sb writes:
>
> what precisely is left of Marxism once we reject all these things?
>[teleological history and "science] It is
> true that Foucault is ready to accept a deployment of discourse in almost
> any form it might emerge so long as it operates as a "critical and not a
> regulative principle" (his comments about democracy), but can we say that
> this really represents a relationship to Marx's thought or just his
> acknowledgement that history produces some interesting and potentially
> radical instruments?
>
To me, these are really important questions, but I am by no means prepared to
answer them in anything approaching a sufficient manner. Maybe others could try
to fill in some of the many gaps that this quick response will leave.
First off, it seems that while in one sense the idea of criticism is a bit too
general to really provide a "relationship" between Marx and Foucault, it can
give one a starting point to begin articulating the possibilities of such a
relation. I find "On the Jewish Question" and the "Economic and philosophic
manuscripts" to be the best places to locate a "spirit of Marx" that has great
affinities to the genealogical critique that Foucault articulates. Marx's
critique of bourgeois (liberal) politics in "On the Jewish Question" strikes at
the heart of the liberal public/private distinction by revealing the
inadequacies in mistaking political emanciaption with human emancipation.
Bourgeois liberals mistake man as a fully social human being for a mere economic
agent; they thus create a concept of man that I think bears striking resemblanc
to the concept whose demise Foucault's attempts to hasten in "The Order of
Things." In the economic and philosphic manuscripts Marx provides what (I would
argue) could be called a genealogical critique of political economy. The
political economists make the same mistake as the moral philosophers toward whom
Nietzsche directs some of his greatest wrath: they both presuppose exactly what
they ought to proveÑ-they always insist upon leaving at least one thing
unquestioned, unchallenged. The political economists never explain private
property or the relations it entails, just as the moral philosophers never
explain or question morality itself.
So, certainly one can't just say that Foucault and Marx are critics, but I think
it is possible, through close textual work to specify the similarities between
their form of historical critique. The above only hints at what that type of
work would look like, but of course that is all that is possible in this
setting.
Sam Chambers
University of Minnesota
>
> what precisely is left of Marxism once we reject all these things?
>[teleological history and "science] It is
> true that Foucault is ready to accept a deployment of discourse in almost
> any form it might emerge so long as it operates as a "critical and not a
> regulative principle" (his comments about democracy), but can we say that
> this really represents a relationship to Marx's thought or just his
> acknowledgement that history produces some interesting and potentially
> radical instruments?
>
To me, these are really important questions, but I am by no means prepared to
answer them in anything approaching a sufficient manner. Maybe others could try
to fill in some of the many gaps that this quick response will leave.
First off, it seems that while in one sense the idea of criticism is a bit too
general to really provide a "relationship" between Marx and Foucault, it can
give one a starting point to begin articulating the possibilities of such a
relation. I find "On the Jewish Question" and the "Economic and philosophic
manuscripts" to be the best places to locate a "spirit of Marx" that has great
affinities to the genealogical critique that Foucault articulates. Marx's
critique of bourgeois (liberal) politics in "On the Jewish Question" strikes at
the heart of the liberal public/private distinction by revealing the
inadequacies in mistaking political emanciaption with human emancipation.
Bourgeois liberals mistake man as a fully social human being for a mere economic
agent; they thus create a concept of man that I think bears striking resemblanc
to the concept whose demise Foucault's attempts to hasten in "The Order of
Things." In the economic and philosphic manuscripts Marx provides what (I would
argue) could be called a genealogical critique of political economy. The
political economists make the same mistake as the moral philosophers toward whom
Nietzsche directs some of his greatest wrath: they both presuppose exactly what
they ought to proveÑ-they always insist upon leaving at least one thing
unquestioned, unchallenged. The political economists never explain private
property or the relations it entails, just as the moral philosophers never
explain or question morality itself.
So, certainly one can't just say that Foucault and Marx are critics, but I think
it is possible, through close textual work to specify the similarities between
their form of historical critique. The above only hints at what that type of
work would look like, but of course that is all that is possible in this
setting.
Sam Chambers
University of Minnesota