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Chapter 2 Lukacs.
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In this chapter I look at the place of fetishism in Lukacs’ theory of social
domination. To do so I focus on how Lukacs’ conception of fetishism fits into his
Hegelian-Marxism. I then examine how this conception of fetishism informs his
theory of reification. I close with some criticisms of Lukacs’ theory of reification.
1 Literature on Lukacs and Fetishism as Reification
Following the typology outlined in the introduction to this thesis the
majority of commentary on Lukacs’ conception of reification can be placed in
two typologies: continuity and discontinuity accounts of fetishism as reification.
1.2 Continuity
The continuity account of Fetishism as Reification conceives of a
conceptual continuity between Marx and Lukacs’ conception of fetishism. In this
view fetishism and reification are treated interchangeably.1 This account does
not distinguish between what I argued is Marx’s account of the objectification of
persons and the fetish characterization of things. Nor does this account interpret
a conceptual distinction between Marx’s conception of fetishism and Lukacs’
conception of reification. On the contrary this account stresses conceptual
continuity between either: (a) Marx and Lukacs that is based on interpreting
fetishism as reification2 (b) Conceiving of Marx’s theory of commodity fetishism
as the Marxian aspect of Lukacs’ Weberian-Marxist theory of reification3 or (c)
interpreting fetishism and reification through the broad thematic lens of
alienation.4
These interpretations are based on two key assumptions: the first is
conceiving of fetishism as the transformation of social relations into a thing, the
second is viewing this conception of fetishism as the basis for Lukacs’ theory of
reification.5 In some accounts these two points of continuity are added to a third:
conceiving Lukacs’ account of reification as continuous with Marx’s theory of
alienation.6
CF was in fact the notion of commodity fetishism, not a developed concept of
alienation that enabled Lukacs to see that the problematic of reification lies at
the centre of Marxian critique. 115 (Arato 1979)
2 See (Cook 1996)
3 See (Lowy 1979; Honneth 2008; Wiggershaus 1995; Jay 1986; Cook
2004)(Vandenberghe 2009; Jay 1986)v
4 One prominent example of this can be found in Arato and Breines: “in Marx’s
work it (Arato 1979) 115.
5 See (Vandenberghe 2009)
6 Arato and Breines provides an example that combines this conception of
fetishism as reification with a conception of fetishism and reification as types of
1
1.3 Discontinuity
The discontinuity accounts conceive of some type of conceptual
divergence between Marx’s conception of fetishism and Lukacs’ conception of
reification. This account is prominent in what I designated as the Althusserian7
and Value-Form interpretations of fetishism. Lucio Coletti also published several
articles emphasizing how Lukacs’ conception of reification differs from Marx.8
Gillian Rose offers other grounds for discontinuity.9 While Moise Postone argues
that Lukacs theory of reification is grounded on traditional Marxist
preconcptoinsFinally, Lukacs himself stresses elements of discontinuity between
Marx and History and Class Consciousness in the 1967 preface to the work.
In these accounts discontinuity is stressed between the Marx and Lukacs’
conceptions of fetishism and their methodology. The most prominent criticism in
accounts of conceptual discontinuity is what Lukacs described as a “fundamental
and crude error: confusing the Hegelian conception of objectification with Marx’s
conception of alienation.”10 Althusser also criticizes Lukacs’ conception of
reification for: (a) focusing on thingness11 and (b) its scope.12
alienation: “From commodity fetishism, Lukacs deduced a concept that, as a
student of Simmel, he had been utilizing at least since 1910: the concept of the
alienation of labour. …Thus, Lukacs deduces from “reification” the notion of
alienation.” Ibid. 115 For examples of fetishism as the basis for reification see CF
Axel Honneth. (Honneth 2008) 97, Ralf Wiggershaus (Wiggershaus 1995) pg 80,
(Jay 1986; Jay 1996) 189-90 (Cook 2004) and L Dupree “object and the rise of
cultural alienation” in Lukas Today J grondin “Reification from Lukacs to
Habermas in Lukacs Today.
7 (Althusser 2005; Althusser and Balibar 2009; Balibar 2007)
8 (Colletti 1973; Colletti 1989)
9 (Rose 1979; Rose 1981)
10 See (Lukács 1972) pg. Xxiii-Xxiv. See also (Colletti 1973) 176 and (Rose 1981)
The whole, fashionable, theory of 'reification' depends on a projection of the
theory of alienation found in the early texts, particularly the 1844 Manuscripts,
on to the theory of 'fetishism' in Capital. In the 1844 Manuscripts, the
objectification of the human essence is claimed as the indispensable preliminary
to the reappropriation of the human essence by man. Throughout the process of
objectification, man only exists in the form of an objectivity in which he meets his
own essence in the appearance of a foreign, non-human, essence. This
'objectification' is not called 'reification' even though it is called inhuman.
Inhumanity is not represented par excellence by the model of a 'thing': but
sometimes by the model of animality (or even of pre-animality -- the man who
no longer even has simple animal relations with nature), sometimes by the
model of the omnipotence and fascination of transcendence (God, the State) and
of money, which is, of course, a 'thing'. In Capital the only social relation that is
presented in the form of a thing (this piece of metal) is money. But the conception
of money as a thing (that is, the confusion of value with use- value in money)
does not correspond to the reality of this 'thing': it is not the brutality of a simple
'thing' that man is faced with when he is in direct relation with money; it is a
power (or a lack of it) over things and men. An ideology of reification that sees
11
Accounts of methodological discontinuity by authors such as Elbe and
Postone stress the means by which Lukacs’s conception of reification is derived
and applied to a myriad of social and cultural phenomena in a manner that
differs from Marx.13
In what follows I draw on some of aspects of these accounts of
discontinuity in my own account of the place of fetishism in Lukacs’ theory of
reification. I interpret Lukacs’ theory of reification as constitutive of an attempt
to extend Marxian theory to account for important facets of contemporary sociocultural reality not included in Marx’s critique of political economy. These facets
include institutions such as the state and bureaucracy and types of
consciousness. In order to include these facets in his social theory I argue that
Lukacs’ theory of reification is based on a distinctive conception of commodity
fetishism that fuses his Hegelian-Marxian and Simmelian-Weberian conceptions
of domination and mystification.
I begin by discussing the important role History and Class Consciousness
played in breaking with second international interpretations of Marx. I then
place the work in the context of Lukacs’ intellectual biography. I do so by
focusing on how the early conception of domination he formulated in his works
of kultur critique drew on Simmel and Weber. This leads me to later
demonstrate that Lukacs’ theorization of the commodity and reification in
'things' everywhere in human relations confuses in this category 'thing' (a
category more foreign to Marx cannot be imagined) every social relation,
conceived according to the model of a money-thing ideology. (Althusser 2005)
230. For similar accounts of conceptual discontinuity between fetishism and
reification see MCcbride in (Rockmore 1988) and Markus, G. (1982): “Alienation
and Reification in Marx and Lukács”, Thesis Eleven, 5–6
In the capitalist mode of production it [fetishism] takes the form of the
fetishism of commodities, i.e., the personification of certain things (moneycapital) and the ‘reification’ of a certain relationship (labour). It does not consist
of a general ‘reification’ of all relationships, as some humanist interpretations of
Marx argue, but only of this particular relationship. From Ben Brewster’s
Glossary in (Althusser and Balibar 2009) 313
12
13
In the “founding document” of Western Marxism, Lukács’ “History and Class Consciousness” –
which at least for the first time refers to the character of capitalist rule as understood by Marx:
anonymous, objectively mediated, and having a life of its own – a reconstruction of Marx’s theory of
capitalism is avoided. Instead of an analysis of Marx’s dialectic of the form of value up to the form of
capital, which in the theory of real subsumption offers an explanation of the connection – so decisive
for Lukács – between commodification and the alienated structure of the labor process, one finds
merely an analogizing combination of a value theory reduced to the “quantifying” value-form (due to
an orientation towards Simmel’s cultural critique of money) and a diagnosis, oriented towards Max
Weber, of the formal-rational tendency of the objectification of the labor process and modern law. Ingo
Elbe. Between Marx,Marxism and Marxisms: Ways of Reading Marx’s Theory. Available at
http://communism.blogsport.eu/2011/09/09/ingo-elbe-between-marx-marxism-and-marxisms-ways-ofreading-marxs-theory-ii-western-marxism/. See also (Colletti 1989; Colletti 1989; Rose 1979; Rose
1981)
Lukács and the Dialectical Critique of Capitalism
Moishe Postone
History and Class Consciousness ground these Simmelian-Weberian concerns in
his Hegelian-Marxist framework.
