, already for Marx all labour practices were inherently social19 and hence he

thought revolution to be possible because capitalism created a large working class that

would congregate in big numbers and at regular intervals in the same place (i.e. go to

16 Note that services also differ from production in another respect compared to the way in which Braverman describes the latter. Services resist the kind of appropriation that a capitalist typically engages in: the capitalist, instead of paying for a whole product, buys the means of production, hires the workers and puts himself in charge of the labour-process which he can now control into the smallest detail (see Braverman, 1974, ch.1). Such appropriation applies to production processes but only to a much lesser extent for services. Since services are not things but relations they cannot be owned and dissected like production processes. 17 “in each of these forms of immaterial labor, cooperation is completely inherent in the labour itself. Immaterial labour immediately involves social interaction and cooperation. (E, p.294) Morris sums up adequately: “This labor indicates a unification of instrumental and communicative action in which "social networks, forms of community, biopower" (p. 293) are directly produced. Culture and production are more thoroughly integrated than they have ever been. (Morris, 2004, p. 130, he quotes Empire)

“We should note that one consequence of the informatisation of production and the emergence of immaterial labour has been a real homogenisation of labouring processes. […] With the computerization of production today, however, the heterogeneity of concrete labour has tended to be reduced, and the worker is increasingly further removed from the object of his or her labour. […] Through the computerization of pro-duction, then, labour tends toward the position of abstract labour.” (E, p.292). “This becoming common, which tends to reduce the qualitative divisions within labour, is the biopolitical condition of the multitude.” (M, p.114)

See also Morris (2004): “[…] production is integrated far more with communicative interaction (the greatly increased interactivity between production and consumption characteristic of just-in-time production- Toyotism, for example). The second aspect of postmodernized production is the increasing centrality of the computer and the communications revolution. Both these developments have transformed productive labor. The computer is a unique tool because it is universal-every sector and productive activity is potentially subject to computerization. But as a result, all labor tends toward homogenization and immateriality: computerized tailoring and computerized weaving require basically the same skill sets of symbolic and informational ma-nipulation. Labor becomes even more abstract and alienated.” (p.129) 18 Just because the reaction speed between production to demand has increased this does not turn the Toyota model into a new kind of production. 19 “The fact is, therefore, that definite individuals who are productively active in a definite way enter into these definite social and political relations.” (GI, from: The Marx-Engels reader, ed. R.C. Tucker, NY, 2nd edn. 1978, p.154) “Here the particular and natural form of labour […] its general abstract form is the immedi-ate social form of labour.” (C, p.82)

Hardt and Negri

179

work), which meant that it was possible for people to communicate and organise them-

selves. Compared with today, the differences are a matter of degree, not a difference in kind.

Thirdly, the supposed homogenization of labour is by no means a new idea, particularly

within the Marxist tradition. Marx, and particularly Marcuse, also thought that increasing

industrialization would lead to an assimilation of all labour practices. According to Hardt

and Negri ‘immaterial labour’ leads to a homogenisation of various forms of work into ‘ab-

stract labour’. This is due to the increasing use of computers and hence ‘informatisation’ of

all labouring practices, which not only makes labour more abstract but in doing so also

leads to a distancing between worker and object. These are some of the unifying features of

the various forms of modern ‘immaterial labour’. However, this ‘homogenisation’ claim has

never been successful and it also fails here.20 The computer is used in such differing ways that it is

simply false to claim that it homogenises all of its applications into abstract, universal, symbolic, or interac-

tive work (Pfeiffer, 2004, pp. 20 ff.). Whether you work in software design, consumer ser-

vice, manufacturing control or supervision, graphic design, or simply text creation makes a

vast difference as to how the computer (and which software) is being used. Thus the skills,

knowledge, and experience involved vary drastically.

Contrary to the claim that the use of computers distances the worker from his object and

makes labour more abstract, various simulation techniques, for example, can lead to the

understanding and control of processes that were previously inaccessible to the worker (such

as in the chemical industry, the manipulation of digital images, or music recording). Thus,

Hardt and Negri’s claim (E, p.292) is simply false: neither is there a ‘homogenisation’ of

labour, nor does it necessarily become more ‘abstract’, nor is it necessarily ‘distancing’ (or

alienating) the worker from his product.

The concept of ‘immaterial labour’ thus includes several mistakes. Firstly, the already men-

tioned negated distinction between services and immaterial products: since all labour that

does not involve material objects is now viewed as service, immaterial goods now seem to

entail the social dimension that services do. In other words, immaterial products are sup-

posedly collective and ‘immediately involve social interaction and cooperation’. But this is

simply a mistake: an immaterial good can be produced and consumed alone; a service, by

contrast, does involve interaction. But also this last claim must be used with caution: even

services are not necessarily collective in any strong sense: consider most maintenance services: apart

20 This also manifests itself linguistically: most writers simply talk of ‘the computer’ so undifferentiat-ing, that it seems as if a CAM (computer-aided manufacturing) System for the creation of a CNC (computer numerically controlled) control program follows the same logic and application as software which calculates cuts and cloth-consumption in a textile company. (Pfeiffer, 2004., pp. 22, 26)


180

from an initial agreement on what is to be done not much more contact is necessary. I do

not have to be present when my car is being serviced, my house cleaned, or my TV fixed.

The same holds in other examples of ‘immaterial labour’ that are advanced: advertising, fast

food services, transportation, audiovisual production, etc. I thus contend that ‘immaterial

labour’ mostly does not imply the kind of social dimension that these writers assert. It is an over-

generalisation and over-simplification to say that immaterial labour is ‘immediately collec-

tive’ (Lazzarato) or involves a level of ‘social interaction and cooperation’ that provides a

basis ‘for a spontaneous and elementary communism’ (Hardt and Negri). To refer back to

an earlier point: we have here the ‘social labour’ argument all over again. I claimed with ref-

erence to Honneth above that we are tricked from an uncontroversial claim to controver-

sial one: namely to move from the general social existence of mankind (which applies to

human life as such) to the claim that therefore productive activities are necessarily social,

that is, require the presence of others. Hardt and Negri move from the ascription of the

social nature of ‘immaterial labour’ to the claim that all such labourers will unite politically.

I claim that ‘immaterial labour’ is a misnomer and that the assertion of political unification

is ungrounded.

More generally, Hardt and Negri claim a far too large convergence between various activi-

ties that can be described as services. When jobs in such varying fields as health care, clean-

ing, transport and audiovisual production are placed in the tertiary (i.e. service) sector of

the economy this does not mean that they share any essential features. The reason why so

many professions are classed under ‘services’ is because the activities involved are accom-

plished according to a prior order (or agreement). But such agreements do not thereby as-

similate health care, cleaning, transport and audiovisual production to another: neither the

production and transfer of information, nor of affects, nor the involvement of symbolic tasks applies equally,

nor do they share in any noteworthy increase in ‘abstraction’ or communication. Yet these are the criteria

that writers on immaterial labour use in order to define what they are talking about. ‘Imma-

terial labour’ rather leads to a misconception of labour as regards to times prior to our

post-industrial phase: According to Pfeiffer (op.cit., p.22 ff.) the computer as the “universal

tool” is regarded as introducing cooperation, communication, and interaction, as if these fea-

tures did not exist beforehand. The concept of labour, prior to our post-industrial phase, is

reduced to a “non-interactive, non-communicative, and machine-like counter-image”

(Pfeiffer, op.cit., p.22, translation U.M.). I therefore conclude that immaterial labour is a misnomer.

It confuses immaterial products with services, misrepresents previous labour-practices as

Hardt and Negri

181

non-communicative, and misrepresents the computer as homogenising, alienating and ab-

stracting.21

1.4. Marx’s inheritance – the unsolved labour-puzzle

One last point remains concerning ‘immaterial labour’: apart from the mistakes outlined, it

also repeats Marx’ ambiguity concerning labour. That is, it is not clear whether ‘immaterial

labour constitutes’ the future of work and a route to self-realisation or whether it is the new

horrendous capitalist coup. On the one hand it is crucial for the ‘multitude’, since without

‘immaterial labour’ and modern telecommunication technology the resistance to global

capitalism could not form adequately. According to Hardt and Negri ‘immaterial labour’

blurs the boundary between economic and social reproduction. It thereby establishes social

relationships and becomes ‘immediately a social, cultural, and political force’ (M, p.66).

Its ability to engage and transform all aspects of society and its collaborative

network form are two enormously powerful characteristics that immaterial la-

bour is spreading to other forms of labour. These characteristics can serve as a

preliminary sketch of the social composition of the multitude that today ani-

mates the movements of resistance against the permanent, global state of war.

(M, p.66f)

Thus, the ‘hegemony of immaterial labour’, as Hardt and Negri call it, provides the grounds

on which the future counter-empire can be build.22

On the other hand, ‘immaterial labour’ is also a new stage in the exploitation of the worker,

who is meant to be flexible, social, perform her tasks with a smile, communicate, etc. In

other words, not only the worker’s body is subordinated and directed but also her charac-

ter, her identity, or as Hardt and Negri call it, her subjectivity:

When our ideas and our affects, or emotions, are put to work, for instance, and

when they thus become subject in a new way to the command of the boss, we

often experience new and intense forms of isolation or alienation. Furthermore,

21 Contrary to Hardt and Negri’s aim to put forward an empirically grounded theory, it is a very abstract one: it is not the outcome of an empirical investigation but its starting point. Such an abstracting methodology, in which the world is twisted to fit one’s theory, is ideological in Marx’s own terms. 22 “In any economic system there are numerous different forms of labour that exist side by side, but there is always one figure of labour that exerts hegemony over the others. This hegemonic figure serves as a vortex that gradually transforms other figures to adopt its central qualities. […] In the final decades of the twentieth century, industrial labour lost its hegemony and in its stead emerged “immaterial labour”, that is, labour that creates immaterial products, such as knowledge, information, communication, a relationship, or an emotional response.” (M, p. 107f.)


182

the contractual and material conditions of immaterial labour that tend to spread

to the entire labour market are making the position of labour in general more

precarious. (M, p.65f.)

Furthermore, when affective production becomes part of waged labour it can

be experienced as extremely alienating: I am selling my ability to make human

relationships, something extremely intimate, at the command of the client and

the boss. (M, p.111)

Information, communication, and cooperation become the norms of produc-

tion, and the network becomes its dominant form of organisation. The techni-

cal systems of production therefore correspond closely to its social composi-

tion: on one side the technological networks and on the other the cooperation

of social subjects put to work. This correspondence defines the new topology

of labour and also characterises the new practices and structures of exploitation.

(M, p.113)

It is therefore not clear whether ‘immaterial labour’ constitutes the future of labour as it

ought to be, or a new level of capitalist exploitation of the worker. This problem already

manifests itself among the primary writers on this issue since they divide into two different

camps: Hardt and Negri are more optimistic on the possibilities of ‘immaterial labour’,

Lazzarato, by contrast, is very pessimistic.23 For him it is only another means by which

capitalists extract more profit from their workers. And so for Lazzarato:

This activity shows immediately that which material production "hid": in other

words, labour produces not only commodities, but first and foremost the capi-

tal relationship.

In today’s large restructured company, a worker’s work increasingly involves, at

various levels, an ability to choose among different alternatives and thus a de-

gree of responsibility regarding decision making. […] What modern manage-

ment techniques are looking for is for “the worker’s soul to become part of the

factory”. […] This transformation of working-class labour into labour of con-

23 To be clear: both primary writing parties, Hardt and Negri as well as Lazzarato, have claims for both views, this is why they are ambiguous. Nevertheless, in Hardt and Negri there are more positive claims to be found than in Lazzarato, who is mainly critical. The authors of ‘Keep on smiling’ (2006) are also pessimistic: “Immaterial production defines a ‘new’ form of capitalist exploitation by the new global capitalist regime, Empire.” (p.24). Or: “The (either material or immaterial!) donkey worker who works under the command of blueprints, organisation IT frameworks, designs, etc. does not share the mind of capital or any creative ‘pleas-ure’ from it. In the ontological inversion, the information and knowledge of capital means the opposite for the worker. […] This ontological inversion is one with a subjective experience of boredom and pain.” (p.36) “For these authors Hardt and Negri’s positive stance amounts to a “petty bourgeois delusion” (p.34).

Hardt and Negri

183

trol, of handling information, into a decision-making capacity that involves the

investment of subjectivity, affects the workers in varying ways according to

their positions within the factory hierarchy, but it is nevertheless an irreversible

process.[…] In this phase, workers are expected to become “active subjects” in

the coordination of the various functions of production, instead of being sub-

jected to it as simple command.[…] First and foremost, we have here a dis-

course that is authoritarian: one has to express oneself, one has to speak, com-

municate, cooperate, and so forth. The “tone” is that of the people who were I

executive command und Taylorisation; all that has changed is the content.24

(http://www.generation-online.org/c/fcimmateriallabour3.htm, original em-

phasis)

For Lazzarato ‘immaterial labour’ intrinsically embodies all the hallmarks of capitalist ex-

ploitation. There is no sense here of ‘immaterial labour’ as an enabling condition for a future communism.

