MARX, JUSTICE AND
ALIENATION
A SPECIAL CALL FOR PAPERS
New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry
In spite of its clear and distinguished pedigree in European
political philosophy and theology, the concept of alienation is now associated,
almost exclusively, with Marxian critical theory and analysis. Yet, even within
the orbit of Marxian thought the meaning and function of the concept of
alienation has not always had a comfortable or stable position. Pointing to
polysemic and intermittent use in the Paris Manuscripts, and the absence
of explicit formation in Capital, Louis Althusser advised discarding
alienation like other “old philosophical themes” (Althusser 1967.) Granted,
there is a degree to which Marx’s own deployment of alienation has several
different conceptions and connotations, but the Grundrisse and other
textual sources provide evidence that alienation, its semantic elasticity
notwithstanding, remained central to Marx’s political economic analysis and his
theory of history, even while it appeared to ‘go underground’, so to speak, in
his late thought.
Part of the confusion around this concept arises from the
fact that Marx appears to use alienation as a kind of normative foundation, one
which informs his various critiques. A central historical rendering tends to
describe workers’ inability to fully realize their inner life in capitalist
society outside of market forces, hence they are separated from their “species
being.” Adopted from Feuerbach, and initially developed in the Paris
Manuscripts, Marx tends to understand species-being as comprising the
distinctive features of human being which when expressed facilitate the
conditions for human life to flourish. The ability to freely make and create is
central to this conception. But under capitalism the majority of people are
unable to exercise their capabilities. In this respect, alienation is a
normative assessment of the conditions of life and the potential possibility to
fulfill necessary elements of them themselves. One can see residue elements of
this sentiment in the language in and around the ideas associated with dignity,
humanity, and human flourishing.
In terms of the analysis of capitalist social relations,
Marx’s conception of alienation is narrower and is applied to studies of
exploitation in the labour process. Alienation in this respect refers to how
workers are separated or estranged, from their products. As a social system,
capitalism is structurally dependent upon separating workers from their
products and therefore requires dominating means to force workers to comply in
the reproduction of capitalist social relations. Thus separation implies
subordination. Additionally, there is a reconstructed rendering of alienation
wherein Marx’s concept of alienation can be reduced to “the notion that people
create the structures that dominate them” (Postone and Brennan 2009, 316).
Herein, alienation is a process by which persons are co-opted to reproduce
their subordinate conditions.
While the idea of alienation has never quite disappeared
from popular and scholarly consciousness, in recent years the impetus to
understand these structures seems more urgent than it did only a decade ago.
Indeed, when Leo Panitch, Greg Albo and Vivek Chibber argue that, for many,
“crisis is the new normal” (Panitch, Albo, and Chibber 2012, ix), they
articulate the conditions under which people both struggle to eke out the means
of existence and make sense of the world today as well as the structural
constraints which rigorously intercede and perpetuate social misery.
Increasingly, capitalism is at the center of critical
attention. This is evidenced by the fact that Thomas Piketty’s Capital in
the Twenty-First Century, which details he inequalities generated under
capitalism (hardly a revelation), seems to struck a chord in the popular press,
so to speak. So to have Milanovic’s The Haves and the Have-Nots and
Joseph Stiglitz’s The Price of Inequality. Unfortunately, these analyses,
while detailing economic developments more broadly, are silent on issues of
labor, working conditions, and the prospects for people to cultivate their
inner life under contemporary capitalism. For this reason, alienation still
nevertheless provides a useful focus to explore contemporary social thought.
There is a need for old philosophical themes.
This special issue of New Proposals seeks to
collect and showcase scholarship primarily concerned with using, refining, or
deploying the concept of alienation. Given the diverse expressions of
alienation we invite contributions that explore the historical,
analytical, and practical underpinnings of the concept, its contemporary fate,
and speculations on the trajectory of this idea.
Recommended Length:
Peer-Reviewed academic articles: 4’000-6’000 words.
Shorter comments and arguments: 1’500- 2’500 words
Please send queries and expressions of interest (including
title, a 200 word abstract, a brief outline of the argument, affiliation, and
contact details) via email to the co-editors.
Scott Timcke – snt2@sfu.ca
Graham MacKenzie – gsmacken@sfu.ca
‘New Proposals’: http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/newproposals/index
**END**
‘Human Herbs’ –
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