I then turn to exposit this Hegelian Marxist framework. I use What Is
Orthodox Marxism? from History and Class Consciousness to show how Lukacs
conceives of Marxist theory as a method. I argue that this method consists in
conceiving of capitalism as a dialectical social totality that is produced by the
proletariat. This leads Lukacs to interpret fetishism in terms of what I will call
‘thingification.’ In this conception-- which is dependent on Lukacs’ conflation of
the necessary objectification of social activity with the alienation of social
activity-- fetishism consists in the transformation of social processes into things.
As fetishes these things possess false objectivity dominating individuals and
mystifying their own content. This conception of fetishism as thingification leads
Lukacs to interpret fetishism as a pervasive theoretical phenomenon that is
constituitive of non-Hegelian-Marxist methodologies and everyday
consciousness.
I then show how this conception of Hegelian-Marxism allows Lukacs to
adapt his Simmelian-Weberian conception of domination to his Hegelian Marxist
framework and formulate his theory of reification. I argue that Lukacs does this
through his peculiar interpretation of commodity fetishism as thingification,
which fuses Lukacs’ Hegelian-Marxism conception of domination and
mystification with his Simmelian-Weberianian conception of domination and
mystification. This interpretation forms the basis for Lukacs’s theory of
reification as a theory of domination and mystification in a multitude of objective
and subjective social phenomena, which I outline.
I conclude with some criticisms of Lukacs’ Hegelian-Marxism, his
conception of reification and the role that this conception plays in his theory of
reification as a theory of social domination.
2 Historical Context
2.1 The Marxism of the 2nd international.
History and Class Consciousness’ is one of the most important works in
twentieth century Marxism because of the historical context it appeared in. Prior
to its publication Marx’s writings had been codified into the variant of Marxism
that grew out of the 2nd international. This strand of Marxism fused the later
writings of Engels with Marx into the scientific doctrine of dialectical
materialism. In these interpretations Marx and Engel’s provided a scientific
insight into the iron laws of history and nature. They also provided an alternative
model of political economy that was based on rigid conception of historical
development and an economism based on the schematic dualism of the base
determining the superstructure.14 The critical bent of Marx’s critique of political
economy was ignored and the categories that were central to Marx critique of
political economy--such as fetishism, abstract labour and the value form—
received virtually no attention. History and Class Consciousness broke with this
For an extended discussion see “Bernstein and the Marxism of the Second
International in (Colletti 1989), (Kolakowski 1981)
14
interpretation by offering a critical Hegelian conception of Marx’s thought that
drew on the section on the fetishism of commodities eschewing econonism for a
critique of the socio-cultural totality. Its status as one of the founding documents
of western Marxism and its influence on several generations of thinkers thus
stem from the context this innovative interpretation was received in.
2.2. The early Lukacs’ theory of domination .
However, the Marxism of History and Class Consciousness did not simply
emerge out of the blue following Lukacs abrupt conversion to Marxism. Many
accounts argue for continuity between Marx and Lukacs conception of fetishism,
reification or alienation.15 In contrast to these accounts, it is important to outline
the early Lukacs’ conception of domination. This will show that this earlier
conception of domination and dehumanization contains parallels with some
aspects of Marx’s theory of alienation while remaining conceptually distinct from
it. It will also show that this theory of domination finds its way into History and
Class Consciousness in the Simmelian-Weberian aspect of his theory of reification.
Lukacs’ early conception of domination can be seen in his pre-Marxist
works of Kultur Critique. In these works Lukacs offers a variant of kultur critique
levelled at intertwined conceptions of society and culture. Like other variants of
kultur critique, Lukacs’ early work is based on an opposition between a neoromantic conception of organic wholeness and its anti-thesis in contemporary
socio-cultural forms.
Lukacs’ conception of social-cultural forms in these works was influenced
by Georg Simmel’s conception of reification.16 In this conception of reification
Simmel treated Marx’s theory of fetishism as a ‘special case’ of the general
‘tragedy of culture.’17 In Colletti’s words the tragedy of culture was conceived “in
the fact that the ‘forms’ engendered by ‘life’ are solidified into objective
institutions separated from it” where “these objective institutions acquire an
autonomy of their own and set themselves over against the becoming that
generated them originally.”18 Simmel’s conception of reification also shares two
other important characteristics with Lukacs’ early conception of dominatiion:
the conflation of alienation with objectification19 and the subsequent conception
of these reified forms as problems of the understanding.20
Lukacs’ early conception of domination also features other aspects that
will resurface in History and Class Consciousness. These include theorizations of:
CF. (Vandenberghe 2009)
Simmel uses the term verdinglichung in Philosophy of Money several times. He
does so more times than marx does in Capital.
15
16
17
The 'fetishism' which Marx assigned to economic commodities represents only a special
case of this general fate of contents of culture. With the increase in culture these contents
more and more stand under a paradox: they were originally created by subjects and for
subjects: but their intermediate form of objectivity, which they take on in addition to the two
extreme instances, they follow an immanent logic ofdevelopment. In so doing they estrange
themselves from their origin as well as from their purpose. (Simmel 2011)
(Colletti 1973) 169.
(Frisby 1992) 95.
20 Ibid. 169.
18
19
(1) society as second nature (2) Weberian rationalization.21 (3) bourgeois
subjectivity (4) depersonalization. All of these aspects of Lukacs’ early theory of
domination can be seen in the following, which treats the rationalized
fragmented division of labour as analogous to the objectifying capitalist
production and constituitive of an autonomous and rationalized form of
domination:
From the standpoint of the modern individual, the essence of the modern
division of labour is perhaps that it makes work independent of the always
irrational, thus only qualitatively determinable, capacities of the workers and
places it under objective, goal-oriented criteria that lie outside of his personality
and have no relationship to it. The major economic tendency of capitalism is this
same objectification of production, its separation from the personality of the
producers.22
As I will show these aspects of Lukacs’ early theory of social domination persist
in what I will define as the Simmelian-Weberian strand of reification in History
and Class Consciousness.23 It is to the conception of Hegelian-Marxism that
provides a framework for the theory of reification that I now turn.
3 Lukacs’ Hegelian-Marxism.
Lukacs’ most concise explication of his conception of Marxist theory in
History and Class Consciousness can be found in What is Orthodox Marxism? This
notion of Marxism informs how Lukacs’ conceives of fetishism and how this
conception of fetishism provides a ground for his theory of reification. Lukacs’
conception of Marxist theory can be seen in his statement that ‘Orthodox
Marxism’ refers “exclusively to method” and “the scientific conviction that
dialectical materialism is the road to truth.”24
As these statements indicate Lukacs’ fusion of Marx and Hegel is central
to this conception of Marxism. At the heart of this fusion lies the use of the
Hegelian categories of dialectics and totality to conceive of capitalism as a
dialectical socio-cultural totality. In Lukacs’ view Marxist theory is the method
that provides knowledge of the historical evolution of society and the function of
capitalist totality. Marxist theory does this through the dialectical method: “the
function of theory is also to understand its own basis, i.e. dialectical method.”25
For Lukacs “This point is absolutely crucial.”
3.2 The Dialectical Method
21CF
(Jay 1986; Colletti 1989; Frisby 1992)(Lowy 1979)
Lukacs, zur soziologie des modernen dramas 665 cited in (Frisby 1992)
23 This is not to refute History and Class Consciousness for being insufficiently
Marxist. Rather it is to situate where certain elements Lukacs introduces into
Marxist theory stem from.
24 (Lukács 1972) 1
25 Ibid. 3
22
This point is crucial for Lukas because he conceives of the dialectical method
as constiuitive of history; which he refers to in Hegelian terminology as the
‘dialectical relation between subject and object in the historical process.’26 This
means that the dialectical method grasps historical development. As a consequence
dialectics also grasp capitalism’s function as a dialectical totality.