Whereas Hardt and Negri see immaterial labour as a development with a possible beneficial

outcome, Lazzarato’s conclusions are much more pessimistic: it establishes capital relation-

ships, its discourse is authoritarian, it takes hold of the workers’ subjectivity, it is Taylorist,

etc. Whereas Hardt and Negri claim that “in immaterial production the creation of coop-

eration has become internal to labour and thus external to capital” (M, p.147, my emphasis) Laz-

24 I consider the likening of ‘immaterial labour’ to Taylorisation erroneous. What critics of Taylorisa-tion (e.g. Braverman, 1974) criticised was that the subjectivity of the worker was excluded from the labour-process. There was no decision-making and no responsibility on part of the worker and he was nothing more than a passive receptacle. What Lazzarato describes above is the opposite. However, instead of this being a positive development it is branded as a means of control, an enslavement of the workers’ soul. Now that ac-tive participation of the worker finds its way back into the production-process it is not something to be wel-comed, but rather now the worker is over-burdened with the choices he has to make, the information this involves, and the responsibility it affords. This is belittling. What were previously desired features are now also means to control the worker by the capitalist. Under such a wide definition of Taylorism as used here by Lazzarato it is of course possible to describe any form of division of labour as Taylorist. In other words, any breaking down of the labour process is Taylorist because it will always be carried out for reasons of efficiency. In Taylorism workers are nothing more than automatons, or tissue-based machines. In other words the worker’s mental health is of no concern.

Current management literature, by contrast, now integrates psychological factors more than ever be-fore. Even though competition is still often seen as the trigger for ambition between companies, it has re-cently also been noted that it is counterproductive when it is used within a company. Thus, companies increas-ingly advocate team-work and communal effort. See for example Whitmore (2002) who lists the following as criteria for team-development: support, trust, patience, commitment, humour, compatibility, cooperation, adaptability, friendship, courage, enthusiasm and unselfishness. Or Goldsmith (2007) who lists ‘goal obses-sion’ as a hindrance to success and instead advocates feedback, apologizing, listening, and thanking. Also Tem-plar’s (2005) section headings on ‘managing a team’ read like a list of calls against internal competition: “Know what a team is and how it really works; Make your team better than you; Let them make mistakes; Accept their limitations; Encourage People; Take the Rap; Give credit to the team when it deserves it; Get the best resources for your team; Celebrate; Be sensitive to friction; Create a good atmosphere; Inspire loyalty and team spirit; Fight for your team; Have and show respect in your staff; Respect individual differences; Listen to ideas from others; Adapt your style to each team member; Don’t always have to have the last word; Un-derstand the roles of others; Don’t try justifying stupid systems”.


184

zarato sees it, according to the quote above, in the opposite way, namely as the manifesta-

tion of “the capital relationship”.

This ambiguity concerning the evaluation of ‘immaterial labour’ is indicative of the fact that

Neo-Marxist writers inherit the flaws that are already present in Marx’s own writings: we

find formulations concerning the relationship between freedom and labour in Marx that

either exclude one from the other or locate the one in the other (and it is therefore ambiguous

whether the communist society is one where everyone works to their full capabilities or

everyone has to work only a minimum amount of time), it is unclear concerning ‘immate-

rial labour’ whether it is what labour ought to be (namely communicative and ‘immediately

social’) or whether it presents a new stage of alienation.25

In a similarly ambiguous fashion Hardt and Negri entangle themselves with ‘bioproduc-

tion’, which is the follow-on concept from ‘immaterial labour’. On the one hand, under this

concept everything becomes production, where this is decidedly positive;26 on the other the

fact that in postmodern capitalism the distinction between work and leisure becomes in-

creasingly blurred is bemoaned (M, p.111 ff.). This exhibits their ambiguous relationship

concerning labour and human existence and it is Marx’ dilemma all over again: production

is meant to be essential to human existence (even more so in bioproduction), but the real

freedom also begins only after work. Thus, whether postmodern or not - the question con-

cerning the characterisation of labour remains unanswered in a theory (Marxism/Historical

Materialism) in which labour is of such central concern.

As a final noteworthy point, we can also detect the reversal of Hardt and Negri’s appraisal

of the immaterial worker elsewhere. Just as much as Fordist conveyor belt labour can be

frustrating, so can ‘immaterial labour’: the modern ‘cubicle dweller’, as Crawford (2009)

describes the immaterial labourer, is presented with the problem that his products are im-

material, that is, there are often no discernible products or measurable results. Contrast-

ingly, Crawford endorses the joys of manual labour. In ‘immaterial labour’ we often do not

handle actual material problems but are rather concerned with ‘office politics’, we have no

25 As commented before, Marx’s catch-phrase for communism “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” permits both alternatives: to reduce or increase labour-time. 26 “Anyone who works with information or knowledge – for example, from agriculturists who develop the specific properties of seeds to software programmers – relies on the common knowledge passed down from others and in turn creates new common knowledge. This is especially true for all labour that creates immaterial projects, including ideas, images, affects, and relationships. We will call this newly dominant model “biopolitical production” to highlight that it not only involves the production of material goods in a strictly economic sense but also touches on and produces all facets of social life, economic, cultural, and political. This biopolitical production and its expansion of the common is one strong pillar on which stands the possibility of global democ-racy today.” (M, p.xv f., emphasis added)

Hardt and Negri

185

distinct skills that another could not also acquire within a few weeks of practice. Our ability

of solving symbolic tasks may make us global labourers because we can use it anywhere

and if we are connected through modern telecommunication technology then we do not

even have to travel in order to employ it. However, this can also mean that we are expend-

able, stretched across the global network instead of rooted in a home, thus anywhere and

therefore nowhere. Our skills may be virtual to the degree that they can be downloaded.

The knowledge worker can end up in the same seemingly meaningless position as the Ford

employee. One of Crawford’s reviewers poignantly comments:

Look around the field in which you toil, be it advertising, finance, or consulting.

Who really gets to face new problems and make decisions based on their

knowledge and instincts, and who is just another clerk, following instructions?

[…] What are you actually making? How do you know if you are advancing at

your job? Does sending e-mail all day help the brand? Does my boss think I am

a good guy? […] The "team" is what launches the product, lands the account,

drives the business. "The individual feels that, alone, he is without any effect,"

writes Crawford. And worse: "He has difficulty imagining how he might earn a

living otherwise." The team makes us passive and helpless.

(http://www.slate.com/id/2218650/pagenum/all/)

As is obvious, we are presented with the opposite of what Hardt and Negri argue. Craw-

ford reminds his readers of the ‘real’ skills of manual labour where one can become a mas-

ter of one’s craft. Concerning the scope of ‘immaterial labour’ Crawford is rather on the

side of Lazzarato and already presents a first, and probably not last, appraisal of manual

labour (cf. e.g. Sennett, 2008). Furthermore, as the final straw, team-work, which Hardt and

Negri praise for its revolutionary potential, is even criticised as weakening the subject. We are

thus presented with a view diametrically opposed to Hardt and Negri’s. To me this is evi-

dence for particularly one point: that the interpretation of labour is very much dependent

on the circumstances and on which aspect of labour we are focussing on. We may praise

labour, or we may despise it, we may endorse singular craftsmanship or communal inter-

connectedness, etc. Those who ‘work with the head’ may come to glorify manual labour

and practical work, those engaged in the latter often aspire to get away from it. What the

‘ideal labour’ would be no one can say, last but not least because every individual sees it

differently. Many people would probably regard ‘not working at all’ as an ideal. Whether

industrial labour (Marx) or ‘immaterial labour’, an analysis of it will not provide us with a

sufficient characterisation of human beings, nor with a clear answer concerning its evalua-


186

tion. So far no characterisation of labour has captured ‘the essence’ of human beings and

contra Historical Materialism, and with Arendt, I maintain it cannot do so simply because

there is more to human life than labour and that labour does not hold the answers to all

social problems.

2. The ‘Multitude’

‘Immaterial labour’ plays such a central role because of the social and political implications

that Hardt and Negri draw from it, ultimately that “immaterial labour thus seems to pro-

vide the potential for a kind of spontaneous and elementary communism.” (E, p.294) A

short way of explaining this conclusion is to highlight the fact that through ‘immaterial la-

bour’ the workers have access to means of communication as well as considerable power

over the means of production. Thus, the basic elements for a revolution are present and

would just have to be exploited. The postmodern immaterial labourers and all those af-

fected by them thus become the subject of the revolution and thus the corresponding class

to Marx’s industrial proletariat.27 Hardt and Negri give this new social subject the name

‘multitude’.

The ‘multitude’ has superseded the proletariat because the latter, for various reasons, does

not constitute a revolutionary subject: a) Marx’s industrial proletariat is hard to find these

days, b) in the past, as well as in the present, the proletariat hardly ever is the revolutionary

subject that Marx envisaged, c) the proletariat is a too limited class as well as concept for

our postmodern world. These ideas, which I will not investigate further, have been ad-

vanced ever since the 1970’s. It is noteworthy, however, that they have not only been men-

tioned in opposition to Marx, but also by followers of his tradition in an effort to explain the

outstanding global revolution. The ‘multitude’, in contrast to the proletariat, is a wider con-

cept that is more apt to today’s conditions. It is the group of all those ‘who labour and pro-

duce under the rule of capital’.28 As explained above, Hardt and Negri take the modern la-

bour conditions of ‘immaterial labour’ to be such that they involve a maximum of connec-

tivity and interrelations between labourers. The increasingly dense network of trade and

trade-relations in the global capitalist economy together with modern communication tech-

27 “Multitude is a class concept. […] Class is determined by class struggle. […] the classes that matter are those defined by the lines of collective struggle. […] Class is a political concept, in short, in that a class is and can only be a collectivity that struggles in common.” (M, p.103 f.) 28 “The multitude gives the concept of the proletariat its fullest definition as all those who labour and produce under the rule of capital.” (M, p.107)

Hardt and Negri

187

nology and labour practices put all of the subjects into closer contact with each other.

‘Immaterial labour’, instead of the industrial labour of Marx’s time, influences all remaining

areas of production and therefore assumes a hegemonic status and provides people with

means to unite and rebel against the system (M, p.106f.). This is the ‘multitude’. This story

is, of course, familiar: capitalist production triggers the conditions for its own abolition, i.e.

capitalism produces its own gravediggers. The question is whether the ‘multitude’ is a subject capa-

ble of political action. Hardt and Negri claim that it is, in fact, the only one which will also have

an intrinsic and radical democratic structure, whereas my claim is that the ‘multitude’ is impotent

as a political player. In their own words

The multitude, designates an active social subject, which acts on the basis of

what the singularities share in common. The multitude is an internally different,

multiple social subject whose constitution and action is based not on identity or

unity (or, much less, indifference) but on what it has in common. (M, p.100)

One initial approach is to conceive the multitude as all those who work under

the rule of capital and thus potentially as the class of those who refuse the rule

of capital. […] The concept rests, in other words, on the claim that there is no

political priority among the forms of labour: all forms of labour are today so-

cially productive, they produce in common, and share too a common potential

to resist the domination of capital. (M, p.105ff.)

There are numerous passages like the above. To shorten it, the ‘multitude’

a) consists of all those subject to empire

b) is irreducibly different (many-faceted, multitudinous) by including various

groups, e.g. workers, political activists, animal rights campaigners, homosexuals,

rebellious groups like the Zapatistas, open source advocates, etc.

c) it expresses the desire for a world of equality and freedom

d) demands an open and inclusive democratic global society

e) provides the means for achieving c) and d): a global democracy of equality and

freedom (M, p.xi)

Hardt and Negri deliberately make no distinction between political, social, and economic

organisations or groups because for them it is part of the postmodern condition that the

boundaries between these concepts are increasingly blurred. Everything becomes ‘biopoli-


188

tical’, i.e. it ‘engages life in its entirety’ (M, p.94).29 The ‘multitude’ is therefore the group of

all groups, the one of which they are all parts but which does not reduce them in a way that

undermines their differences (like other group concepts such as ‘people’, or ‘mass’). The

‘multitude’ is thus, so to say, a social universal set.30 My claim is that a social universal set cannot be a

political agent.

Hardt and Negri direct their attention to events which should indeed be considered. It is

true that since a few years we can see resistance against the global capitalist order, particu-

larly at the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and WTO (World Trade Organisation)

summits. Starting with Seattle in 1999 and certainly not ending with the protests at the

London summit in 2009, there has been a growing movement against global institutions. It

is also true, as Hardt and Negri point out, that the protesters at these events come from all

kinds of groups: anti-globalisation, green, hippie, left-wing, trade-unions, etc. The speed

and accuracy with which these groups can organise their demonstrations (through modern

communication technology) makes it difficult for the police to counter them and adapt

their strategies in time. For Hardt and Negri these protests are the tip of the iceberg of

grievances which the ‘multitude’ holds against global capitalism. The global capital world

order subjects everyone to the same reprehensible conditions, unites them in their senti-

ments, and modern telecommunication technology and labour practices make it possible

for them to actually unite. Importantly, the various groups that are pooling their frustration

do not lose their individuality.

Common conditions, of course, does not mean sameness or unity, but it does

require that no differences of nature or kind divide the multitude. It means, in

other words, that the innumerable, specific types of labour, forms of life, and

geographical location, which will always necessarily remain, do not prohibit

communication and collaboration in a common political project. (M, p. 105f.)

Seen in this way, for the first time in history, a global front against capitalism, Marx’s idea of a

world-historical opposition, seems possible.31 I doubt, however, both the ascription of

revolutionary conditions and the aptness of the ‘multitude’ for politics. Hardt and Negri

spend much time on the ascription of revolutionary conditions in Multitude. To make it

29 “Immaterial labour is biopolitical in that it is oriented toward the creation of forms of social life; such labour, then, tends no longer to be limited to the economic but also becomes immediately a social, cultural, and political force.” (M, p.66) 30 I refer to ‘universal sets’ or ‘set of sets’ as in set theory where this typically leads to a paradox. 31 “The possibility of democracy on a global scale is emerging today for the very first time.” (M, p.xi) Note that Lenin, in 1917, also already thought democracy to be possible for the first time (1978, p.80).

