For the sake of not letting these papers I write fall into my documents file -never to be seen again- I thought I would post this silly little theory paper I spent so much time working on this week. It's about four pages of bullshit, but I'm pretty sure that's what the Professor Lo is asking for. Now, I don't expect anyone to understand this stuff (or read it all for that matter). I post it to illustrate the ridiculous expectations of the course. Clarence is a great dude, but he specifically asks questions that will torture his students. This question, while straightforward, forced us to sift through several hundred pages in two different books about the history of economic development in the Western world.
First thing to note, he expects us to make an argument explicitly through citations in the text. I have an average of about five citations PER paragraph. Now, this might be normal for history students, but this is some bullshit for sociologists. Our sense of knowledge ownership and production doesn't work like this. Secondly, this is not in my area. Though I have read quite a bit of Marx and it's certainly relevant, the enitre framework is outside the scope of the work I do. This is the question:
"Is Marx's critique of political economy in his later writings, and his theories of ideology and consciousness in his early writings, consistent with Polanyi's account of the rise of market ideology and "natural law" around the early nineteenth century?"
In case, for whatever reason, you decide to read the whole thing and are unfamiliar, here's a few definitions. Political economy implies the relationship between political and economic institutions throughout history. Ideologies are basically cultural explanations for the material world (people, money, land, food, etc). "Natural Laws" are a set of early 19th century philosophical explanations for the economy; they argued that human beings by nature are economic beings, and the economy as a social system must be allowed to function on its own without "human" intervention for the greatest benefit of society. The two historians, Karl Marx and Karl Polanyi (pause here to say that economic historians named Karl are dicks), basically think natural laws are bullshit explanations that ignore the importance of community and that we need to protect ourselves from economic threats. For Marx, this whole issue is about conflict between social classes and the ability for the "haves" (bourgeousie) to exploit the labor of the "have nots" (proletariat). Polanyi writes 100 years later in what I assume is a functionalist tradition. He also thinks natural law is bullshit (by the way, this includes the shit idea of "trickle-down economics" which is STILL the Republican solution to poverty despite a mass of evidence to the contrary), but Polanyi generally dismisses class and argues that the State (politics) must balance out threats to our society with "interventionist" measures. Marx sees the state as another bourgeousie aparatus to control the workforce (politicians being part of the wealthy/capitalist class). These are both arguments against what we would call neo-conservative economics (which are the "liberal economics" of the past). I did think it was interesting how this is all still relevant.....
Why the fuck am I writing about this? It's over. I just wanted to post about how much it sucked. Damnit. I'll write something else later. Anyway, here's that stupid paper.
Contradictions and Complements: Marx and Polanyi
The development of a capitalist economy has been interpreted in fundamentally different ways by Karl Marx and Karl Polanyi. I have sought out similarities, but these two texts are wildly different in approach. By the end of this paper, I will attempt to illustrate the Marxian notions of consciousness and ideology in Polanyi’s work; however, I come to the general conclusion that while technically correct, Marx would identify the use of these concepts in Polanyi as incompatible with a materialist conception of history.
Marx and Polanyi trace the development of modern capitalism through many of the same historical stages. In these specific similarities, the differences are glaring. Marx (p. 467, par. 4) notes the importance of enclosures in the development of the proletariat class, and Polanyi (p. 36, par. 1) speaks of this period in terms of social dislocation. Marx addresses enclosures as an act of “robbery” where communal land is stolen for private ownership (Marx, p. 472, par. 1). Polanyi interprets their development as necessary and tempered by state intervention (Polanyi, p. 39, par. 1). Both also make remarks on the Speenhamland poor-rate (Marx, p. 470, par. 1). Unlike Polanyi, Marx takes a favorable tone toward the poor rate, suggesting that the “nation was obliged to recognize pauperism officially (Marx, p. 470, par. 1).”
These two examples point to distinct differences in Marx and Polanyi’s approach to political economy. The clearest statement of the Marxian model is the opening line of Manifesto of the Communist Party, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles (Marx, p. 203, par. 1).” He argues that the material world, the means of production, in any given historical epoch shapes the development of culture, family, religion, and most importantly for this discussion, the state. In a capitalist society, the state is separated from communal interests and becomes the “form in which the individuals of the ruling class assert their common interests (Marx, p. 184, par. 2).” It is an “illusory” social form, which masks the material struggles of the proletariat (Marx, p. 177, par. 177). For Polanyi, on the other hand, “history of nineteenth-century civilization consisted largely in attempts to protect society against the ravages of such a mechanism (Polanyi, p. 42, par. 2).” The state, in essence, protects the social system against the inherent threats of a self-regulating market.