In Lukács’ view the dialectical method’s ability to grasps capitalism’s
function as a dialectical totality contrasts with other prevailing kinds of
understanding. These prevailing kinds of understanding are not dialectical. They are
based on immediate appearance and fail to grasp the historical process and
capitalism’s function as a dialectic totality. This makes the dialectical method a
critical method that ‘punctures the social illusion’ produced in capitalist society that
prevailing modes of thought are based on “help [ing] us to glimpse the reality
underlying it.’27
3.3. Totality
The interplay between the dialectical method and the category of totality is the
means through which Lukas argues reality can be grasped. Like dialectics, totality
serves a dual purpose in Lukács’ thought. Since the social-cultural-economic entity of
capitalism functions as a totality, the methodological category of totality provides
knowledge of capitalism. Totality and the dialectical method thus combine to provide
a true knowledge of historical evolution and the dialectical function of capitalist
totality.28 For Lukas, totality is thus “the only method capable of understanding and
reproducing reality. Concrete totality is, therefore, the category that governs reality. 29
This also means that totality is critical of prevailing kinds of understanding.
3.4 fetishism
These Hegelian aspects of Lukács’ conception of Marxist theory can be seen
in more detail in Lukács’ conception of fetishism in What is Orthodox Marxism?
Lukacs’ conceives of fetishism in relation to dialectics and totality. Fetishism is thus
conceived in terms of theoretical thingification wherein parts of the ‘social process’ of
capitalist totality are conceived as things divorced from totality. As fetishes these
things possesses false objectivity that ‘cloaks’ the ‘social processes’ that generate
them. This makes fetishism a critical term for types of understanding that fails to
grasp capitalism as a dialectical totality. By virtue of this conception fetishism also
becomes a general theoritical phenomena indicative of theoretical methods that try to
understand capitalism or of the everyday consciousness of agents in capitalism. These
fetishes are dispersed by the orthodox Marxist method, which provides a transparent
grasp of capitalism as a social totality. This can be seen in the following instances:
A) Methodological fetishism
26
27
Ibid. 3
Ibid 5-6
All the isolated partial categories can be thought of and treated-in isolation-as something that is
always present in every society. (If it cannot be found in a given society this is put down to 'chance- as
the exception that proves the rule.) But the changes to which these individual aspects are subject give
no clear and unambiguous picture of the real differences in the various stages of the evolu- tion of
society. These can really only be discerned in the context ofthe total historical process oftheir relation
to society as a whole. 9/10
28
29
Ibid. 10
This first type of fetishism, what can be termed methodological fetishism, can
be seen in Lukács’ critique of science. In Lukács’ view the scientific method is
engendered by the fetishistic and fragmented outward appearance of capitalism. This
appearance harmonizes with specialization and becomes the basis of scientific
methodogy. As a result aspects of totality are conceived of ‘things’ that are
independent of totality.30
Lukacs’ conception of Marxist theory disperses these forms of methodological
fetishism. This is because in contrast to scientific methods of understanding:
“dialectics insists on the concrete unity of the whole.”31 By doing so dialectics
“exposes these appearances for the illusions they are-albeit illusions necessarily
engendered by capitalism.”32 For this to happen dialectics recognizes these ‘things’ as
forms of appearance “in which the inner core necessarily appears.” For, (a) “the
simultaneous recognition and transcendence of immediate appearances is precisely
the dialectical nexus” and (b)“Only in this context which sees the isolated facts of
social life as aspects of the historical process and integrates them in a totality, can
knowledge of the facts hope to become knowledge.”33
In this conception methodological fetishism therefore consists in the
methodological presuppositions of specialization and formal rationality providing a
fragmented orientation towards totality. From this orientation the ‘social processes’ of
totality cannot be grasped and objects are conceived of as things out of the context of
totality. This orientation fetishizes disciplines and methodological approaches as
isolated things providing them with a false objectivity that cloaks their place as an
aspect of totality. The Marxist theoretical method punctures this illusory conception
by re-integrating these things into dialectical totality. Such a juxtaposition can also be
seen in Lukas deployment of the conception of fetishism held by everyday agents in
capitalism.
B) Everyday Fetishism
In Lukács’ view what can be termed everyday fetishism demonstrates the
importance of Marxism as a method.34 The ultimate validity of this method ‘only
emerges with complete clarity when we direct our attention to the real, material
substratum of our method, viz. capitalist society with its internal antagonism between
the forces and the relations of production.’35 While everyday conceptions of
The fetishistic character of economic forms (fetischistische character), the
reification of all human relations, the constant expansion and extension of the
division of labour which subjects the process of production to an abstract,
rational analysis, without regard to the human potentialities and abilities of the
immediate producers, all these things transform the phenomena of society and
with them the way in which they are perceived. In this way arise the 'isolated'
facts, 'isolated' complexes of facts, separate, specialist disciplines (economics,
law, etc.) whose very appearance seems to have done much to pave the way for
such scientific methods. It thus appears extraordinarily 'scientific' to think out
the tendencies implicit in the facts themselves and to promote this activity to the
status of science. Ibid.
31 Ibid. 5
32 Ibid. 6
33 Ibid. 8
30
34
35
Ibid. 10
capitalism rest on its immediate appearance and fail to grasp the material substratum
of the class relation. The Marxist method, by virtue of its dialectical apprehension of
totality, can grasp it.36 This knowledge of totality dissolves the fetishistic conception
held by everyday agents in capitalism in a two-fold manner: dissolved people’s
perceptions that capitalism is a natural and not a historical entity and dissolving the
fetishized appearance of capitalism.37
In Lukacs’ view the naturalization of capitalism occurs because people’s
everyday perceptions do not grasp totality; “With the totality out of the way, the
fetishistic relations (erscheinen) of the isolated parts appear[ed] as a timeless law
valid for every human society.” The Marxist theoretical method denaturalizes these
trans-historical conceptions generated by capitalism’s immediate appearance. This is
because the dialectical method links the immediate forms of appearance that generate
the fetish forms of objectivity which generate the conception that capitalism is natural
to the historically rooted substratum they veil. This discloses that reality is a social
process and denaturalizes peoples conception of capitalism;
the objective forms of all social phenomena change constantly in the course of their ceaseless
dialectical interactions with each other. The intelligibility of objects develops in proportion as we grasp
their function in the totality to which they belong. This is why only the dialectical conception of totality
can enable us to understand reality as a social process. For only here the fetishistic forms of objectivity
that capitalist production necessarily produces dissolve themselves into a necessarily recognized
(understood, perceived, grasped) appearance - an appearance that nevertheless remains an illusion"
(translation of this sentence ammended). These unmediated concepts, these 'laws' sprout just as
inevitably from the soil of capitalism and veil the real relations between objects They can all be seen as
ideas necessarily held by the agents of the capitalist system of production. They are, therefore, objects
of knowledge, but the object which is known through them is not the capitalist system of production
itself, but the ideology of its ruling class. Only when this veil is torn aside does historical knowledge
become possible. For the function of these unmediated concepts that have been derived from the
fetishistic (fetischistischen) forms of objectivity is to make the phenomena of capitalist society appear
as supra- historical essences. The knowledge of the real, objective nature of a phenomenon, the
knowledge of its historical character and the knowledge of its actual function in the totality of society
form, therefore, a single, undivided act of cognition. 38
Lukács’ discussion of necessary forms of illusion in this passage would seem to
indicate that he would interpret value as an objective or necessary illusion that cannot
be dissolved by the knowledge of totality, but only by the overthrowing capitalism.
Yet directly after this passage he treats the fetish character of commodities as a fetish
36
By doing so this conception of everyday fetishism fuses Marx’s conceptions of
the fetishism of political economists naturalizing capitalism with the fetish
character of commodities as indicative of the social character of capitalist
production. This will be drawn out in my criticisms of Lukacs.
37
38
Ibid. As noted I amended the translation of a crucial sentence in this paragraph. Linvingstone
translation of it as “For only this conception dissolves the fetishistic forms (fetischistischen)
necessarily produced by the capitalist mode of production and enables us to see them as mere illusions
(erkenten schein) which are not less illusory (schein) for being seen to be necessary.” In my view
Livingstone’s translation (1) neglects Lukacs’s designation of the this type of fetishism as fetish forms
of false objectivity this leads to (2) neglecting the importance of Lukacs’ designation of the illusory
properties of these fetish forms of false objectivity as erkentinen schein (3) introducing an unwarranted
distinction between illusion and mere illusion.
form of objectivity that veils the class relation of capitalist production and can be
dispersed by criticism. As was the case with the other types of fetishism, the fetishism
of economic categories and men’s environment, are conceived in immediacy as things
of false objectivity that conceal the social relations that constitute them.