Hardt and Negri

189

short, according to them there is firstly the global dominance of capitalism and secondly (at

least potentially) communication between all those who oppose it. Thus, cause, possibility

and willingness for revolution are given, and according to Hardt and Negri we also have a

social subject, namely the ‘multitude’, that can carry it out.

But firstly, even though IMF and WTO summits have witnessed demonstrations it is a leap

to extrapolate from this to the existence of a global opposition. As Seth (2002, p.568)

rightly comments Hardt and Negri’s “argument is not carried by the weight of evidence but

rather by the momentum of their dialectic.” 32 Secondly, as argued above, Hardt and Negri

are simply wrong concerning the amount of relations as well as the level of sociality in

‘immaterial labour’. Some ‘immaterial’ activities can be done in isolation (e.g. design) and

others that do require the presence of others (e.g. health care) do thereby not imply joining

the revolutionary club. Thirdly, the communication and egalitarian tendencies that Hardt

and Negri ascribe to the internet should be questioned. The internet is currently accessible

only to 6 per cent of the world’s population and within those 6 per cent are great differ-

ences concerning the availability of information (Tilly, 2002, p.226). Both China and Cuba,

for example, have tight restrictions on what information users can access. It therefore

hardly fulfils the claims that Hardt and Negri make. Fourthly, the ‘multitude’, as described, is

not an identifiable political player, as I will show.

The multitude is composed of innumerable internal differences that can never

be reduced to a unity or a single identity – different cultures, races, ethnicities,

genders, and sexual orientations; different forms of labour; different ways of liv-

ing; different views of the world; and different desires. The multitude is a mul-

tiplicity of all these singular differences. (p.xiv)

What gives this ‘multiplicity’ its commonality (one is afraid to use ‘unity’) are the shared

grievances against empire. Hardt and Negri help themselves to an analogy of social organisa-

tion which is meant to explain how the ‘multitude’, despite its innumerable internal differ-

ences, can act: the network analogy.

The communicative relations between people, which empire itself brings about through

‘immaterial labour’ establish a network of communication.33 This network, like empire, has

32 Cf. Seth (2002): “Hardt and Negri's argument has something of this quality: all indications are that the struggles they name are unconnected, and sometimes not very radical; but this turns out to be a virtue, for their very localness and inability to link up horizontally means that they 'leap immediately to the global level and attack the imperial constitution in its generality.'” (p. 568) 33 Cf. Richard Florida’s “creative class”, which is very similar, if not identical, with Hardt and Negri’s ‘immaterial labourers’ (see Svendsen, 2008, p.39)


190

no centre but consists of numerous autonomous cells linked only through communication.

We can therefore speak of a group without requiring traditional hierarchical structures of

status or functions. The participants in the protests at the IMF and WTO summits con-

sisted of many different people who spontaneously and independently of each other organ-

ised themselves.34 Also the Zapatistas of Chiapas are organised in such a network of

autonomous cells, according to Hardt and Negri. Because these networks deliberately have

no centre and no authoritative hierarchy they are therefore intrinsically democratic.35 This is

the main reason why the postmodern world is, for the first time, in the position to bring

about a global democracy. Only through the globalisation of the proletariat, so to speak,

and its interconnectedness due to modern labour conditions and communication technol-

ogy in the ‘multitude’ can a global democratic counter-empire be realised. This hinges, how-

ever, on Hardt and Negri’s network-idea, which I will now criticise.

2.1. Networks

Hardt and Negri’s appeal to network structures is oversimplified: they assume that net-

works are equally balanced throughout, without a hierarchy, preferential statuses or func-

tions. This, however, does not apply to all networks, crucially it does not apply to social networks,

instead, recent research has revealed that many such systems are not as horizontally struc-

tured as Hardt and Negri suppose.36

There are two major types of networks. Firstly, so-called Erdos-Renyi networks with uniform

probability of links between any two nodes, exponential distribution of connectedness and

very few highly connected nodes.37 Due to their structural features these networks are rela-

tively robust and their stability decreases gradually with increasing damage. This is the type

of network that Hardt and Negri base their theory of the ‘multitude’ on.

Secondly, there are so-called Scale-free networks, which feature more connected nodes that are

more likely to be linked to other nodes, have a power law distribution of connectedness

34 “Not only do the movements employ technologies such as the Internet as organising tools, they also begin to adopt these technologies as models for their own organisational structures. […] Network organisation, by contrast, is based on the continuing plurality of its elements and its networks of communication in such a way that reduction to a centralised and unified command structure is impossible.” (M, p.82f.) 35 From this perspective Hardt and Negri can also criticise the Cuban revolutionaries of the 1950’s for their rigid military organisation which undermined the democratic roots that they themselves wanted to bring to fruition. 36 For the following details on networks I am indebted to Peter Andras. Most data is taken from ‘Net-work analysis of complex systems’ (Peter Andras, 2009). 37 Networks are described in terms that allow for substitution once a particular case is specified. That is, a node, for example, can be a nerve cell in a brain, a factor in a biological system (e.g. an animal, the pres-ence of water), or a human being in a social network.

Hardt and Negri

191

and some very highly connected nodes. Social networks have been found to accord rather to these

Scale-free networks, than the Erdos-Renyi variety. The important points for our investigation

are the following:

a) Scale-free networks are not completely horizontal. Some nodes are more con-

nected than others, there are clusters (i.e. centres of particular activity) and some

nodes work as bottlenecks between clusters. Hardt and Negri’s claims to ‘inherent

democratic’ structures in networks are therefore mistaken.

b) In terms of the stability of such networks this means the following: although

they are stable in response to random damage they quickly destabilise in case of targeted

damage. That is, since some nodes are more important than others (for example bot-

tleneck nodes) if these are damaged the overall stability of the network decreases rapidly.

This undermines Hardt and Negri’s claims that networks are stable and can simply

reform when empire strikes against them.

This supports my claim that organisation requires at least some definable roles and respon-

sibilities, authority and hierarchy. If key-positions are targeted then the overall structure will

quickly disintegrate.

An actual empirical example that has been used in this connection is the social network of

Enron when the company approached its collapse. Before its demise the communications38

showed a particular (scale-free) network structure which accorded with the structure of the

company and its decisional processes, i.e. the social network communications reflected the functional

structure of the company. Deviations from the established structure indicate potential problems,

which happened at an increasing rate the closer the collapse of Enron was at hand. The

communications became chaotic, the overall network lost stability and eventually it col-

lapsed. This is not meant to show that Enron collapsed as a result of disorderly e-mail ex-

changes. It shows that social networks are vulnerable to specific damages. When key-positions are

lost and corresponding key-functions can no longer be fulfilled, then the overall network

quickly disintegrates. Thus, when Hardt and Negri claim that network organisation

[…] provides the model for an absolutely democratic organisation that corre-

sponds to the dominant forms of economic and social production and is also

the most powerful weapon against the ruling power structure (M, p.88)

38 Considered were e-mail communications through Contents analysis, e.g. word stem frequencies, word consecutiveness networks and word patterns (Andras, 2009).


192

I argue in return that this neglects the organisation in those networks. Contrary to what

Hardt and Negri suggest, social networks are structured: some nodes (i.e. people) are more

connected than others, some areas (i.e. groups) are more internally connected and consti-

tute clusters and some nodes serve as bottlenecks (i.e. connectors) between clusters. There-

fore, social networks are not equally balanced but have a hierarchy, and include preferential functions and

statuses. In fact, Scale-free networks grow through preferential attachment, i.e. growth is

linked to the status of the particular area where growth occurs. These networks therefore

do not grow in an egalitarian manner as Hardt and Negri assume but according to preferen-

tial connections, i.e. according to the status of adjacent nodes (i.e. people). Without these fea-

tures a network is simply not organised at all. It will not suffice to argue in response that with

networks there is no need for big organisations or structures anymore.39 Structures, for

whichever specific purpose, enable advancement through the order they establish. This or-

der, depending on which particular area it concerns, then allows progress in terms of social

complexity, knowledge and information, economic interchanges, approved or disapproved

actions (i.e. law), etc.40 Any feasible social theory today has to include organisations, institu-

tions and structures, because it is the structural and functional differentiation of our socie-

ties which enable our current life in the first place. To advocate the self-rule of the global

working population (i.e. the ‘multitude’) is not progressive but, to use a Marxian term

against Hardt and Negri, simply reactionary. Particularly on the global scale that Hardt and

Negri advocate defined channels of interaction have to be given.

Note that I am not arguing that the network idea as such is useless. Within limited confines

horizontal network structures can have their use, for example in awareness-raising or public

debates (See J. Dryzeck, 2005, p.230; D. Kellner, 2002, p.295ff.). These confines, however,

pertain to deliberation, not decision-making, for which some kind of institutional order seems

necessary. In fact, Dryzek considers it to be an advantage of such (smaller) networks that

they are at a distance from decision-making because proximity to sovereignty tends to turn de-

bates into struggles for power. Public deliberation, by contrast, is mostly local contrary to

the global scale at which Hardt and Negri want to employ the network structure. In other

words, the appeal of/to networks should be considered according to the function the re-

spective network is meant to fulfil. Raising awareness and stimulating debate is an area in

39 As Hardt and Negri do when they claim that “The multitude, although it remains multiple and in-ternally different, is able to act and rule itself. Rather than political body with one that commands and others that obey, the multitude is living flesh that rules itself.” (M, p.100) 40 “[…] structures can be seen as a set of constraints on communications that constitute the organisa-tion. […] structures have a vital role in handling organisational faults, errors and failures, being able to limit their damaging effects within the organisation.” (Andras et.al., 2005)

Hardt and Negri

193

which the horizontal network approach suits the purpose, i.e. gathering as many views as

possible and assessing them equally. When it comes to decision-making (law and policy for

example) it is far better for particular units/clusters/institutions to have distinctive func-

tions, such as we have, say, in the distinction between the legislative, judiciary and executive

functions of the government.

2.2. Contra the ‘multitude’ as a political subject

My point should now be clear. From the way in which Hardt and Negri define the ‘multi-

tude’, namely as the group of all groups, it is the social equivalent of a universal set. As

such it can hardly be seen as a political subject in the normal sense of the term (because ‘sub-

ject’ usually implies some kind of unity which is stressed when we talk ‘one subject’ or a ‘uni-

fied subject’ but Hardt and Negri want undermine this by describing the ‘multitude’ as an

‘irreducible multiplicity’). Even more so, it cannot be seen as a political agent.

Being a political player or agent requires an identifiable institution with identifiable repre-

sentatives and goals, even if in order for something to count as an institution it does not

necessarily require modern bureaucracies which are historically very recent developments.41

However, theories of democracy today, and Hardt and Negri understand their approach as

one of them, have the idea of political representation at the centre. But by Hardt and

Negri’s own definition the ‘multitude’ is non-representable since there is no one person, nor

group of persons, who could legitimately claim to represent all the multiple subjects of the

‘multitude’. Hardt and Negri’s advocacy of the intrinsic internal difference of the ‘multi-

tude’ undermines its representability and thereby removes it from the known spectrum of

political practice. The problem is not that the ‘multitude’ is undemocratic, this would be a

different investigation, but that it undermines political representation.

Note that I do not claim that the actions of non-institutional subjects cannot be politically effective. Ad-

herents of the ‘multitude’ may claim that even if it is a non-institutional subject, the ‘multi-

tude’ may nevertheless, through its actions, trigger political processes. This I do not deny,

but one can do so without being an identifiable political player. Al-Qaeda for example,

which Hardt and Negri also refer to since it is a group that exhibits a network structure,

triggers definite political responses and changes, but it can hardly be seen as a political or-

ganisation. If Al-Qaeda is indeed the network of autonomous cells it is assumed to be then, I

41 Sloterdijk (1995, p.95) aptly remarks that today the average person often cannot see the state for all the bureaucracy anymore.


194

claim, it is not a political organisation. Any group of people, no matter where, can claim to

be a cell of Al-Qaeda and act according to its cause.42 Insofar as it is then non-

representable (for who could claim to represent it?) it is not a group that can be included in

debates or decision-making processes.43 In my view, the latter is needed in order for a

group to be a political agent. The question of hierarchy may allow for some leeway44 but

some structure and identifiable goals and members have to be detectable, otherwise we may

have a social movement but not a political agent (or player).

Hardt and Negri cannot answer the pressing issue with which they are concerned, namely

how the public and its governance is to be construed for our post-national and global age.