In line with his criticism of Hegel (p. 159, par. 2), Marx might cast Polanyi as a bourgeoisie apologist. His later writings on the economy argue that the state encompasses bourgeois interests, which are “the national power of capital over labor (Marx, p. 510, par. 1).” Though Polanyi supports the social system through state intervention, he is intentionally uncritical of “sectional interests.” He describes class as the “natural vehicle of social change (p. 159, par. 4),” but he argues for a “double movement” interpretation of history, focusing on the complementary nature of the state system and the economic system (Polanyi, p. 138, par. 3). Marx actually echoes the double movement concept with what he calls the natural (material) relations and the social relations of society (Marx, p. 173, par. 1). However, while both critique civil society as defined by Marx (p. 179, par 4; p. 180, par. 1), Marx does not see the political state as a measure of self-protection, but rather a ruling class tool for exploitation (p. 180, par 2) and an “illusory communal life (p. 176, par. 3).”
Polanyi combats this critique from Marx in several ways. He argues that the exploitation theory of Ricardian class struggle was unable to account for a general rise in wages (Polanyi, p. 42, par. 1). He suggests that many state measures, sanitation for example, had nothing at all to do with economic interests (Polanyi, p. 161, par. 1). He draws on Owen as the only contemporary of the industrial revolution to correctly argue that the working class largely benefitted from moves made by the state (Polanyi, p. 134, par. 2)
Marx directly critiques Owen, as well as other scholars of early capitalism, as a reactionary ideologue who did not work with a mature version of class warfare and the state (Marx, p. 237, par. 3). For Marx, the state apparatus must fully develop for the population to grasp the antagonisms (or contradictions) laden in the capitalist economy. This would give the proletariat the tools necessary to bring about a new stage of human history (Marx, p. 193, par. 2).
I point to these disparities in their economic histories to support the argument that while consciousness and ideology may be apparent in Polanyi’s work, they are actually incompatible and contradictory to Marx. Consciousness, for Marx, is the “production of ideas... Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life-processes (Marx, p. 169, par. 2).” In his formulation, consciousness is the awareness of individual life, but he also argues that consciousness arises out of interaction with other humans (Marx, p. 175, par. 3). This is an important distinction from notions of “pure” consciousness because it suggests that ideological processes can become “phantoms” of the material world (Marx, p. 169, par. 3) and therefore “facilitate the arrangement of historical material (Marx, p. 170, par. 170).” These “phantoms” –what we more commonly know as false consciousness- work to prevent the working class from overcoming the contradictions imposed by capitalist economies and bourgeoisie control of the state (Marx, p. 175, par. 1-2).
Polanyi, too, is concerned with consciousness. He argues through Robert Owen that the “reform of human consciousness” is “reached through the recognition of the realities of society (Polanyi, p. 133, par. 2).” This is not unlike Marx; however, the nature of these realities is debated between the two. Polanyi and Marx are both critical of “natural law” economics. In chapter ten of The Great Transformation, Polanyi details natural law theories from Smith’s humanist foundations (p. 116, par. 2) to Townsend’s explicit animalistic naturalism (p. 119, par. 2), the law of wages (p. 128, par. 4), and others. In “Birth of the Liberal Creed,” Polanyi explains how these natural laws became full-fledged ideologies acting against protectionist politics (p. 148, par. 2; p. 150, par. 2).
For Polanyi, natural law and the liberal creed are an ideological mythos used to defend against “collectivist” measures (Polanyi, p. 151, par. 3). Marx would agree with this assessment. He argues that these natural laws provide “an opportunity for the underhand introduction of bourgeois situations as irreversible natural laws of society in the abstract (Marx, p. 379, par. 2).” However, this is as far as the similarities can take us. For Marx, these natural laws are ideological tools used to establish class supremacy. Polanyi, however, equates Marxist economics with the liberal creed as yet another sectionalist interest, which denies the spontaneous balance between economy and state (Polanyi, p. 158, par. 2). In fact, Polanyi accuses Marx of bringing naturalist assumptions into his economic theory through his association with Ricardian economics (Polanyi, p. 131, par. 2), which continued to assume some tenets of natural law (Polanyi, p. 132, par. 3).
I believe Marx would counter this argument by suggesting that Polanyi’s elevation of the state is in fact an ideological justification for the current mode of production because Polanyi glosses over the interests involved in the state mechanism itself (Marx, p. 184, par. 1). This becomes a circular argument of whom is the ideological obstruction for whom. The character of Polanyi’s use of consciousness and ideology is quite different from Marx. Through Marx’s materialist approach, he seeks to emancipate the species-being from the alienating nature of all pre-Communist societies (Marx, p. 140, par. 2). Polanyi, on the other hand, is concerned more with the threats imposed by a self-regulating market on the total social system, disregarding class interests (Polanyi, p. 138, par. 3). While the two draw on similar historical events and, in fact Polanyi’s use of consciousness and ideology may have origins in Marx, the distinct modes of historical analysis lead us to two contradictory conclusions.
Hope that was as fun for you as it was for me!
-Mike
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