The fetishistic illusions (fetischistschen scheines) enveloping all phenomena in
capitalist society succeed in concealing reality, but more is concealed than the
historical, i.e. transitory, ephemeral nature of phenomena. This concealment is made
possible by the fact that in capitalist society man's environment, and especially the
categories of economics, appear to him immediately and necessarily in forms of
objectivity which conceal the fact that they are the categories of the relations of men
with each other. Instead they appear as things and the relations of things with each
other. Therefore, when the dialectical method destroys the fiction of the immortality
of the categories it also destroys their reified character and clears the way to a
knowledge of reality. 39
These fetishistic categories are ‘destroyed’ by dialectical knowledge of the social
relations that mediate the relation between things providing transparent knowledge of
capitalist totality: “It is by virtue of this insight that the dialectical method and its
concept of totality can be seen to provide real knowledge of what goes on in
society.”40
4 praxis and class standpoint
In Lukács’ view the destruction of fetishism and the Marxist method are
important because of their relation to class standpoint and revolutionary praxis.
Theory and practice must inform each other. On one hand theory must be oriented
towards practice: “for the dialectical method the central problem is to change
reality.”41 On the other hand, the insights of the theory are necessary for informing
practice. The conception of Marxism as a method therefore gives theory a crucial
role in the revolutionary process. This is because the dialectical method grasps
historical development and the function of capitalist totality; “theory is essentially the
intellectual expression of the revolutionary process itself….theory does nothing but
arrest and make conscious each necessary step, it becomes at the same time the
necessary premise of the following one.”42 As a consequence the dialectical method is
able to grasp totality, side with and inform the proletariat standpoint43. This
transforms theory into practice by generating consciousness44 and leads to the
overthrow of capitalist totality and the conditions that generate reification.45
Ibid. 15
Ibid. 15
41 Ibid. 3
42 Ibid. 2
43 Ibid. 22
44 “The emergence of consciousness must become the decisive step which the
historical process must take towards its proper end…The historical function of
theory is to make this step a practical possibility.Ibid. 2 Although as we shall
39
40
We can now see the distinct configuration of Lukács’ Hegelian-Marxism. In
this conception Marxism is constitutive of a critical dialectical method that grasps the
movement of history and the function of capitalist society as a totality. Rather than
providing a theory of social constitution this ‘method’: (a) presupposes that capitalism
functions as a dialectical totality without an explication of how it functions as a
dialectical totality (b) defines the basis of the constituion of this totality by resorting
to the Marxian terminology of relations between people without an explication of
what these social are and how they constitute totality (c) tends to fall back on a
‘Hegelian’ conception of the historical evolution of society as the grounds for a
conception of social dynamics.
We can also see how this distinct configuration conceives of fetishism as
problem of ‘thingfigation’ that generates a false objectivity cloaking the real ‘social
processes’ that generate it. Instead of consisting in an aspect of a theory of the
constitution of abstract social domination that explains the role personified things play
in the social constitution and reproduction of capitalist social production, Lukas
conception of fetishism is concerned with objectification per se.46 In this conception
of theoretical fetishism Lukacs fuses his Hegelian-Marxian conception of fetishism
with his earlier Simmelian-weberian conception of domination. Theoretical fetishism
is consequently conceived as a form of mystification indicative of scientific and
everyday forms of understanding. Methodological fetishism draws on Lukas
Simmelian-Weberian heritage and consists in types of understanding, such a science,
that are methodologically deficient. While Lukács’ interpretation of commodity
fetishism amalgamates Marx’s distinct conceptions of fetishism and bases itself on the
conflation of objectitification and alienation to conceive of fetishism as a
naturalization fallacy and as an epistemological illusion of thingificatoin that veils the
underlying class relation in capitalist totality. In each case fetishism can be dispersed
through recourse to a dialectical knowledge of totality that links these isolated forms
to totality. While What is Orthodox Marxism? deploys these concepts in the area of
understanding social reality let us now turn to Reification and the Consciousness of
the Proletariat where they are deployed to describe social reality. It is here that
Lukacs utilizes his interpretation of commodity fetishism to fuse his SimmelianWeberian and Hegelian-Marxian conceptions of domination and mystification in his
theory of reification.
Lukacs presents a different theory of how consciousness will be generated in the
Reification essay.
45
in the case of social reality these contradictions are not a sign of the imperfect understanding of
society; on the contrary, they belong to the nature of reality itself and to the nature of capitalism.
When the totality is known they will not be transcended and cease to be contradictions. Quite the
reverse, they will be seen to be necessary contradictions arising out of the antagonisms of this system
of production. When theory (as the knowledge of the whole) opens up the way to resolving these
contradictions it does so by revealing the real tendencies of social evolution. For these are destined to
effect a real resolution of the contradictions that have emerged in the course of history. 45
In this sense it is Lukacs conflation of alienation with objectification that fuses
his Hegelian-Marxian conception of domination with his Simmelain-Weberian
strand.
46
IV Reification
Reification and The Consciousness of the Proletariat is a dense essay that
combines Lukacs’ conception of social domination, mystification and its
revolutionary overcoming. In what follows I focus on how Lukacs’ HegelianMarxism and his interpretation of commodity fetishism ground the theory of
reification as a theory of social domination and mystification. I then examine the
Hegelian-Marxist and Simmelian-Weberian aspects of domination and
mystification I finish by turning to Lukacs’ notion of the destruction of reification
where Lukacs’ conception of critical de-fetishization is deployed.
IV.I the conception of reification
The means that Lukacs’ Hegelian-Marxism imbues his conception of
reification can be seen in the introductory paragraph of the Reification essay. In
this paragraph Lukacs lays out his conception of Marx’s analysis of capitalist
society. This conception of Marx’s analysis reflects Lukacs’ Hegelian-Marxism. It
also demonstrates that Lukacs is utilizing his conception of Marxism as the basis
for his social analysis of reification. This can be seen in Lukacs’ statement that
Marx used the category of totality critically to ‘portray capitalist society in its
totality lay[ing] bare its fundamental nature.’47 It can further be seen in Lukacs’
statement that Marx’s method is primarily based on his analysis of commodities,
for “there is no problem that does not ultimately lead back to that question and
there is no solution that could not be found in the solution of the riddle of the
commodity form. (translation amended)”48 This makes the commodity form “the
central, structural problem of capitalist society in all its aspects” and the basis of
Lukacs’ dialectical social analysis of capitalist totality: “yield[ing] a model of all
the objective forms of bourgeois society together with all the subjective forms
corresponding to them.”49
In section I Lukacs proceeds to carry out his characterization of Marx’s
social theory. He begins by providing a basis for his analysis of reified totality in
his definition of the commodity form. The definition Lukacs provides is
equivalent to his conception of fetishism and his later definition of the basic
phenomena of reification.50 This definition can also be seen to link his HegelianMarxian and Simmelian-Weberian conceptions of reification with his critical
Ibid. 83
Ibid. 83
49 Ibid. 83
50 Lukacs uses the terms commodity form, fetishism and reification
interchangeably. This is particularly noticeable in his use of Marx quotations in
which Lukacs: (a) omits Marx’s only use of the term reification (verdinglichung)
from the passage of the trinity formula he quotes (b) uses several of Marx’s
discussions of different types of fetishism including the passage where Marx
defines the fetish character of commodities to define reification. (Rose 1979)
also points out that Lukacs uses Marx’s definition of the fetish character of
commodities for the basis of his definition of fetishism. (Frisby 1992) also points
out that Lukacs omits Marx’s one use of the term verdinglichung.