Their model of governance is one of self-governance and the sphere is global. But this is

equal to having no governance. To govern oneself in a world without borders leaves one fight-

ing for oneself instead of fighting together with others. A world without boundaries, with-

out an “outside”, can also offer no “inside”. As a consequence, Hardt and Negri cannot

answer to such a crucial issue as that of legitimacy. Customarily the critical role of the pub-

lic as the normatively legitimating force and the basis of political efficacy is conceived in

terms of unified subjects bound to a territory (Fraser, 2007, p.224-253). In Western Europe

this took the form of nation-states. The modern global conditions undermine this ap-

proach since in the course of globalisation territoriality becomes increasingly outdated:

without a geographical territory we lose one of the main ingredients of what constitutes a

public. The same applies to the formerly unifying elements of a national economy, media,

language, and literary heritage. Nevertheless the essential elements of a public can remain

intact: it needs to be clear a) who can participate in which debate, b) how the members of a

public are to deal with each other (this constitutes the normatively legitimating force of the

public), c) how public decisions are to be implemented in the policies and d) how those poli-

cies can, in turn, be executed (this constitutes the political efficacy of the public). Hardt and

Negri’s approach cannot supply these criteria. Without boundaries of inclusion/exclusion,

that define who is a rightful party to a decision and the conditions concerning the legitimacy

of political decisions we simply have no framework for any governance whatsoever. That is,

42 Moreover, like Arendt (2006), I do not consider terrorism as a form of politics. As mentioned in the previous chapter, violence is a contra-political phenomenon. For if politics has something to do, as I think it does, with the fact that we are speaking beings, then violence is outside the realm of politics and even inhibits it, because by the time it comes to violence the power of words has clearly lost all appeal. 43 Note that if an enticing reply seems to be Osama Bin Laden (as the leader of Al-Qaeda) then the network analogy crumbles since then there is a hierarchy within the group with a clear leadership at the top that decides who is in the group and who is not, and which acts actually do embody Al-Qaeda’s cause and which do not. 44 The Green Party in Germany, for example, which came out of the 1968 student protests, has no one party leader but a panel of leaders.

Hardt and Negri

195

I cannot tell who is legitimately party to my concern; who is ‘sitting in the same boat’ so to

say; who has a rightful claim to be included in the decision-making process - and who does

not.

Hardt and Negri suppose, like Marx, a global solidarity of the workers merely on the

grounds of the supposed homogeneity of their labour. As I have argued before, the claim

to homogeneity is mistaken and this severely weakens a concept of solidarity that is based

on it. Furthermore, ‘it is by no means clear that the cosmopolitical form of solidarity and its

institutional guises can outgrow the existence of democratic nation-states’ (Rainer Schmalz-

Bruhns, 2007, p.271).45 That is, how can Hardt and Negri be so sure that the ‘multitude’ will

be so collaborative? If the unity of the ‘multitude’ results from their opposition to empire,

then what keeps them connected once empire has ceased to exist? If, as Hardt and Negri

stress, the ‘multitude’ is, like Marx’s proletariat, a class-concept, then the same difficulty

applies: class is defined by opposition to another class. In Hardt and Negri’s case it is em-

pire, rather than a definite social class, but once the opposing concept is gone what will

happen to the supposed victors? For Marx this problem was easier to face than for Hardt

and Negri. Since Marx conceived of the proletariat as the class of the industrial labourers

the post-revolutionary situation is one in which the proletariat stops being a class and be-

comes a global labour force united by the centrality of industrial labour. Hardt and Negri

cannot adopt this strategy so easily. Why? Because they explicitly insist that the ‘multitude’

is irreducible to a particular central activity. The ‘multitude’ is by definition a class of irre-

ducible differences. In that case the question is what will unite those irreducible differences

once empire as the common enemy has ceased to exist? I do not think that Hardt and Negri

can offer a convincing answer.

With the ‘multitude’ and its open network-structure Hardt and Negri have deprived them-

selves of the means to ensure collaboration and prevent faction-building because without

institutions they can no longer ensure collaboration – and global self-governance becomes

rather akin to a Hobbesian state of nature. I do not want to advocate a Hobbesian under-

standing of politics in general, but Hobbes (2005) realised that it takes common institutions

in order to ensure the mutual recognition of rights among otherwise free individuals. That

is, he noticed the importance of a ‘higher court of appeal’ than mere self-governance. Unlike Hobbes,

45 Also Zizek (2006) asks: “what would "multitude in power" (not only as resistance) be? How would it FUNCTION? […] what about the complex network of material, legal, institutional, etc. conditions that must be maintained in order for the informational "multitude" to be able to function? […] How are these strong standards and funding - in short, the main ingredients of the Welfare State - to be maintained?”


196

however, today we suppose that higher institutions are responsible and accountable for

their actions and that they can be criticised if necessary. In this interplay between an institu-

tion and its subjects a lose bunch of individuals become a public and the critical role of the

public constitutes the normatively legitimating force that Fraser (op.cit.) refers to. This

concept of a public is elementary for our modern understanding of politics. Hardt and

Negri, through the ‘multitude’ and its ‘self-governance’ lose the interplay with accountable

higher institutions that constitute a public.

Without some kind of institution the public misses a bearer of responsibility, that is, a public

has lost its agent and thereby the target for which it is a public in the first place. Such a

bearer of responsibility would have to draw boundaries for whom and which issues it is

responsible and for whom and which it is not. The concept of self-determination, which

Hardt and Negri want to employ for this function is no solution since also ‘the self-

referential concept of collective self-determination requires on logical grounds the distinc-

tion between members and non-members’.46 Self-determination is what Hardt and Negri

have in mind when they claim that the ‘multitude’ can rule itself. But any decision is a par-

ticular and has limits concerning its scope and applicability, i.e. a framework has to be es-

tablished for whom such a particular decision is relevant and for whom it is not. That is, we

have to define a particular public to which it applies. For the vast majority of decisions this

public cannot be global because most decisions are made locally, or regionally, some na-

tionally, and concern particular people or groups of people. Only very few decisions apply

globally. In other words, for decision-making we need the relevant publics which thus need

to have boundary-conditions.

With the ‘multitude’ Hardt and Negri thus end up with concept for a movement, particularly a

protest movement, but not a political agent. The switch from the former to the latter would, ac-

cording to my argument, require a move away from Hardt and Negri’s beloved network-

analogy, or an acknowledgement that even networks are not as egalitarian as they claim.

Modern means of communication may allow us to form open networks but political par-

ticipation and action still needs to be structured. A patchwork of autonomous cells that

continuously form, re-form, and disband, as Hardt and Negri imagine it, cannot be a politi-

cal group. The latter requires organisation and cannot be as Hardt and Negri require their

networks to be, namely “essentially elusive, ephemeral, perpetually in flight” (M, p.55).

That is, it must itself be an organisation in order to act like one. Maybe the particularly bu-

reaucratic system of representative democracy that we have in most western states with its

46 Habermas, 1998, p.161, my translation, as quoted in Schmalz-Bruhns, 2007, p.271

Hardt and Negri

197

current building blocks of political parties is merely contemporary and not particularly well

suited47, but the ‘multitude’ seems to me even more unsuited to allow for political represen-

tation: a network of autonomous cells cannot represent anything successfully politically.

Contrary to what Hardt and Negri want to make us believe, the ‘multitude’, as conceived so

far, does not constitute a political player. In being non-representable and global it cannot make

any decisions because important referents and conditions for decision-making and the no-

tions of legitimacy and responsibility are missing. These are, however, essential parts for

any democratic theory.

3. Conclusion

My final judgement, then, on the Italian postmodern Neo-Marxists spearheaded by Hardt

and Negri and Lazzarato is fairly negative. I consider the concept of ‘immaterial labour’ a

misnomer and the ‘multitude’ unable to be a political player. If my analysis is apt and the

conclusion correct then I have undermined the two core concepts that these writers put

forward.48 The important point, however, is that I have shown the issues to remain the

same: Historical Materialism, whether in its original Marxian formulation or in postmod-

ernism, suffers from the same flaws. I do not thereby argue that Historical Materialism as a

whole is passé or defeated. Marx’ original contribution to social and political thought is in-

valuable. However, the shortcomings of Historical Materialism should be recognised. This

means that it cannot stand as the sole and exhaustive approach to human life. Marx’s own

account is already beset with particular problems. As I have argued in chapter 1, they origi-

nate mostly in Marx’s human ontology and take their toll on the account of politics. Not

only are there difficulties concerning the relation between labour, freedom and emancipa-

tion but also very particular judgements on the characterisation and scope of politics. Marx

conceived of politics as a necessary evil of means-end calculations by a dominating and ex-

ploitative class. Once the ideal conditions for human life are established (i.e. communism),

47 For a critique see Freystedt et.al. (2005). Freystedt, amongst other things, argues that our current party system is impractical because every party has to have a stand on every issue. Since any given party there-fore also endorses points that an individual voter does not support, every voter basically tries to find the party that mostly embodies his views. To remedy this situation Freystedt advocates a governmental system that fea-tures different panels on different issues (for example, foreign policy, internal religious matters, economic policy, welfare policy, etc.) and people can vote separately on each panel. 48 A further reason to be sceptical is that so far the theory has not triggered any noteworthy success or even just engagement among the labour-force (or ‘immaterial labour-force’). A strong reason may simply be that without a substantial knowledge of political and philosophical theory these ‘communist manifestos of the 21st century’ are simply inaccessible. If these writers suppose themselves to write for the ‘multitude’ then they use a language which the addressee of their message does not understand.


198

there would simply be no need for politics. It would wither away just like the state. Accord-

ingly, in Marx’s ontology there is no space for politics: it is merely conditional to, instead of

integral of, human life. Not politics but labour is central to human beings.

Arendt, to say it drastically, argues the opposite, as I have shown in chapter 2. It is the hu-

man capacity for politics that is the most definitive and distinctive one. The labour of our

bodies, as she says, is of course an undeniable part of human existence, but it does not pin-

point a distinctive feature since it is necessitated by a physiology which we share with many

other living organisms. The work of hands, by contrast, does already pick out a trait that

does indeed single out the human species. As Marx rightly says, no other species produces

like human beings. We produce universally. This, however, only marks us out as a species,

the most specific trait has not yet been mentioned: human beings do not only exist as a

species, but also as individuals. To be more precise: we exist as individuals who conceive of our-

selves as individuals. That an individual that is not just physically distinct, not just ‘other’, but

unique in who one is, is one of the most fundamental experiences every human being has. This

uniqueness emerges in action and this is why action is the most important trait for Arendt.

Failing to consider it in this way means for Arendt to deny exactly what is most undeniable,

namely the fundamental experience of every person that he/she is a certain self who is

unlike any other person. Yet Arendt’s approach does thereby not constitute an equal reduc-

tion of human beings to the activity of interaction, as Marx’s reduction to the activity of

labour. Arendt never denies the importance of all three parts of the human condition: la-

bour, work, and action.

Habermas is the Historical Materialist who takes on Arendt’s challenge of acknowledging

uniqueness, the distinction between poiesis and praxis, the distinctiveness of action and the

intrinsic capability for politics. As I have argued in chapter 3, he goes a long and compli-

cated way in order to do so; to be precise, it takes the whole of the Theory of Communicative

Action. Habermas is largely successful: he does indeed find a way to account for action in a

framework that can still be conceived as a broad Historical Materialism. But as I have

shown, in order to do so he provides a pragmatic account of language in the course of

which he reduces communication to the propositional content of speech-acts. What he ne-

glects is what has been so dear to Arendt, namely the uniqueness of the agents in commu-

nicative action.

Furthermore, Habermas, by acknowledging the poiesis-praxis distinction, ends up with a bi-

nary division of system and life-world, instrumental and communicative action, for which he

has received much criticism. The most substantial criticism on this matter is that he has cut

Hardt and Negri

199

off the connection between labour and emancipation which was so important to Marx. I

have shown in how far Habermas’ theory can answer these objections. The main point,

however, is that since this debate in the 1970’s and 80’s, the arguments have not advanced

much further. The debate on the connection between labour and emancipation in Haber-

mas’ Historical Materialism has come to a stalemate.

Enter the postmodernists. At the same time when the discussion between Habermas and

his adversaries grinds to a halt, the postmodernists rediscover Marx for the new millen-

nium. In chapter 4 I chose Hardt, Negri and Lazzarato because they are the most radical as

well as some of the best known postmodern Neo-Marxists. Negri has the longest history

on the subject dating back to the 1970’s. The fruits of his labour, however, only ripened

within the last decade, namely with the publications of Empire and Multitude which received

a global audience and caused much debate. Rather than following the Marxian path

through Habermas, the Italian Neo-Marxists pick it up in the French postmodernist tradi-

tion. It is outside of the scope of this work to give a full account of the similarities and dif-

ferences that mark the writings that I have considered in comparison to their French intel-

lectual predecessors. What is important here are again the Historical Materialist roots and

their postmodern outgrowths. I have claimed that, contrary to Habermas, Hardt and Negri

apply Marx’s approach directly, changing only what is necessary to make the old claims fit

the new global circumstances. Accordingly we should expect problems in the very same

areas as in Marx’s account: this is where my critique of ‘immaterial labour’ and the ‘multi-

tude’ fits in. The concept of ‘immaterial labour’ is, apart from other mistakes, beset by the

same ambiguities as Marx’s labour: is it an inherently negative development or is potentially

positive? In the same way that Marx’s texts do not provide an answer, neither do the post-

modern ones. In fact, the core group of postmodern Neo-Marxists itself is split in two:

Hardt and Negri standing on the side of the positive, Lazzarato on the side of the negative

interpretation. This mirrors the bifurcation among followers of Marx on the question

whether to abolish or universalise labour.

Thus, insofar as the direct connection between labour and emancipation is simply re-

asserted, the difficulties of this move immediately present themselves again: do they inhere

in one another or not? It is again supposed that emancipation can be produced like a (ma-

terial or immaterial) thing, only this time not with industrial labour but with ‘immaterial

labour’ and in ‘biopolitical production’. Thus the praxis of emancipation is again conceived

as poiesis. This reduction of praxis to poiesis becomes only all-too explicit in their terminology

(bioproduction, biopolitics) and their recurrent claims that life, as a whole, is produced.


