The notion of the human as the social species-being is not something that is limited to Marx’s early writings, but can also be found in his later works. In the Grundrisse, Marx (1857/1858, 496) for example argues: ‘But human beings become individuals only through the process of history. He appears originally as a species-being’. In Capital, Marx continues his early idea that co-operation is a human species activity, but makes clear that it is not a static metaphysical category, but that the human species-being capacities (such as co-operation) develop historically and take in specific forms under particular societal circumstances: ‘When the worker co-operates in a planned way with others, he strips of the fetters of his individuality, and develops the capabilities of his species’ (Marx 1867, 447). Marx’s theory certainly does not contain trans-historical reified categories that describe phenomena assert themselves as natural laws in society, but there is a range of general social categories that do not exist outside, but in and through history.
For Marx, all categories of analysis are social categories. There are, however, some categories that describe phenomena that are necessary for society in general. And there are others that describe phenomena that are necessary for particular societal formations. Marx’s critique of the political economy of capitalism is by being a critical theory of capitalism at the same time a critical theory of class-based society and a critical theory of society. A critical theory of society needs to distinguish between the levels of society, class-based societies, capitalist society, contemporary capitalist society, and the dialectical mediation of these levels. Such a theory needs to take into account the dialectical of the universal, the particular and the individual at the level of its categories.
An example is the category of co-operation: Humans in all societies need to co-operate to a certain degree in order for society to exist. In class-based societies, co-operation takes on the form of a division of labour. In capitalism, cooperation takes on the form of a division of labour that is highly technified so that machine systems emerge, in which workers become appendages of capital and technology. Co-operation has a universal, a particular and an individual dimension. It exists in society, in class-based societies and capitalist society and takes on a particular form in a specific societal formation.
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Critical Theory of Communication