47
48
conception of Marx’s method. This is done through his definition of the
commodity form in terms domination and mystification in which we see (1) his
Hegelian Marxian conception of fetishism as thingification that possesses the
autonomy and “phantom objectivity” of false objectivity which conceals the
social processes that constitute it (2) His Simmelian Weberian conception of
reification as autonomy premised on formal rationality that can’t grasp its own
content. (3) Basing the constitution of these two facets on his conflation of
objectification with alienation in a social relation between people taking on the
character of a thing;
The essence of commodity-form (translation amended) has often been pointed out. Its
basis is that a relation between people takes on the character of a thing and thus
acquires a 'phantom objectivity', an autonomy that seems so strictly rational and allembracing as to conceal every trace of its fundamental nature: the relation between
people.51
On the basis of this definition Lukas moves to provide an analysis of social
phenomena that Marx’s did not provide in his critique of political economy. Lukas
states that his ‘intention’ is to ‘base’ his analysis on ‘Marx’s economic analyses and
to proceed from there to a discussion of the problems growing out of the fetish
character of commodities, both as an objective form and also as a subjective stance
corresponding to it.”52 To do so Lukas provides grounds for his extrapolation of the
commodity to socio cultural forms. Lukas does so in two ways: by arguing that the
effects of the commodity form are historically specific to ‘modern capitalism’ and
that the commodity form is a “universal structuring principle” that has “penetrate[ed]
society in all its aspects and remould[ed] it in its own image.”53 Lukas does not
provide grounds for these two claims. But the assumption that the commodity is the
“universal structuring principle” leads Lukacs to map the phenomena of reification by
analyzing an array of socio-cultural phenomena as analogous to the characteristics of
the commodity-form. How he does this can be separated into three parts: in the first
part Lukacs documents the dominating aspects of his Hegelian-Marxian and
Simmelian-Weberian conceptions of reification posses in production and extrapolates
them to other aspects of society. In the second he focuses on the mystifactory
phenomena of reification in the methodology of science and consciousness. In the
third he moves to de-reify totality by reducing it to a social process through the
standpoint of the proletariat.
Iv.II Reification as domination
Marxian domination
51
52
53
Ibid. 83
Ibid. 84
Ibid. 85 See also statements such as The commodity can only be understood in its undistorted
essence when it becomes the universal category of society as a whole. Only in this context does the
reification produced by commodity relations assume decisive importance both for the objective
evolution of society and for the stance adopted by men to- wards it. Only then does the commodity
become crucial for the subjugation of men's consciousness to the forms in which this reification finds
expression and for their attempts to comprehend the process or to rebel against its disastrous effects
and liberate themselves from servitude to the 'second nature' so created. 86
Lukacs’ analysis of reification begins with the Hegelian-Marxian aspect of
Lukacs’ conception of the dominating aspect of reification. Lukacs refers to this
aspect of reification with his use of autonomy and phantom objectivity in his
definition of the commodity form. In these passages Lukacs also draws out the
repercussions this autonomy has on human individuals.
This Hegelian-Marxian conception of reification as domination is
elucidated by drawing on the fetishism of commodities. Lukacs uses Marx’s
definition of the fetish character of commodities to describe the ‘basic
phenomenon of reification.’54 Lukacs’ interpretation of this passage is indicative
of his interpretation of fetishism as the false objectivity of thingification as
premised on his conflation of the necessary social process of objectification with
autonomous social domination. This can be seen in Lukacs’ statement that “what
is of central importance” to the passage “is that because of this situation a man's
own activity, his own labour becomes something objective and independent of
him, something that controls him by virtue of an autonomy alien to man.”55
This ‘basic phenomenon’ of reification is illustrated by Lukacs in a
dialectical manner that also highlights the conflation of objectification and
domination. This is apparent when Lukacs stresses that it is a world of objects as
such that is indicative of the objective type of reification as domination: ‘ a world
of objects and relations between things springs into being.’
As the objective forms of reification as domination these objects ‘confront’
individuals as ‘invisible forces that generate their own power.’ This means that
individuals can use their instrumental ‘knowledge of these laws to their own
advantage’ but cannot modify them. Subjectively, people become estranged
(menschfremden) from their own activity.
Lukacs further elucidates these dominating aspect of reification by
drawing on the dialectical repercussions of abstract labour. Objectively abstract
labour grants different objects their commodity nature by ‘facilitating the equal
exchange of qualitatively different objects.”56 Subjectively, what Lukacs terms
the ‘formal equality’ of abstract labour “becomes the real principle governing the
actual production of commodities.”57As a result “abstract labour becomes a
category of society influencing decisively the objective form of things and people
in society their relation to nature and their possible relations of men with each
other.”58
b) Weberian Reification as Domination
"A commodity is therefore a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social character of men's
labour appears to them as an objective character stamped upon the product of that labour; because the
relation of the producers to the sum total of their own labour is presented to them as a social relation,
existing not between themselves, but between the products of their labour. This is the reason why the
products oflabour become commodities, social things whose qualities are at the same time perceptible
and imperceptible by the senses•••• It is only a definite social relation between men that assumes, in
their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between things.'"
54
Ibid. 86
Ibid. 87
57 Ibid. 87
58 Ibid. 88
55
56
To demonstrate how abstract labour has this influence Lukacs moves to
production. From here Lukacs draws on his conception of Weberian
rationalization as domination. As was the case in his earlier work this conception
of reification as domination is premised on an opposition between the pernicious
effects of quantified and fragmented rationalization and a qualitative notion of
wholeness. Work is therefore objectively rationalized in fragmented, quantified
and calculated activities. This renders the products of the process of production
autonomous; “the finished article ceases to be the object of the work-process.”
This type of autonomosization is generated by fragmentation in the act of
production and based on an opposition to a neo-romantic conception of organic
production.59 Subjectively, rationalization fragments the subject who takes on a
contemplative stance towards their own activity. This transforms the ‘basic
categories of man’s immediate attitude to the world.”60 Time is transformed into
quantative space. Human labour power is objectified “into something opposed to
their total personality.” And holistic community is replaced by mechanization.
From his analysis of the factory Lukas moves to generalize his SimmelianWeberian account of reification to other socio-cultural forms. He does so by drawing
analogies with the characteristics of reification he has developed in his preceding
analysis. In Lukacs’ view the “factory contains the concentrated structure of society.”
From this it follows that the fate of the worker is typical of society as a whole.”61
Therefore in Lukács’ account because the commodity is the universal structuring
principle of totality; “Capitalism has created a form for the state and a system of law
corresponding to the needs and harmonising with its own structure.”62
Such a ‘harmony’ is demonstrated by recourse to the Simmelian Weberian
strand of reification. The institutions of the state and bureaucracy are said to
possess a ‘rational systemization’ that is analogous to the organization of the
factory. This rational systemization eschews qualitative factors to consist in
formal, quantitative, fragmented and standardized organization. These forms of
‘rational systemization’ ‘confront’ individuals instilling a contemplative attitude,
estrangement from their own activity and instrumental behaviour. This
schematic analysis is also extended to other occupations and social customs
including journalism and marriage.
59
The latter turns into the objective synthesis of rationalised special systems whose unity is determined
by pure calculation and which must therefore seem to be arbitrarily connected with each other.
This destroys the organic necessity with which inter-related special operations are unified in the endproduct. The unity of a product as a commodity no longer coincides with its unity as a use- value: as
society becomes more radically capitalistic the increas- ing technical autonomy of the special
operations involved in production is expressed also, as an economic autonomy, as the growing
relativisation of the commodity character of a product at the various stages of production. 89
Ibid. 90 Thus despite Lukacs contention that there is a continuity between his
earlier discussion of autonomization of commodities and abstract labour and his
discussion of autonomization and rationalization there is an incommensurability.
This is because while in Marx’s account that autonomization of objects is
premised on the social division of labour, Weber’s is premised on the division of
labour within specific factories. One does not necessarily relate to the other.
61 Ibid. 92
62 Ibid. 95
60
IV.III Reification as mystification
Following his presentation of the objective forms of reification as
domination Lukacs moves to discuss the’ subjective stances that correspond’ to
these objective forms. These subjective stances consist in the mystificatory
aspects of the phenomena of reification. Lukacs outlines several types of
mystification. These types link his conception of the commodity as a form that
veils its own content to the mystifactory conceptions of Simmelian—Weberian
formal rationality and Hegelian-Marxian fetishism he addressed in What is
Orthodox Marxism?
What Lukacs calls the ‘reified mind is indicative of Lukacs’ model of
reification as mystification. What Lukacs defines as the ‘reified mind’ sees “the
commodity character of the commodity, the abstract, quantative mode of
calculability” as the form in which its own authentic immediacy becomes
manifest--and as reified consciousness—does not even attempt to transcend it.
Instead, the reified mind tries perpetuate and ‘scientifically deepen it.’ For
Lukacs ‘the reified mind’ is indicative of ‘bourgeois attempts to comprehend the
ideological phenomenon of reification.’