200

The ‘multitude’, then, is able to take matters in its own hands as life is again perceived as

being a matter of production. Politically similar, Hardt and Negri revive the Marxian sup-

position that the state will wither away. The political subject is not the working class but

the global ‘multitude’. With the improved means of communication technology and the

sociality afforded by ‘immaterial labour’ Hardt and Negri argue that global communism is

not only necessary but for the first time in history possible (M, p.xi). I have argued that this

argument is at least premature. Furthermore, just as Marx thought that the state would

wither away so Hardt and Negri claim that with increasing globalisation there will simply be

no more need for states which are necessarily geographically limited. The abstract interrela-

tions between national governments will, given the interconnectivity of the ‘multitude’, give

way to the real and direct interrelations between actual individuals. Politics is no longer

needed.

Against this I have argued that the argument rests on the one hand on a mistaken idea

about social life, namely the network-approach: networks are simply not as horizontal and

egalitarian as supposed. Instead, empirical research has shown social networks to include

hierarchical structures. The network approach, in the way that Hardt and Negri use it, is

simply mistaken. Moreover, I have disputed that the ‘multitude’, in the way that this con-

cept is conceived, is a political player even though the actions of those considered to be

part of the ‘multitude’ may very well have political consequences. I have argued instead that

a political agent (whether a single one or a group) requires discernible goals and at least a

minimal hierarchy and differentiation of authority in order to be representative. Failing this

we are left with a patchwork that may or may not have particular goals and which, accord-

ing to Hardt and Negri, explicitly does not feature and preferential statuses or authority.

Without these structures a network is simply not organised at all and while this may work

for small-scale awareness-raising and debates it does not work for decision-making. But

particularly on the global scale that Hardt and Negri want to apply their scheme decisions

need to made and adhered to, for otherwise we cannot speak of a global subject at all.

Again, my aim is not to defeat Historical Materialism as a whole. My intention was to show

that there are certain flaws that are integral to this approach evidenced by the fact that the

original formulations as well as the recent postmodern ones suffer them. One of the core

assumptions of this approach is the direct connection between labour and emancipation

and yet exactly this connection poses insurmountable problems. Within Historical Material-

ism itself they cannot be solved. Arendt’s approach offers a wider spectrum of considera-

tions in which emancipation is not conceived as production, as a state of affairs that can be

Hardt and Negri

201

brought about in a planned way and which is accomplished for everyone once a certain

paradigm of production has established itself, but rather as a constant becoming possible

through action. Contrary to Habermas this does neither require the implausible claim that

persons intentionally regulate the public’s access to their inner private life, nor does it hold

on to the supposition that we can ever become fully transparent to ourselves. Importantly

this means that emancipation is unlike production processes, which come to a definite end,

but is a constant possibility that cannot be ready-made by any political, social, or economic

programme. This, last but not least, includes a different approach to politics, one which

does not see it as a necessary evil, a mere means to an end that will disappear once that the

paradigm of production has changed, but an end in itself which is indicative of the most

important trait of ourselves: that we are not just exchangeable cogs in a global system of

production working towards an aim for which no amount of production will suffice, but

that we are non-exchangeable unique individuals. In order to be the latter we need the space

where this can happen and for Arendt that is the realm of politics, the realm where we can

act directly with each other, without recourse via the made products of work or labour.

Chapter V: Conclusions and Projections

202

V. Conclusions and projections

In summary of the previous chapters I can now claim the following: with the exception of

Habermas, labour plays the central role in Historical Materialism, in fact, initially it was a

Materialism because of this focus on labour (i.e. material reproduction). The history of man-

kind can then be described in material terms: in the process of physical life and the produc-

tivity of human beings. The aim which Marx connected with this analysis was the control

of history by man: for if the historical forces that determine mankind’s development are

material then this material system can be organised. Man no longer has to suffer the forces

of history that seem arbitrary because they are unknown (the end of ‘pre-history’, 1859

Preface, Simon, op.cit., p. 212) but can direct them through the organisation of production

and the organisation of the relations of production (the beginning of truly human history).

The main goal of communism is to turn man into the maker of his own destiny and ac-

cording to Marx this relies on the economic structure of society – on the ordering of pro-

duction. This image of man as his own maker (in an intentional, directed and controllable

way) is the one that presents itself when production assumes the role that it does in Marx:

the image of man as a producer is not just the claim that human beings can make things

(produce universally) but the much grander view that man’s own life is a production. He

should therefore be able to direct and control the production of himself in the same way as

the other things that he produces. Man dominates life instead of being dominated by it. To

be dominated, instead of dominating, is to be alienated from one’s being. To be un-alienated for Marx,

i.e. for man to be what he truly is, his essence, his species-being, is to be a producer not just of things but of

himself. Anything that prevents man from this position as the producer of his own destiny is

therefore a dominating force. To be over-powered by something external means to be

dominated by it.1 Marx saw politics as the external imposition of a dominating force over

the majority of mankind. Hence, politics means power over, or domination. In communism

politics will not be needed and the forces of production are unleashed. Politics, in capital-

ism in the form of the ruling bourgeoisie, is a fetter to production, not just to material pro-

duction but to the self-determination of man. Communism is meant to facilitate self-

determination by unleashing the forces of production.

But I have shown that this characterisation of human life is problematic: if labour is neces-

sary (which it is according to Marx) then it cannot serve as an adequate characterisation of 1 In capitalism this external element is the class system and the market. A remnant of this thought is Habermas’ image of capitalism as a system that then colonises the life-world, i.e. capitalism as an external imposition that dominates the daily life which all experience as the lifeworld.

Conclusions and Projections

203

human life because humans are only insufficiently characterised by what they have to do.

Not necessity but excess (e.g. freedom) is what distinguishes man from other species. This

excess cannot be captured by labour, in fact, it constitutes a problem for a view that sup-

poses labour to be the (organisable and controllable) essence of mankind because excess

escapes organisation and control. What does not fit the system must be eliminated.2

Seen from this perspective it actually appears that over the last 100 years Historical Materi-

alists have attempted to tackle the problem of excess, or ‘that which is not in labour’, i.e.

action (if we express what the poiesis-praxis distinction points out in this way), from two

sides: Habermas by extending the Historical Materialist framework with a theory of lan-

guage and communication to arrive at ‘communicative action’, and the current postmod-

ernists Hardt and Negri by focussing on the non-material aspects of labour (affects, rela-

tionships, the ‘ideological content of products’ as Lazzarato puts it) to arrive at ‘biopolitical

production’. Whereas Habermas explicitly separates communicative interaction from instru-

mental action (i.e. labour), the postmodernists are, in this respect, more Marxian, and view

interaction as part of labour. That the postmodernists therefore come up with a concept of

‘immaterial labour’ is then no longer surprising: it unites the immaterial aspect of communication with

the material activity of labour.

When they then enlarge ‘immaterial labour’ to ‘biopolitical production’, which includes ma-

terial labour again but also features social relationships which constitute the ‘reproduction

of society as a whole’, they have gone as far as they can to capture action: they have wid-

ened the concept of production so far as to include the relations and subjective states of

people in production. This is nevertheless still seen as production and this is typically Marx-

ian: production has to remain the centre of their theory, whether by neglecting other phe-

nomena or by widening the concept so much that it encompasses all that seems necessary,

sometimes to such an extend that even metaphorical uses are taken as exemplary for the

applicability of ‘production’.3

2 Because this excess is not a direct outcome of the labour-process but of the relations between people these relations become subject to the same rigorous control as the control of production. Politically this has a consequence which is evident in all states that attempted to realise communism: namely to control all interpersonal relations (the regulation of who is entitled to do, say, think, what in the last instance through a secret police). 3 “Postmodern warfare thus has many of the characteristics of what economists call post-Fordist pro-duction: it is based on both mobility and flexibility; it integrates intelligence, information, and immaterial la-bour; it raises power up by extending militarisation to the limits of outer space, across the surfaces of the earth, and to the depths of the oceans.” (M, p.40)


204

Does this then simply turn the debate into a terminological one? Namely, who considers

what to be production and who applies it in which way? No, the problem is that the pro-

duction-model carries with it particular understandings of the phenomena we are con-

cerned with. These understandings are not only mistaken but positively misleading because

they re-establish the erroneous picture of man as his own maker and thereby the illusion

that we can actively shape and direct the destiny of mankind world-historically.4

This image and the centrality of production in Historical Materialism is unsurprising given

its historical environment, namely the western world during the industrialisation. Thus,

only once labour, production and the domination of nature had reached the level they did

in the industrialisation did people come to think that this is indeed man’s nature and that

the understanding of it would allow him to shape his own destiny as he shapes objects in

production. We could even say that only once an industrial population, a working class,

existed did people think that this class embodies the heart and goal of human nature (Tay-

lor, 1985, esp. pp.263-282; Svendsen, 2008, ch.1).

Thus, the belief in the control of history through the control of production has particular

consequences for politics. Firstly, if life is characterised by labour then one must come to

Marx’s conclusion that politics is superfluous and with Engels one can conclude that all

that is required is an ‘administration of things’(namely of the means, products and relations

of production). But the essence of man is not captured in this framework, productivity is

surely a feature of human life but more so are freedom and the uniqueness of every person.

The interrelations between people, contrary to what Marx suggests, are not just an outcome

of the relations of production and have more to do with emancipation than labour.

Arendt’s approach to human life stresses these points without denying that we are also

productive beings. We produce the means that we live on and we which we constantly have

to reproduce, and we make the things that we live with and with which we enlarge the world

of artefacts that we inhabit. Distinguished from both of these mediated (material) activities

between man and world is the direct (un-mediated, non-material) relation between people

in interaction. Here we confront each other not as producers of stuff but as unique indi-

viduals, as who each other is. This who cannot be accounted for by enumerating what one

produces, nor does one confront another in one’s productive activity (poiesis). In direct in-

terrelations (praxis) humans confront each other as totalities. These totalities constantly es-

4 Also Richard Sennett’s latest book ‘The Craftsman’ (2008) falls pray to this illusion. In trying to ar-gue against what he perceives to be Arendt’s despise of the craftsman, he reveals his adherence to the view of man that has its root in the industrialisation and lies at the base of both Marxism and capitalism, namely that of as humans as their own makers (cf. esp., p.13).


205

cape when we attempt to conceive them as a given set of aspects that we can name. When-

ever we do so we have to realise that we still have not captured who this person is. Yet is

clear that every human being is a unique who, and that every single one is confronted with a

world of as many other unique people as alive at the time. These are the characteristics of

uniqueness and plurality. They escape the reduction to a set of features of a person because

they do not appear in isolation but only in the interaction between people.

Habermas realises the difference between poiesis and praxis and how Marx reduces the latter

to the former. Therefore Habermas accepts the distinction in order to capture the criti-

cisms of Historical Materialism but attempts to explain praxis in terms of communicative

action, where communication, in turn, is pragmatically reduced to the propositional content

of linguistic utterances. Habermas thereby still falls prey to the assumption that the essence

of man can be enumerated as set of nameable aspects that now contains all of what one

says. But here he misunderstands what Arendt refers to when she considers interaction to

be immaterial, because she does not just refer to what one says but to the uniqueness that

emerges whatever on says. Habermas rightly distinguishes the normative from the instru-

mental sphere and thereby criticises Marx, but he still conceives of the human being as one

that can be captured in a definite description, the recognition of which is then the means to

complete emancipation. This ideal of complete emancipation does not only rely on the ex-

istence of a definite set of characteristics about human beings that can be enumerated but

also on the assumption that every single person is fully transparent to him/herself, for only

then can emancipation be complete. This constitutes the remainder of the materialistic ap-

proach that Habermas retains from Marx. This approach, in turn, is the outcome of a his-

torical development in which the staggering advances in the sciences as well as productivity

suggest that ultimately everything is merely a set of enumerable and nameable aspects.

Marx still thought to capture those aspects in the concept of labour, Habermas realised that

poiesis is here confused with the realm of praxis. He therefore switches the basis of emanci-

pation from labour (poiesis) onto communicative action (praxis). Thus, in Habermas there is

not just one central element to Historical Materialism (labour) but two: namely labour and

communicative action, and emancipation happens through the latter.

Habermas is therefore the odd Historical Materialist because, as Honneth realised, the role

of labour in Historical Materialism has become a far more limited one in Habermas’ theory.

Insofar has Habermas severs the connection between labour and emancipation with his

distinction between instrumental and communicative action, he is, as Honneth points out

quite rightly, a very un-marxian Historical Materialist. The relationship between labour and


206

emancipation, which Marx defended with such vigour, has been separated. Habermas, in

turn, went this way because in the separation of instrumental and communicative action he

saw the only way to rescue Historical Materialism from its crisis.

This stage of the debate looks like a dilemma for Historical Materialism: the most fruitful

exponent carrying on this tradition in the most plausible way is Habermas, but through

Honneth we know this to move away from the aim that Marx originally had in mind with

his theory of history, namely to show the link between labour, emancipation and tie it to a

story of progress. Thus, by changing Historical Materialism in order to encompass and ac-

count for the various failings, historical developments and counter-arguments that it ex-

perienced, Habermas offers the most plausible version, yet he disconnects labour from

emancipation and history because of his distinction between instrumental and communica-

tive action. Thus, we end up with a version of Historical Materialism that is painfully un-

marxian.

Honneth wants to argue that the separation of labour from emancipation is itself an out-

come of the historical development: labour has, in line with industrialisation and automa-

tion become less and less emancipating. Hence, he argues, theories concerning labour have

correspondingly given it less and less emancipatory potential. But Honneth’s valuation of

labour as emancipating, in turn, is equally a historical product. As becomes clear, the

evaluation of labour (necessitas) or work (utilitas) as productive and realising activities is itself

only possible after a change in the way these activities are viewed. The ancients (and others

until the Middle Ages) saw in work (in contrast to labour) a specifically human activity but

not one that embodies the particularity of man himself. That is, of course only humans

produce objects in the way we do but these objects do not embody the freedom or unique-

ness of the person. They do not embody freedom because work is still part of utilitas and is

therefore dictated by life’s circumstances and the way nature works. They do not embody

the uniqueness of the person because it can potentially be done by someone else and also is

no adequate representation of who someone is. The production of necessitas as well as utilitas

was not seen as bringing something new to the world. Only once the making of things (poi-

esis) started to step in front of practical action (praxis) did artists, for example, start to claim

their pieces, i.e. signed them. The development of the sciences, formerly a mere theoretical

enterprise (in terms of survival an absolutely useless endeavour), started to produce its own

things (for example the telescope as the first apparatus built purely for scientific and there-

fore otherwise useless purpose) and in the industrial revolution science connected with in-

dustry (Arendt, HC, sections 35, 36). Thus, work (and labour) got the final boost they


207

needed in order to be viewed as productive phenomena. The creation of utilitas and neces-

sitas could now be seen as productive and realising. Marx then proceeds to claim this pro-

ductivity to be the crucial human ability in which the key to man’s destiny lies. The ancient

view would have never supported this claim (cf. Jauss, 1982).

Seen in this way it is not surprising that Marx had to get into problems. Only the modern

age began to ascribe a creating and then emancipating character to work. Before, labour

was merely ‘maintaining’ what was already there, it was consequently viewed as preventing

man from emancipation insofar as there had been any kind of concept of ‘emancipation’ at

all (for it is arguably a product of the Enlightenment).5 Only with the staggering increase in

the kinds and amounts of goods people were able to produce did the judgement that man

is productive in work become available, because now he really enlarged and filled the artifi-

cial world in which he lived. But these are rather quantitative states of affairs. Despite all its

seeming productivity, labour and work cannot liberate themselves from the fact that they

are connected with necessitas and utilitas, thus that they are determined by the world which

we inhabit (whether the object is important or a mere luxury, like a toaster, say). Thus, they

are not free but conditioned by needs.

That Marx therefore had to entangle himself in his claims about labour is understandable:

on the one hand he knew that work is necessary (hence he can claim that it is a universal

human trait, one that is independent of any particular social arrangement) but on the other

hand he claimed it to be man’s redemption since it is apparently so productive and emanci-

pating. Hence Marx varies between praising work as the essence of human being yet also

distinguishes the realm of work as the realm of necessity from the realm of freedom. This

problem can only arise when work is regarded as free and self-realising. But this view only appeared

with the start of the modern age (Neuzeit); until the Middle Ages this was unthinkable.

Insofar as labour is conditioned by our biological existence it is exactly not free. Also utili-

ties, the products of work, include a certain compulsion which can be traced back to our

embodiment: if we want to live in an artificial world instead of untamed nature, then we

cannot choose to construct buildings but we have to. The maintenance of this artificial

world then follows necessarily and therefore becomes akin to labour. If the artificial world

is meant to last then we have to maintain it: we have to repair roads, roofs, and mend broken

clothes. If we did not, then within a single lifetime nature would reclaim most areas and

resources that we have wrestled from her. Even if we were to liberate mankind from the

5 See also Taylor (1985, ch. 10) and Jauss (1982)


208

economic necessity to work (in order to earn a living) the activities would therefore not

become any freer in their essence. Of course, a carpenter who has to make a table for a liv-

ing is under an additional strain to the one who makes it for himself, for which reason al-

ready Aristotle made the distinction between the activity on the one hand and the addi-

tional trait to make money with it on the other (1995, Book 1, chs.8, 9, also Plato, 1987,

Book 1, 346b-e). But for both the need and the rules of how to construct a table are given

by the world we inhabit, i.e. work still remains subject to utilitas.

Marx says quite rightly that labour has to be done. This is why it is one of the few things

that is not dependent on the social and historical environment. The details of how labour is

done, for example, are, of course, dependent on the circumstances (particularly the knowl-

edge and tools available), but that it has to be done is unquestionable. As Marx aptly puts it:

life depends on it. This fact is unalterable, even in a communist society and therefore Marx

has to encounter problems because he shows work to be necessary and liberating at the same

time. Since he is aware of its necessity he ceases to call for its abolition (The German Ideology)

and only calls for the shortening of the working-day (Capital III). However, the background

admission is the same: namely that man is only free when he does not work.

But it is not only these conceptual problems that are characteristic of Historical Material-

ism, there are also the political outcomes. Indicatively, from Marx, via Habermas, to Hardt

and Negri Historical Materialism advances the universalisation of politics (if it does not

want to eliminate politics completely, which is equally a universal aim). For Marx the prole-

tariat has no home country and communism can only be achieved world-historically (i.e.

globally). Habermas, in recent years, is also going down the path of global governance and

Hardt and Negri, as shown, want to locate all sovereignty in a global ‘multitude’. Thus, we

have the same political outcome from theories with the same analytical focus (labour).

Since material production is an activity we pursue globally (everywhere people labour and

work) the focus on this activity leads to political theories that are equally globalising. The

universality of labour becomes the universalisation of the political subject. The focus on the universal

activity of material reproduction has as a consequence the universalisation of politics. Ar-

endt’s thought goes in the opposite direction: there can be no global politics.

She presents a different view: not production is the salient feature of human history but

rather the ability to live together despite6 differences and to be able to establish a realm in

6 Or even because of differences. Aristotle claimed that a group of people characterised by sameness will never make a state, it is always different people that make a state (1995, Book 2, ch.2).


209

which the distinctive fact of everyone’s uniqueness can emerge: the realm of politics. Thus,

not homo faber, the producing human, but Aristotle’s political animal is Arendt’s point of ref-

erence. Politics is not a necessity that we have to endure but a possibility that we can

achieve.7 Politics is thus not natural in the sense that it does not come about by itself. It is an

achievement, not a given. Unlike all production processes the political realm allows people

to present themselves as they are: not as makers of things but as individual actors, thus in

the way that they immediately appear to each other, without mediation via man-made ob-

jects. Not what one can produce is of importance here but who one is.

This is also crucial for emancipation. Emancipation is an individual process (in the sense of

‘individuality’ I used above for the realm of politics) that has no determinable end.8 Ac-

cordingly, it cannot be produced, or made, because it is not a power that we hold and

which we can employ like one’s labour-power. Just like the realm of politics it is not neces-

sary or given but a possibility and an achievement. It is facilitated in interaction and not in

production processes (whether labour- or work-ones). This does not mean that in produc-

tion I cannot realise something about myself, but it will concern my abilities. Yet who I am

is not exhausted by the set of my abilities since who I am as a person amongst other persons

comprises more than just what I can do.9 In this way emancipation is linked to my being,

when I am in relations with others, when I am interacting. This is not a labour process, for

it is not necessitated by the way that I or the world function. Nor is this a work-process,

for I am not creating a thing of which I have a definite picture in mind beforehand and

which is finished at a particular point. This is interaction, an ongoing process, a ‘becoming’ as

existentialists liked to say. Emancipation is neither necessary, nor useful, but it is a particular possibil-

ity given to human beings.

When emancipation is seen here as an individual development, the effect that Arendt’s ac-

count of interaction has on politics is one of interdependence. Since, if the realm of inter-

7 Here Arendt diverges from Aristotle’s term of the ‘political animal’ since it is exactly in our ability for politics that man is not an animal. Man is a social animal, but uniquely human only in his ability for politics, a realm which is conditional and fragile. We always live together in social groups, but by no means are all social groups also political groups. Already Aristotle separates political communities from others. See for example 1995, Book 1, ch.5, 1254b4, Book 3, ch.4, 1277b8, ch.7. 8 This does, however, not mean that I can conduct it by myself. Insofar as all human action pre-supposes a social background so does emancipation. 9 This is the point at which Arendt argues that I can never be the master of my own person. This is at least partly due to the fact that I do not determine the end of my actions (what multifarious effects they have) nor my own end. I initiate my actions but I do not write the story in which they appear, nor can I determine as who I will appear. It is in retrospect, namely from the position of a storyteller, that the persons in the story can be evaluated for who they are according to their entire life’s story. I am the author of my own actions but the story in which they appear has to be told by another and this story-teller will be able to see how my ac-tions that I initiate and the story which I do not write cohere and of what they are indicative concerning me as a person. I myself can never have this insight because I can never access the distant position of a spectator and storyteller that it requires. See HC, section 25, esp. p183ff.


210

action is the realm of politics, and interaction can only happen between (the ‘inter’ of ‘inter-

action’) agents, then it is also here where politics is located, namely in-between people. The

“essence” of politics, so to say, its origin and grounding, cannot be found in any one human

being but only in those immaterial relations between them (Cf. HC, p.187ff., Arendt,

2005, p.11). Hence theories which attempt to give an exhaustive definition of human be-

ings by locating all human-related phenomena, such as politics, within any single human be-

ing, fail. Arendt’s approach explicitly acknowledges the importance of those aspects of hu-

man life that are relational. In this way, politics is integral to the relations between agents

and hence not a superfluous feature. It is an intrinsic possibility that human beings, as plu-

ral and unique interacting agents, can realise.

The recognition of the uniqueness of individuals in interaction and of the plurality of the

human condition, therefore, gives a radically different outlook on politics, namely an out-

look which, contrary to Historical Materialism, also denies the possibility of global politics.

Insofar as the political subject is universalised or globalised in Historical Materialism it be-

comes un-political: as Arendt claims, due to the focus on labour the approach is un-

political because in labour individuality is neglected/undermined – one does not count as

who one is but only as an exponent of labour-power.

There can be no global political subject because ‘political’ means the coming together of

individuals in a particular challenge facing them. These challenges are particular and con-

tingent and no two communities will have the same concerns. The task of politics is to cre-

ate a world for the future, where ‘world’ means ‘lifeworld’ rather than ‘global’. This future

is thus local, namely the future of the community in which I live today and want to live to-

morrow. On the global level any individuality is undermined: no individual can take re-

sponsibility for the whole planet, no one can represent everyone. On the global level we

indeed face administration: not individuals making decisions but the bureaucratic machin-

ery issuing edicts for which no one wants to claim responsibility – responsibility is deferred

to experts, scientists, opinion polls and ‘the system’. This is not to deny that there are

global problems but their number is small, namely only those in which actually everyone

could come to harm (e.g. the threats of nuclear weapons or of global warming).

On this global level we face the masses, whether in the shape of a universalised proletariat

or the ‘multitude’. This could not be otherwise, for we are attempting to collect all living

persons under one term, such as ‘mankind’. According to my argument, ‘mankind’ may

have its use in biological, anthropological or related issues, but it cannot be a political term.

Particularly, ‘mankind’ can be no political subject or agent because it undermines the sine


211

qua non of politics: that it is an encounter of different people. ‘Mankind’ and other mass-

concepts like a global proletariat or ‘multitude’, however, undermines all differences and

thus all individuality and uniqueness. Also the ‘multitude’ cannot escape this problem: al-

though Hardt and Negri insist on the plurality of the ‘multitude’, I have shown in how far

exactly this characterisation disables it from being a political subject. The ‘multitude’, as a

universal set or set of sets, exhibits the same features as other mass-terms: it is faceless or

anonymous, thus exactly the opposite of what human beings are. The masses, in whichever

guise, remain anonymous and ungraspable. As soon as we are required to name the masses

(mankind, the ‘multitude’) we realise that we cannot name anyone. We cannot, so to say,

make a list of who belongs to the masses since any single person has characteristics that do

not fit the generality we want to capture with terms as ‘the masses’, ‘mankind’, or the ‘mul-

titude’. That such terms are not only inapplicable in politics but even politically dangerous

is not new. Jaspers remarked in 1931:

The concept of ‘the masses’ seemingly has to rule, but it turns out that it can-

not. It seems a monster but it disappears where I want to get hold of it. It is not

clear what ‘the masses’ is. It remains only quantitative and thus without being.

[…] The human being lives as itself in its environment through remembering

and forward-looking connectedness. Relieved of his grounding, without con-

scious history, without continuity of being the human being cannot remain hu-

man. The universal solution to being would reduce the being of actual people,

who are themselves in their world, to a mere function. […] Today the mass ap-

pears in arguments as the unquestionable and infallible which we must serve

and above which there is no reality; it is as if ‘the masses’ was the content of

human history and of meaningful planning. ‘Masses’ has become the ensnaring

word in order to think under the category of plurality a single anonymous sin-

gularity – mankind. But mass cannot be the carrier of meaning for the essence

of that which concerns human beings. Every human being as possible existence

is more than just a member of the mass, he experiences his own challenges

which he cannot transfer to others, and he must not lose himself in the mass,

because then he would lose his humanity. But the appeal to the mass becomes

the sophistic means to uphold an empty machinery, to flee oneself, to escape

the responsibility to the elevation of actual human being. (1999, pp. 34, 38f.,

67f., translation U.M.);

Or in Buber’s succinct words:


212

But the mankind of mere It that is imagined, postulated, and propagated […]

has nothing in common with a living mankind where Thou may truly be spoken.