Reification as mystification is also indicative of Lukacs’ criticism of the
scientific method. This criticism fuses his discussion of Weberian rationalization
with his conception of methodological fetishism in What is Orthodox Marxism. In
this respect, the rationalized specialization of skills ‘leads to the destruction of
every image of the whole.’63 While Lukacs’ criticism of the scientific method in
which “its own concrete underlying reality lies, methodologically and in
principle, beyond its grasp’64 repeats his earlier criticism that the scientific
method cannot grasp totality. Finally, bureaucracy and Jurisprudence are based
on analogous types of formal rationality that fail to grasp their own content.
These criticisms of reified consciousness lead to Lukacs’ longer discussion
of the antinomies of bourgeois thought in section two of the essay. In this section
Lukacs identifies several antimonies in German idealism that he views as
symptomatic of Bourgeois thought. These antinomies include subject and object,
freedom and necessity, individual and society, form and content. Like the other
forms of reified consciousness these antinomies proceed from a contemplative
stance and deficient methodology and thus fail to grasp reality. They can only be
overcome in theory by the Marxist method and in practice by praxis.65
Ibid. 104
Ibid. 104
65 Lukacs later provides a concise summary of this section in the third section:
63
64
We have followed the course of the history of ideas which, as bourgeois thought has developed, has
tended more and more to wrench these two principles apart. We were able to show that as a result of
this duality in method, reality disintegrates into a multitude of irrational facts and over these a network
of purely formal 'laws' emptied of content is then cast. And by devising an 'epistemology' that can go
beyond the abstract form of the immediately given world (and its conceivability) the structure is made
permanent and acquires a justification-not inconsistently-as being the necessary 'precondition of the
possibility' of this world view. But unable to turn this 'critical' movement in the direction of a true
creation of the object-in this case ofthe thinking subject-and indeed by taking the very opposite
direction, this 'critical' attempt to bring the analysis of reality to its logical conclusion ends by
returning to the same immediacy that faces the ordinary man of bourgeois society in his everyday life.
It has been conceptualised, but onlY immediatelY.
155
Finally, Lukacs begins his initial discussion in the section on the
Standpoint of the Proletariat by deploying his conception of the fetishism in
terms of the mystified consciousness of all agents in capitalism. For Lukacs his
sketch of the phenomena of reification has shown the forms both classes ‘exist’
in.66 As a consequence, “the proletariat shares with the bourgeoisie the
reification of every aspect of life.”67 This means that “the objective reality of
social existence is in its immediacy ‘the same’ for both proletariat and
bourgeoisie.’68 However, as Lukacs goes on to argue this does not mean that “the
specific categories of mediation” are the same. For, as he will argue, the
standpoint of the proletariat provides access to the knowledge of capitalist
totality outlined in What is Orthodox Marxism? While the standpoint of the
bourgeoisie means that it will remain stuck in immediacy.69
V The Standpoint of the proletariat
The standpoint of the proletariat is tied to Lukacs’ conception of the social
constitution of reification and the destruction of reification. These conceptions of
the constitution and destruction of reification are tied to the third aspect of his
analysis of commodity fetishism: that a social relation between people takes on
the character of a thing and generates the phenomena of reification. To deploy
these intertwined concepts Lukacs utilizes the critical capacities of the dialectical
method and the category of totality he utilized in his conception of Marxism in
What is Orthodox Marxism? Here they are embodied in the standpoint of the
proletariat. Like Lukacs’ conception of Marxist theory the process of dereification that Lukacs outlines is premised on his conflation of alienation with
objectification. While the social dynamic of the revolutionary process is
premised on his Hegelian conception of history.
As many other commentators have noted the structure of the standpoint
of the is ordered around the resolution of problems Lukacs has flagged up in the
Phenomena of reification and the antinomies of bourgeois thought. These
problems are resolved by the proletariat, by virtue of its standpoint, is shown to
possess a dialectical grasp of totality. This leads to Lukacs’ dialectical generation
In Section II we were able to point out as emphatically as possible the various intellectual implications
flowing from the character of bourgeois society and the systematic limitations of its thought. We drew
attention there to the antinomies (between subject and object, freedom and necessity, individual and
society, form and content, etc.) to which such thought necessarily led. It is impor- tant to realise at this
point that although bourgeois thought only landed in these antinomies after the very greatest mental
exer- tions, it yet accepted their existential basis as self,-evident, as a simply unquestionable reality.
Which is to say: bourgeois thought entered into an unmediated relationship with reality as it was given.
156
Ibid. 149.
Ibid. 149
68 Ibid. 150
66
67
69
of class-consciousness in which this class-consciousness de-reifies totality
leading to praxis and its world-historical revolutionary task. In what follows I
focus on how Lukacs lays out the standpoint of the proletariat as the
embodiment of the critical Marxist method qua his conceptions of reification and
de-reification. To do so I begin by focusing on his discussion of the individual
proletarian and Marxian de-reification. I then move to his discussion of the classconsciousness of the proletariat and Simmelian de-reification.
V Proletarian de-fetishization.
Lukacs first moves to show how the standpoint of the proletariat leads to
grasping his Hegelian-Marxist conception of capitalist totality. In Lukacs’ view
“the proletariat shares with the bourgeoisie the reification of every aspect of
life.” What is of crucial difference is the standpoint of each classs viz capitalist
totality. The bourgeosie is stuck in immediacy and cannot penetrate the cloak of
reification. But the proletariat is able to grasp totality.
In the proletarian’s standpoint the “reified character of the immediate
manifestations of capitalist society receives the most extreme definition
possible.” This is due to the proletarian’s place in the process of production. As
someone who is compelled to sell their labour power the proletarian embodies
the contradiction of the subject-object of capitalist totality. They are
commodities that produce the commodity character of reified totality. This
integrates them into the production process, which fragments, rationalizes and
quantifies him.70 But it also provides them with a unique standpoint.
For Lukacs this standpoint in the production of totality leads to the
proletarian to grasp totality and generate self-consciousness. Unlike the
capitalist, the workers position as a commodity that is the subject-object of
capitalist totality “enables him to surpass the immediacy of his condition.”71 This
supercession is premised on the proletarians self-recognition of themselves as a
commodity. In Lukacs view the “factors” in this standpoint “create a dialectic
between the social existence of the worker and the forms of his consciousness
and force them out of their pure immediacy.”72 This dialectic supercession of
immediacy discloses the class relation that constitutes totality and stands behind
the veil of immediacy: “the fetishistic forms of the commodity system begin to
dissolve: in the commodity the worker recognizes himself and his own relations
with capital.”73
The quantification of objects, their subordination to abstract mental categories makes its appearance
in the life of the worker immediately as a process of abstraction of which he is the victim, and which
cuts him off from his labour-power, forcing him to sell it on the market as a commodity,
belonging to him. And by selling this, his only commodity, he integrates it (and himself: for his
commodity is inseparable from his physical existence) into a specialized process that has been
70
rationalized and mechanized, a process that he discovers already existing, complete and able
to function without him and in which he is no more than a cipher reduced to an
abstract quantity, a mechanized and rationalized tool. Ibid. 160
Ibid. 167
Ibid. 168
73 Ibid. 168
71
72
From this realization a dialectical process of total de-fetishization and the
simultaneous coming to consciousness of the proletariat begins to unfold. In this
process Lukács’ conception of fetishism as thingified false objectivity cloaking an
underlying social process premised on a conflation of alienation and objectification is
quite telling. For in Lukács’ account proletarian self-consciousness is a form of
knowledge that becomes a “social reality and “brings about an objective structural
change in the object of knowledge.”74 This form of knowledge thus de-reifies the
false objectivity possessed by the commodity character of capitalist totality. Like a
chain reaction this process of de-reification begins with the de-reification of the
production process in which the underlying class relation is demystified ‘and moves
to a social process of de-fetishization in which the qualitative underlying nature of
society as a totality is grasped;
The special nature of labour as a commodity which in the absence of this
consciousness acts as an unacknowledged driving wheel in the economic process now
objectifies itself by means of this consciousness. The specific nature of this kind of
commodity had consisted in the fact that beneath the cloak of the thing lay a relation
between men, that beneath the quantifying crust there was a qualitative, living core.
Now that this core is revealed it becomes possible to recognize the fetish character of
every commodity based on the commodity character of labour power: in every case
we find its core, the relation between men, entering into the evolution of society.75
Thus the individual proletarian standpoint in the production process generates a
dialectical consciousness that ‘transcends’ the immediacy of the quantified
reified world disclosing the social relations that constitute it.76
V.II proletariat class-consciousness
For society to be de-reified Lukas lays out several further stages of the
dialectical of class-consciousness and de-reification. These developments are
premised on the centrality totality holds in his Hegelian-Marxism. In these
instances the class-consciouness of the proletariat as the subject-object of
history leads to the de-reification of his Simmelian-Weberian conception of
reification
At this stage the dialectical development of class-consciousness switches
from analyzing the genesis of the particular proletarian consciousness to the
Ibid. 169
Ibid. 170
76 But in fact, to leave empirical reality behind can only mean that objects of the
empirical world are to be understood as aspects of totality, i.e. as aspects of a
total social situation caught up in the process of historical change. Thus the
category of mediation is a lever with which to overcome the mere immediacy of
the empirical world and as such it is not something (subjective) foisted on to the
objects from outside, it is not a value judgement or ‘ought’ opposed to ‘is’. It is
rather the manifestation of their authentic objective structure. This can only
become apparent in the visible objects of consciousness when the false attitude
of bourgeois thought to objective reality has been abandoned. Ibid. 162-63
74
75
class-consciousness of the proletariat and its historical purpose. This transition
is premised on Lukacs’ argument that the standpoint of the proletariat provides
a privileged relation with totality. Lukacs designates this ‘the aspiration toward
totality.’ He contends that this aspiration has logic of its own ‘that forces’ the
proletarian class ‘in an uninterrupted movement towards totality.’77 This means
that the class-consciousness of the proletariat is a form of “action that is
objectively directed towards a transformation of totality.”
As was the case of the individual proletarian the standpoint of the proletariat
unmasks the basis of totality: “man is the measure of all things.” This leads to
Lukacs’ most extended conception of social de-reification. This conception is
premised on “the character of proletarian dialectics” that Lukacs grants proletarian
consciousness on “the point of transition into practice.”78 The character of these
proletarian dialectics consists in further negation of reification through consciousness
in which “the act of consciousness overthrows the objective form of its object.”
These acts of consciousness consist in negating the Simmelian-Weberian
conception of reification. This conception of de-reification is thus exemplary of
Coletti’s criticism of Lukacs’ where; “In appearance, the argument focuses on capital;
in reality, it is the ‘intellect’ which is being accused.”79 For these SimmelianWeberian instances of de-reification consist in juxtapositions between rationalized
things and the processes of becoming proletarian consciousness can now grasp. This
can be seen in Lukacs’ de-reification of science in which proletarian consciousness
possesses “the knowledge that social facts are not objects but relations between men
is intensified to the point where facts are wholly dissolved into processes.”80
It is also the case for the proletariat’s knowledge of totality. This knowledge
fuses Lukacs’ Hegelian-Marxist conception of the proletarian constitution of totality
with the Simmelain-Weberian juxtaposition between ‘rigidified’ ‘frozen’ things and
processes: “This image of a frozen reality that nevertheless is caught up in an
unremitting, ghostly movement at once becomes meaningful when this reality is
dissolved into the process of which man is the driving force.”81
Through this knowledge the proletariat grasps society on a ‘conceptual level’
in which “the structure of the world of men stands revealed as a system of
dynamically changing relations in which the conflict between man and nature, man
and man (in the class struggle, etc.) are fought out.”82 From this an understanding of
Ibid. 174. It is at points like this in the reification essay that the relationship
between the proletarian class and the conceptions of the party that Lukacs
espouses in other essays are rendered problematic. This is because in essays
such as Rose Luxembourg the party is granted the role as the bearer of classconsciousness. This implies that the party has a central role in cultivating classconsciousness and that the process of generating class consciousness is
voluntarist. In the reification essay, however, class consciousness is treated as
something that is generated by the proletariats standpoint in capitalist totality
and their role in history.
78 Ibid. 178
77
79
(Colletti 1973) 184.
Ibid. 184.
Ibid. 184
82 Ibid. 185
80
81
history and necessity of the overcoming of reification through praxis follows83in
theory, and in practice.84
VI Reification as Social domination
Now that I have shown how Lukacs’ conception of fetishism fits into his
theory of reification I will draw out how aspects of the theory of reification can be
said to consist in social domination.
Lukács’ conceptions of the dominating aspects of reification proceed from the
Hegelian-Marxian and Simmelian-Weberian premises he initially lays out. These
conceptions are added in the rest of the reification essay.
As a whole Lukács’s conception of domination can be seen in his influential
use of the term ‘second nature.’ Second nature conveys the autonomous function of
totality and the manner in which it dominates and compels action in the form of socionatural laws that encompass the Hegelian-Marxian and Simmelian-Weberian strands
of Lukács’ work. It also conveys the naturalization and ‘subjugation’ of
consciousness to these social conditions. Appropriately the conception of second
nature does this without providing much of an explication for the genesis of second
nature or the reproduction it promulgates. Like Lukacs’ other analysis this
constitution is generated by the ‘universal structuring principle’ of the commodity
form:
The commodity can only be understood in its undistorted essence when it becomes the universal
category of society as a whole. Only in this context does the reification produced by commodity
relations assume decisive importance both for the objective evolution of society and for the stance
adopted by men towards it. Only then does the commodity become crucial for the subjugation of men's
consciousness to the forms in which this reification finds expression and for their attempts to
comprehend the process or to rebel against its disastrous effects and liberate themselves from servitude
to the 'second nature' so created.85
This conception of domination can also be seen in passages that outline the
repercussions second nature has on individuals on either side of the class relations.
These characteristics of domination fuse the Hegelian-Marxian and SimmelianWeberian strands of reification;
For the proletariat social reality does not exist in this form. It appears in the first
instance as the pure object of societal events. In every aspect of daily life in which the
individual worker imagines herself to be the subject of his own life he finds this to be
an illusion that is destroyed by the immediacy of his existence. This forces upon him
the knowledge that the most elementary gratification of his needs, …. The
quantification of objects, their subordination to abstract mental categories makes its
Reification is, then, the necessary, immediate reality of every person living in capitalist society. It
can be overcome only by constant and constantly renewed ifforts to disrupt the reijied structure qf
existence by concretely relating to the concretely maniflsted contradictions of the total development,
by becoming conscious qf the immant!nt meanings qf these contradictions for the total development.
83
Ibid. 197
84 Ibid. 206
85 Ibid. 86
appearance in the life of the worker immediately as a process of abstraction of which
he is the victim, and which cuts him off from his labour-power, forcing him to sell it
on the market as a commodity, belonging to him. And by selling this, his only
commodity, he integrates it (and himself: for his commodity is inseparable from his
physical existence) into a specialized process that has been rationalized and
mechanized, a process that he discovers already existing, complete and able to
function without him and in which he is no more than a cipher reduced to an abstract
quantity, a mechanized and rationalized tool…..Thus for the worker the reified
character of the immediate manifestations of capitalist society receives the most
extreme definition possible. It is true: for the capitalist also there is the same doubling
of personality, the same splitting up of man into an element of the movement of
commodities and an (objective and impotent) observer of that movement. But for his
consciousness it necessarily appears as an activity (albeit this activity is objectively an
illusion), in which effects emanate from himself. This illusion blinds him to the true
state of affairs, whereas the worker, who is denied the scope for such illusory activity,
perceives the split in his being preserved in the brutal form of what is in its whole
tendency a slavery without limits. He is therefore forced into becoming the object of
the process by which he is turned into a commodity and reduced to a mere quantity.86
Descriptions such as these provide an account of the domination and
dehumanization that occurs in capitalist totality. Individuals are compelled by
objective social cultural forms in the production process, bureaucracy, the state,
journalism etc. These objective forms operate autonomously and compel individuals
to behave in an instrumental manner. The constitution of these objective forms and
the instrumental behaviour they culitivate humanizes individuals by estranging them
from their labour and forcing them to perform fragmented and contemplative
activities. In Lukacs’ theory of reification domination therefore consists in a theory in
the subjugation and dehumanization of individuals to the false objectivity of social
totality.