(1958, p.13).

A global subject cannot help but being a non-subject insofar as it has to deny all individual-

ity, thus it cannot be a political subject, let alone a political agent. Of course such universal-

ising tendencies of the political realm do not only come out of Historical Materialism but

this tradition is one of the harbours of such tendencies.

As Arendt claimed, a labour-centred ontology must misconstrue the political. In labour and

work we can perform/organise/conceive globally and we can locate these activities within

the single human being. But insofar as we are individuals in the sense described, namely

relational plural and unique beings, there can be no global conception of it. “Globalität”

(globality) undermines individuality and a global ‘fleeting’ subject, like the ‘multitude’, can

have no stability, which is part of the job of politics. The world in which we live is ‘fleeting’

enough by itself – it is fleeting without politics.10 What we can achieve is to live in commu-

nities in which we can enjoy a degree of permanence and freedom which is otherwise un-

available, not by undermining individuality but exactly through acknowledging it. Politics

does not just concern the organisation of labour, it is not simply domination, it is not just a

means to an end and it will not simply disappear once labour is communally organised.

Both politics and labour are aspects of human life, yet they are distinct, for no focus on

only one will afford us all there is to know about the other.

Likewise there can be no global emancipation, for if emancipation is meant to refer to our

being and not just the level of material production or the domination of nature, then, again,

we need to have an account of, and access to, the individual. As I have argued, Historical

Materialism fails here: unleashing the forces of production is not synonymous with the

emancipation of mankind.11 If emancipation does not just refer to the level of social and

political influence that a group of people has (be it the proletariat or the ‘multitude’), but

retains the Enlightenment sense of realising one’s potential as a human being, then it is

clear in how far Historical Materialism misses the target: simply because the potential of 10 That the political subject of the Marxian postmodernists is ‘fleeting’ shows how similar this subject has become to all products of consumption: just like the latter the political subject is now equally without substance, without permanence or endurance. Hardt and Negri have nothing to offer against capitalist production, on the contrary, they theory is completely in its image. 11 “The general industrial process consumes more natural and human “resources” than it can create or regenerate. In this way it is autopoietic like cancer, so creative like a firework, so productive as the growing of drugs. What has been hailed as human productivity without hardly any resistance for almost two hundred years, is becoming increasingly transparent in its destructive and addictive character.” (Sloterdijk, 1995, p.79, translation U.M.)


213

human beings is not exhausted in material (or immaterial) production. Furthermore, the

production model, as a conceptual image, is not applicable to emancipation because com-

ing to realise a potential and self-reflection are not processes for which the end is deter-

minable – nor are we in charge of the process, as the image of man as ‘the producer’ sug-

gests. Instead, the latter triggers the dilemma that I have pointed out: as also Taylor (1985,

p.282) remarks, we have to live with a self-induced problem: we understand ourselves as

the creators of our destinies, yet the development of modern states, life, work, etc. is such

that our heightened sense of control, autonomy, and resulting self-worth and esteem, is

precisely not met. Some of Marx’s characterisations of the industrial societies of his time

still apply: we feel increasingly unfulfilled, unchallenged, insignificant and left out. This may

partly be a result of capitalism, but it is also simply a result of mass-societies. The bureau-

cratic system of modern states adds its own share in reducing the single person to a num-

ber. Our frustration at realising ourselves is not just due to alienating work-conditions un-

der capitalism but goes in hand with all paradigms that endorse the ideal of self-crafting,

including Historical Materialism. Thus, when work is combined with one’s essence then

one defines oneself through work. This is the legacy of industrialisation. As a result, today

we accept the equivocation of individuality with work and we are also still under the influ-

ence of an ethic which tells us that we can (and should) make ourselves. I have argued that

such an approach fails. The globalising tendencies that Historical Materialism harbours,

because it does not account for persons as who they are but only as exponents of such gen-

eral (and global) traits as labour-power, mirrors and manifests its neglect of uniqueness in

the political realm.

I do not, of course, thereby argue against globalisation. The increasingly dense trade-

relations that we witness are really a process that started long before the industrial revolu-

tion. I do, however, oppose global conceptions of politics. Sloterdijk’s (1995, pp.57, 64)

remark that human communities can only regenerate from the small-scale level, links up

with Arendt’s vision of politics, since she thinks it is only possible in a localised setting.12

Globalisation does present our species with a previously unprecedented condition of inter-

connectedness for which most of our social structures, as well as social theories, have noth-

ing to offer. As Sloterdijk (1995, esp. p.55) states: the politics for the 21st century have not

yet been written. Contrary to the adherents of globalising approaches of politics I consider

12 “In their decay the superstructures show that they have almost nothing to give to the single individ-ual in order to continue his/her life. Rather it becomes clear: as soon as the opus commune disintegrates on the higher level people can only regenerate from smaller units.” (Sloterdijk, 1995, p. 64, translation U.M.)


214

their attempts in vain.13 Historical Materialism is prone to advocate such approaches due to

its reductive image of the human being. What Arendt can offer, and what I have supported

and elaborated here, is a more encompassing approach to human life which does not con-

clude with an end of politics but with its appraisal. Whether the concept of politics that

results from Arendt’s view is successful in the (post)modern world is not question that can

yet be answered. As far as I have argued, however, contrary to Historical Materialism it ac-

knowledges the intrinsic relational facts of uniqueness, plurality and interaction, that are

central human life. To recognise these facts requires an Arendtian framework, one in which

the interaction of human beings is conceived irrespective of their productivity but as the

unique persons who they are.

13 “In the same way that there was no classical politics without the resistance of the tribes and hordes including an entire counter-world of anarchisms, privatisms, and childishness, there will also be no hyper [i.e. global] politics without the revenge of the local and the individual. Big regions will turn away in latent and manifested strikes from the world-form of globalised capital. In the same way, as already visible, considerable parts of the populations will turn their backs in hostile indifference to all things political.” (Sloterdijk, 1995, p.57, translation U.M.]


215

Bibliography:

‘Keep on smiling’, 2006, Aufheben, Issue 14, libcom.org/aufheben

Agger, M., 2009, Heidegger and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,

http://www.slate.com/id/2218650/pagenum/all/

Andras, P., et.al., 2005, Faults, errors and failures in communications: A systems the-

ory perspective on organisational structure, in: Besnard, D, et.al., (Eds.) Structure for

Dependability: Computer-Based Systems from an Interdisciplinary Perspective, Springer-Verlag,

pp.189-216

Andras, P., et.al., 2009, Network analysis of complex systems, Presentation given at the

University of Kent 2009

Andrew, E., 1970, Work and Freedom in Marcuse and Marx, Canadian Journal of Politi-

cal Science, 3, 2, 241-256

Arendt, H., 1958, The Human Condition, University of Chicago Press, Chicago

Arendt, H., 1987, Amor Mundi: explorations in the faith and thought of Hannah Arendt,

J.W.Bernauer (ed.), Canada Kluwer Academic Publishers

Arendt, H., 2002, Vom Leben des Geistes, Piper, München

Arendt, H., 2005, Was ist Politik?, Piper, München

Arendt, H., 2006, Macht und Gewalt, Piper, München

Aristotle, 1976, Ethics, Penguin Books, London

Aristotle, 1995, Politik,Philosophische Schriften, in sechs Bänden, Band 4,

Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt


216

Bakan, M., 1979, Hannah Arendt’s concepts of labour and work, in Hill, M.A.., 1979,

Hannah Arendt: The Recovery of the Public World, St. Martin’s Press, New York

Benhabib, S., 1986, Critique, Norm and Utopia, a study of the foundations of Critical Theory,

Columbia University Press, New York

Benhabib, S., 1992, Situating the Self: gender, community and postmoderism in contemporary eth-

ics, Polity, Cambridge

Benhabib, S., 1998, Hannah Arendt, Die melancholische Denkerin der Moderne, Rotbuch

Verlag, Hamburg

Braverman, H., 1974, Labour and Monopoly Capital, the degradation of work in the 20th Cen-

tury, Monthly Review Press, New York

Breen, 2007, Work and Emancipatory Practice: Towards a Recovery of Human Be-

ings’ productive Capacities, Res Publica, 13, 4, (December), 381-414

Buber, M., 1958, I and though, T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh

Canovan, M., 1983, A Case of Distorted Communication: A Note on Habermas and

Arendt, Political Theory, Vol. 11, No. 1. (Feb.), 105-116

Chitty, A., 1993, The Early Marx on Needs, Radical Philosophy, 64, Summer, 23-31

Clark, S., 2005, A Grammar of the Multitude: for an analysis of contemporary forms

of life, Political Theory, Vol. 33, No. 5 (Oct., 2005), pp. 735-737

Cohen, A.G., 1978, Karl Marx’s Theory of History, A Defence, Clarendon Press, Oxford

Collins, H., 1965, Sociology of Emancipation, Phylon, Vol. 26, No. 2. (2nd Qtr), 148-

161

Coward, M., 2005, The Globalisation of Enclosure: Interrogating the Geopolitics of

Empire, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 6, pp 855-871


217

Disch, J.L., 1994 Arendt and the limits of philosophy, Cornell University Press, New York

Dryzeck, J., 2005, Deliberative Democracy in Divided Societies, Alternatives to Ago-

nism and Analgesia, Political Theory, Vol.33, No.2, (April), 218-242

Durkheim, E., 1984, The Division of Labour in Society, Macmillan, Basingstoke

Elster, J., 1985, Making Sense of Marx, Cambridge University Press, Paris

Engels, 1962, Socialism, utopian and scientific, in Selected Works in Two Volumes, Vol.

II, Lawrence & Wishart, London

Engler, W., 2005, Bürger, ohne Arbeit, für eine radikale Neugestaltung der Gesellschaft,

Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin

Eyerman, R. et. al., 1981. Habermas on Work and Culture, Theory and Society, Vol. 10,

No. 4 (July), 547-566

Forbes, I., 1983, Marx and Human Nature, Frances Pinter, London

Fossen, T., 2008, Agonistic Critiques of Liberalism: Perfection and Emancipation,

Contemporary Political Theory, 7, 4, 367-394

Fraser, N., 2007, Die Transnationalisierung der Öffentlichkeit, Legitimität und

Effektivität der öffentlichen Meinung in einer postwestfälischen Welt, in Nielsen, P.,

et.al., 2007, Anarchie der kommunikativen Freiheit, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main,

224-253

Freystedt, V., et.al., 2005, Equilibrismus, neue Konzepte statt Reformen fuer eine Welt im

Gleichgewicht, Signum Verlag, Wien

Fromm, 1941, The Fear of Freedom, Routledge, London

Fromm, 2006, Beyond the Chains of Illusion, Continuum, London


218

Gould, C. 1978, Marx’s social ontology: Individuality and community in Marx’s theory of social

reality, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.

Goldsmith, M., 2008, What got you here won’t get you there, how successful people become even

more successful, Hyperion, New York

Habermas, J., 1969, Technik und Wissenschaft als Ideologie, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt

am Main

Habermas, J., 1971, Theorie und Praxis, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main

Habermas, J., 1972, Knowledge and Human Interest, Heinemann London

Habermas, J., 1974, Theory and Practice, Heinemann, London

Habermas, J., 1975, Towards a Reconstruction of Historical Materialism, Theory and

Society, Vol. 2, No. 3 (Autumn), pp. 287-300

Habermas, J., 1984, The theory of communicative action, Vol. 1: reason and the rationalisation of

society, Polity Press, London

Habermas, J., 1987, The theory of communicative action, Vol. 2: Lifeworld and system, a critique

of functionalist reason, Polity Press, Cambridge

Habermas, J., 1990, Strukurwandel der Öffentlichkeit., Suhrkamp Taschenbuch, Frankfurt

am Main

Habermas, J., 1991, A Reply, in Honneth et.al., 1991, Communicative Action, essays on

Jürgen Habermas’ ‘Theory of Communicative Action’, Polity Press, Oxford, 215-293

Habermas, J., 1996, Labour and Interaction, remarks on Hegel’s Jena Philosophy of

Mind, in J.O’Neill, ed. Hegel’s dialectic of desire and recognition, State University of New

York Press, New York


219

Hardt, M., 1999, Affective Labour, Boundary 2, Vol. 26, No.2, (Summer), 89-100

Hegel, G.W.F., 1977, Phenomenology of Spirit, Clarendon Press, Oxford

Hegel, G.W.F., 1987, Phänomenologie des Geistes, Reclam (reprint 2003), Ditzingen

Hegel, G.W.F., 1988, Elements of a philosophy of right, Phenomenology of spirit, Introduction to

the Philosophy of History, transl. L.Rauch, Hachett, Indianapolis

Hegel, G.W.F., 1991, Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Cambridge University Press,

Cambridge

Heidegger, M., 2001, Sein und Zeit, Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen

Hill, Melvyn A.., 1979, Hannah Arendt: The Recovery of the Public World, St. Martin’s