Vii criticisms
There are several conceptual criticisms that can be made of Lukas theory of
reification.87 These criticisms pertain to Lukács’ conception of Marxism and his
conception of fetishism. These criticisms have repercussions for his conception of
how reification is constitutive of a theory of social domination.
Marxism as method.
Several criticisms can be made of Lukács’ conception of Marxism. The first of
these criticisms have to do with his use of the Hegelian categories of dialect and
totality in his conception of Marxism as a method. Lukács’ use of dialectics to
characterize capitalist totality can be said to closer to Marx’s criticism of using
dialectics to apply an “abstract, ready-made system of logic to vague
Ibid. 166-67
I will address the problem of the relation between theory and empirical reality
in Lukacs and the other theorists I am examining in the general conclusion to this
thesis.
86
87
presentiments of just such a system”88 than Marx’s methodological use of
dialectics. Rather than using dialectics as a method to demonstrate how facets of
Lukács’ social analysis derive from each other, as Marx did, Lukas commits that unHegelian move of presupposing that capitalism and phenomena in capitalist totality
possess dialectical qualities.
This stance is magnified by his conception of capitalism as a totality. Like his
conception of dialectics Lukacs’ conception of capitalism’s function as a totality is
presupposed on his fidelity to Marx’s analysis. This is problematic because Lukacs
(a) accounts for phenomena in capitalist totality Marx’s analysis did not account for
and (b) accounts for these phenomena in a different manner than Marx.
Consequently, Lukács’ conception of Marxism as a method is different than
Marx’s method. Lukacs does not addressing this discrepancy. Nor does he present his
own account of how the social constitution of forms Marx’s analysis did not cover
derive from Marx’s account of the process of capitalist valorization. Instead Lukacs
premisses his analysis on fidelity to Marx and the claim that his social analysis of
reification is based “the problems that grow out of the fetishism of commodities.”
What is problematic about this is that Lukacs’s conception of fetishism and the
problems that grow out of it are different than Marx.89
This is evident in the method of social analysis in the Reification essay. As
was shown Lukas provides an analysis of the phenomena of reification by interpreting
different phenomena as ‘dialectical’ and analogous to the properties of the commodity
form. Consequently, Lukács’ social analysis treats society as a totality of disparate
phenomena that possesses analogous dominating and mystifying properties. This is
different than Marx’s attempt to show why and how different facets of society, such
as land, are implicated in the process of capitalist reproduction.90
Fetishism as reification
Several problems can also be seen in Lukacs conception of fetishism and the
role it plays in Lukacs’ theory of reification. Lukacs makes several important
conceptual moves to fetishism the basis of his theory of reification. As has been
shown one of these moves is the “fundamental and crude error of conflating alienation
88
89
MECW. Vol 40 p261
Contra Rose’s criticism the problem is then not only that Lukacs “omitted many details of Marx’s
theory of value and of the analysis of capitalist economies which followed on in Capital from
the analysis of the commodity form.” (Rose 1981) 29. As I have show this certainly true and
forms an important basis for how Lukacs’ conception of fetishism differs from Marx. Yet it is
questionable how the addition of the categories Rose notes are lacking such as surplus value could
provide a basis for an analysis of reified entities such as bureaucracy. It is also unclear how following
Marx’s method in Capital could account for them since Capital does not. What is problematic is that
Lukacs’ conception of Marxism as a method fails to provide a coherent account of the constitution and
interrelation of these entities at all. A similar point is made by Postone and Elbe. However, Postone
seems to assume that grounding this theory of constituion on the opposition between concrete and
abstract labour might account for the Simmelian and Weberian strands of Lukacs’ thought. I see no
reason for such confidence.
This may be why by virtue of a further instance of Lukacs’ appropriation of
Hegel, Lukacs falls back on a teleological philosophy of history as the grounds of
his theory of social constitution that treats capitalism as a historical construct in
its moment of overcoming, rather than as socio-cultural totality who’s function
should be explained. Lukacs acknowledges this in his 1967 preface: xxii xxiii
90
with objectification.”91 While this is often pointed out, the ramifications for how this
differentiates Lukács’ conception of fetishism from Marx, and the repercussions it has
for Lukacs theory of social domination are seldom focused on.
As was shown in the previous chapter, Marx’s theory of the fetish character of
commodities consists as part of his larger theory of the means by which the particular
social form of capitalist social production personifies things as the bearers of value.
The Fetish character of commodities is therefore a central part of Marx’s theory of
value that attempts to explain the perverted and inverted social constitution and
reproduction of capitalism in terms of the relation between things. It is not a theory of
illusory false consciousness in which things veil underlying relations but describes
how social categories are embedded in things and the social characteristics these
things possess.
Lukács’ conception of fetishism is discontinuous with these aspects of Marx’s
conception.92 In the first place Lukács’ conception is tied to his amalgamation of
Marx’s theories of fetish character and the fetishism of political economy into his
theory of reification. In the second place Lukács’ conception of fetishism rests on
perceiving fetishism as thingification: the transformation of human activity into things
that possess false objectivity and veil real processes, rather than an explanation of
how these things possess personified properties or how these things relate to each
other as bearers of value by virtue of these real processes. On one hand this allows
Lukas to integrate his earlier Simmeilain-Weberian conception of domination and
generalize the problem of thingification to different institutions and modes of
understanding that a theory of personified things might not, but on the other hand it
undermines the coherence and the efficacy of Lukas theory.93 This is because as a
result of the conflation of objectification and alienation it is unclear why things
possess autonomous properties that dominate people and why reification is so
pervasive.
These factors lead to a theory of social domination that is ungrounded and
comprised of different theories that share affinities but are also at odds with each
other. The Hegelian-Marxian strand recounts elements of Marx’s theory such as
abstraction, autonomy and personification.94 These elements are treated as results of
the class relation. At the same time, due to the insufficiencies of Lukacs’ model of
social constitution, there is little account of how these elements are constituted. This
is beneficial for Lukacs theory of class standpoint providing a grasp of totality as
premised on its position in production because such a theory wouldn’t hold in a more
complex exposition of capitalist production and distribution.
Ibid.
This goes against accounts I have defined as continuity accounts of reification
as fetishism.
93 It is symptomatic of Colletti and Rose’s respective positions that Colletti
attributes Lukacs’ conflation of alienation and objectification and his subsequent
criticism of reification with his Hegelianism, while Rose attributes it to his neoKantianism.. See (Colletti 1973; Rose 1981). As I have shown I contend these
problems stem from and fuse both strands. This means you cannot attribute the
problems in Lukacs’ theory to the pernicious influence of either Hegel or neoKantianism but must view these problems as indicative of both strands and
integral to his theory.
94 Curiously Postone does not address the similarities these aspects of Lukacs’
theory share with his one interpretation of Marx.
91
92
The Simmelian-Weberian strand compliments this theory of social domination
to degree that it allows Lukacs to include important facets of modern society that
Marx’s theory did not. What is problematic is that these strands function in capitalist
totality are only accounted for with Lukács’ problematic interpretation of the
commodity and his method of analogy. This means that at best Lukacs demonstrates
that these pernicious aspects of society harmonize with: (a) aspects of the commodity
form that is already presupposed in its definition. (b) a number of other aspects of
capitalist totality that possess the features of the commodity form. But this
demonstration does little to explain why or how these facets of totality possess these
qualities. Nor does it explain how things possess autonomous properities
Furthermore these Weberian aspects are also conceptualized in a different
manner than the Marxian strands. For as was shown they are conceptualized in terms
of a fragmented division of labour which is premised on a notion of organic holism.
This is different and possibly anathema to class based account.
As a result these conceptual deficiencies lead Lukas to a theory of domination
that lacks explication. This particularly true for how the autonomous properties of the
Hegelian-Marxian and Simmelian-Weberian strands are constituted and how the
different aspects of totality are linked. This means that the critical aspect of his
theory--the reduction of these forms to social relations—also flounders because it
unclear how these social relations constitute the type of social totality Lukacs
describes. Consequently, we are left with compelling descriptions of the similar
properties instutions share and some jarring descriptions of the ways that modern
societies dehumanize individuals. These descriptions and the theory that that
described them would be enormously influential in the 20th century. As we shall see
Lukacs Hegelian-Marxism and his theory of reification would be an inspiration and a
foil for the Adorno and Lefebvre.