Press, New York

Hill, P., 1999, Tangibles, Intangibles and Services: A New Taxonomy for the Classifi-

cation of Output, The Canadian Journal of Economics, Vol.32, No.2, 426-446

Hobbes, T., 2005, Leviathan, in Morgan, M.L. (ed.), Classics of Moral and Political The-

ory, Hackett Publishing Company Cambridge

Honneth, A., 1991, Communicative action: essays on Jürgen Habermas’s The theory of communi-

cative action, Polity, Cambridge

Honneth, A., 1982, Work and Instrumental Action, Critical Theory and Modernity,

Spring-Summer, 31-54

Honneth, A., 2008, Reification: a new look at an old idea, Oxford University Press USA,

New York

Honneth, A., et.al., 1991, Communicative Action, essays on Jürgen Habermas’ ‘Theory of

Communicative Action’, Polity Press, Oxford


220

Jaspers, K., 1963, Philosophie und Welt, Piper & Co. Verlag, München

Jaspers, K. 1999, Die geistige Situation der Zeit, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin

Jaspers, K., 2007, Chiffren der Transzendenz, Auditorium

Jauss, H.R., 1982, Poiesis (transl. by Michael Shaw), Critical Inquiry, Vol. 8, No. 3,

(Spring, 1982), pp. 591-608,

Joas, H., The Unhappy Marriage of Hermeneutics and Functionalism, in Honneth

et.al., 1991, Communicative action: essays on Jürgen Habermas’s The theory of communicative ac-

tion, Polity, Cambridge, 97-118

Kant, Ideen zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht, Vierter Satz, (Mundus

Verlag, 2000)

Karlsson, J.C., 2001, The Ontology of Work: Social Relations and Doing in the Sphere of Ne-

cessity, (PDF), paper presented at the 5th Annual IACR Conference, held at Roskilde

University, Denmark, Friday 17 to Sunday 19 August 2001.); available at:

http://www.raggedclaws.com/criticalrealism/archive/iacr_conference_2001/jkarlsso

n_ow.pdf

Keane, J., 1975, On Tools and Language: Habermas on Work and Interaction, New

German Critique, No.6 (Autumn), pp. 82-100

Kellner, D., 2002, Theorizing Globalisation, Sociological Theory, Vol.20, No.3, (No-

vember), 285-305

Knops, A., 2006, Delivering Deliberation’s Emancipatory Potential, Political Theory,

34, 5, (October), 594-623

Lazzarato, M., Immaterial Labour, available at: http://www.generation-

online.org/c/fcimmateriallabour3.htm


221

Leiss, W., 1971, Technological Rationality: Notes on “Work and Freedom in Marcuse

and Marx, Canadian Journal of Political Science, 4, 3, 398-400

Lenin, 1978, Marx, Engels, Lenin: on communist society, a collection, Progress Publishers,

London

Lukács, G., 1980, Labour, Merlin Press, London

MacIntyre, A.C., 1985, After Virtue, Duckworth, London

Marcuse, H., 1955, Reason and Revolution, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London and

Henley

Marcuse, H., 1965, Kultur und Gesellschaft, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main

Marcuse, H., 2008, A Study on Authority, Verso, London

Marx, K., 1963, The poverty of philosophy, International Publishers

Marx, K., 1962, Critique of the Gotha Program, in Selected Works in Two Volumes, Vol.

II, Lawrence & Wishart, London

Marx, K., 1966, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, in Fromm, E., Marx’s Con-

cept of Man, Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., New York

Marx, K., 1967, The Communist Manifesto, Penguin Books Ltd., Harmondsworth

Marx, K., 1968, The German Ideology, Progress Publishers, Moscow

Marx, K., 1970, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Progress Publishers,

Moscow

Marx, K., 1971, Capital, A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production, Volume I, Progress

Publishers, Moscow


222

Marx, K., 1971 b, Capital, A Critique of Political Economy, Volume III, Progress Publish-

ers, Moscow

Marx, K., 1973, Grundrisse, Penguin Books Ltd., Harmondsworth

Marx, K., 1976, The German Ideology, MECW, Vol. 5, Lawrence & Wishart, London

Marx, K., 1976 b, Feuerbach and End of Classical German Philosophy, MECW, Vol. 26,

Lawrence & Wishart, London

Marx, K., Wages, Price and Profit, MECW, Lawrence & Wishart, London

Marx, K., 1994, Theses on Feuerbach, in Simon, L.H., Karl Marx, Selected Writings, Hack-

ett Publishing Company Inc., Cambridge

Marx, K., Comments on J.S. Mill, MECW, Lawrence & Wishart, London

Simon, L.H., 1994, Karl Marx, Selected Writings, Hackett Publishing Company Inc.,

Cambridge

McLellan, D., 1984, Marx, William Collins Sons & Co Ltd., Glasgow

Mill, J.S., 1978, On Liberty, Hackett, Indianapolis

Morris, M., 2004, The Critique of Transcendence, Political Theory, Vol. 32, No. 1

(Feb.), 121-132

Mouffe, C., 1993, The Return of the Political, Verso, London

Mouffe, C., 2000, The democratic Paradox, Verso, London

Mouffe, C., 2005, On the Political, Routledge, London

Mulhall, S., 1998, Species-being, Teleology and Individuality, Angelaki, 3, 1, 9, Carfax

Publishing Ltd., Abingdon, 9-28


223

Negri, A., et.al., 2000, Empire, Harvard University Press, London

Negri, A., et.al., 2004, Multitude, Penguin Books, London

Nielsen, P., et.al., 2007, Anarchie der kommunikativen Freiheit, Suhrkamp Verlag,

Frankfurt am Main

Ninkovich, F., 2000, untitled review, Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 115, No. 3 (Au-

tumn), pp. 488-489

O’Neill, J., ed., 1996, Hegel’s dialectic of desire and recognition, State University of New

York Press, 1996

Parekh, B., 1981, Man and the World of Appearances, in Hannah Arendt and the search

for a new political philosophy, Macmillan Press, London, 84-130

Pfeiffer, S., 2004, Arbeitsvermögen, VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden

Plato, 1987, The Republic, Penguin Books, London

Popper, K.R., 1958, Die offene Gesellschaft und ihre Feinde, Band II, A. Francke AG

Verlag, Bern

Popper, K.R., 2002, Conjectures and Refutations, Routledge, London

Press, H. 1977, The existential Basis of Marxism, Philosophy and Phenomenological Re-

search, 37, 3, 331-344

Rancière, J., 1992, On the Shores of Politics, Verso, London

Ricoeur, P., 2004, Memory, History, Forgetting, University of Chicago Press, London

Rifkin, J., 2004, The End of Work, Penguin Books, New York


224

Rotenstreich, N., 1977, Theory and Practice, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague

Runciman, W.G., (1969), Social Science and Political Theory, Cambridge University Press,

London

Sartre, J.P., 1990, Critique of Dialectical Reason, Verso, London

Sartre, J.P., 1973, Existentialism & Humanism, Methuen, London

Sayers, S., 2009, Review, Mind, 118, 470, 476-9

Sayers, S., 2007, The Concept of Labour, Marx and his Critics, Science & Society, Vol.

71, No. 4, 431-454

Sayers, S., 2006, Freedom and the "Realm of Necessity'', The Left-Hegelians: New Phi-

losophical and Political Perspectives, ed. Douglas Moggach, Cambridge University Press,

Cambridge and New York, 2006, pp. 261-74

Sayers, S., 2005, Why work? Marxism and Human Nature, Science & Society, Vol. 69,

No. 4, 606-16

Sayers, S., 2003, Creative Activity and Alienation in Hegel and Marx, Historical Materi-

alism, Vol. 11, No. 1, 107-128

Sayers, S., 1998, Marxism and Human Nature, Routledge, London

Schaff, A.., 1965, Marxismus und das menschliche Individuum, Europa-Verlag, Frankfurt

Schmalz-Bruhns, R., 2007, An den Grenzen der Entstaatlichung, Bemerkungen zu

Jürgen Habermas’ Modell einer „Weltinnerpolitik ohne Weltregierung, in Nielsen, P.,

et.al., 2007, Anarchie der kommunikativen Freiheit, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main,

269-293

Schoolman, M., 1973, Further Reflections on Work, Alienation, and Freedom in

Marcuse and Marx, Canadian Journal of Political Science, 6, 2, 295-302


225

Schütz, A., et. al., 2003, Strukturen der Lebenswelt, UVK Verlagsgesellschaft mbH,

Konstanz

Searle, J.R., 2003, Rationality in Action, MIT Press, New York

Seth, S., 2002, Back to the Future?, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3 (June), 565-

575

Sennett, R., 2008, The Craftsman, Penguin Books, London

Sherman, D., et. al., 1999, Hegel’s phenomenology of self-consciousness, State University of

New York Press, New York

Simon, L.H., 1994, Karl Marx, Selected Writings, Hackett Publishing Company Inc.,

Cambridge

Smith, A.A., 1984, Two Theories of Historical Materialism: G. A. Cohen and Jürgen

Habermas, Theory and Society, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Jul., 1984), pp. 513-540

Steger, M.B., 2002, Review, The American Political Science Review, Vol. 96, No. 1, March,

pp. 264-265)

Sloterkijk, P., 1995, In Einem Boot, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main

Suchting, W.A., Marx and Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition, Ethics, Vol. 73,

No. 1 (Oct., 1962), pp. 47-55

Svendsen, L., 2008, Work, Acumen, Stocksfield

Taylor, C., Language and Society, in ‚Communicative Action, essays on Jürgen Habermas’

„The Theory of Communicative Action“, A. Honneth and H. Joas (ed.), translated by Jer-

emy Gaines and Doris L. Jones, (Polity Press, Oxford, 1991), 23-35


226

Taylor, C., 1985, Philosophy and the Human Sciences, Philosophical Papers 2, Cambridge

University Press, Cambridge

Taylor, P., 1993, The Texts of Paulo Freire, Open University Press, Buckingham

Templar, R., 2005, The Rules of Management, Pearson Education Ltd., Harlow

Tilly, C., 2002, Review, Canadian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 35, No. 1 (March), 224-

225

Vazquez-Arroyo, A.Y., 2002, Recasting the Left at the “End of History”, Polity, Vol.

34, No. 4, Summer, pp. 553-569

Weil, S., 1985, Oppression and Liberty, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London

Whitmore, J., 2002, Coaching for Performance, Nicholas Brealey Publishing, London

Yack, B., 2006, Rhetoric and Public Reasoning: an Aristotelian Understanding of Po-

litical Deliberation, Political Theory, 34, 417-434

Zizek, S., 2006, http://www.lacan.com/zizblow.htm)

Further References:

Anderson, B., 2000, The global Politics of Domestic Labour, Routledge, London

Bessette, J., 1994, The Mild Voice of Reason: Deliberative Democracy and American National

Government, University of Chicago Press, Chicago

Blackburn, S., 2007, A Fair Days Wage for a Fair Days Work?, Ashgate Publishing Ltd,

Aldershot

Cohen, J., 1989, Deliberative Democracy and Democratic Legitimacy, in Pettit, P.,

et.al., The Good Polity, Blackwell, Oxford, 17-34

Colella, A., 2009, Discrimination at Work, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publish-

ers, Mahwah

Connolly, W.E., 1987, Politics and Ambiguity, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison


227

Crawford, M.B., 2009, Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work, Penguin

Press HC, London

de Botton, A., 2009, The Joys and Sorrows of Work, Hamish Hamilton

Donkin, R., 2001, Blood, Sweat and Tears: the Evolution of Work, Texere

Elster, J., 1998, Deliberative Democracy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Friedman, S.D., et.al, 2000, Work and Family – Allies or Enemies, Oxford University

Press, Oxford

Gini, A., 2001, My Job, My Self: Work and the Creation of the Modern Individual, Routledge,

London

Gorz, A., 2001, Farewell to the Working Class, Pluto Press, London

Hemsath, D., et.al., 1997, 301 Ways to have fun at Work, Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Inc., San Francisco

Honig, B., 1993, Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics, Cornell University Press,

New York

Honneth, A., 1985, Kritik der Macht, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main

Kang, L., 2007, Passion at Work , Prentice Hall

Laclau, E., (1985) Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, Verso Books, London

Malin, N., 2000, Professionalism, Boundaries and the Workplace, Routledge, London

Margolis, S., et.al., 2006, There is no place like work, Gibbs Smith

Peppers, C., et.al.,2000, Bringing your soul to work, Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc., San

Francisco

Martin, M.W., 2000, Meaningful Work, Oxford University Press, Oxford

McKinlay, A., et.al., 2009, Creative Labour, Palgrave Macmillan

Meilaender, G.C., 2000, Working: its meaning and its limits, University of Notre Dame

Press

Muirhead, R., 2007, Just Work, Harvard University Press

Nino, C., 1996, The Constitution of Deliberative Democracy, Yale University

Press. New Haven

Piper, I., 2007, Women and work in Globalising Asia, Taylor & Francis

Rapoport, R., et.al., 2001, Beyond Work-Family Balance: Advancing Gender Equity and

Workplace Performance, Jossey-Bass

Schreiner, O., 2008, Woman and Labour, Bibliolife

Sennett, R., 1998, The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New

Capitalism, W.W. Norton & Company Ltd., London

Taylor, P., 1993, The Texts of Paulo Freire, Open University Press, Buckingham


228

Thompson, P., 1997, The nature of work, Palgrave Macmillan

Toynbee, P., 2003, Hard Work: Life in Low-Pay Britain, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Waddell, G., et.al., 2006, Is Work Good for Your Health and Well-Being?, Stationery Of-

fice Books

Documents

Labour, Politics and Emancipation, Arendt and the Historical Materialist Tradition