{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"df60fc71-5c84-4680-bd1a-40a5ea8ac5ed","title":"The Violence of Abstraction The Analytic Foundations of Historical Materialism","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"0631153187","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"df60fc71-5c84-4680-bd1a-40a5ea8ac5ed","id":"df60fc71-5c84-4680-bd1a-40a5ea8ac5ed","uuid":"df60fc71-5c84-4680-bd1a-40a5ea8ac5ed","title":"The Violence of Abstraction The Analytic Foundations of Historical Materialism","normalized_title":"theviolenceofabstractiontheanalyticfoundationsofhistoricalmaterialism","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"0631153187","isbns":["0631153187"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":93,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/df60fc71-5c84-4680-bd1a-40a5ea8ac5ed","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/The%20Violence%20of%20Abstraction%20The%20Analytic%20Foundations%20of%20Historical%20Materialism","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/df60fc71-5c84-4680-bd1a-40a5ea8ac5ed/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/df60fc71-5c84-4680-bd1a-40a5ea8ac5ed/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/df60fc71-5c84-4680-bd1a-40a5ea8ac5ed","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/df60fc71-5c84-4680-bd1a-40a5ea8ac5ed/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/df60fc71-5c84-4680-bd1a-40a5ea8ac5ed/search"},"page":{"printed_page":112,"pdf_page":62,"physical_index":62,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"8efc7d93f59a223195000df69ac57d98e4cf083932a6ba807a9749a2ab6da2d7"},"chapter":"The Violence of Abstraction","content":"Only when man has recognized and organized his forces propres’ as social forces, and consequently no longer separates social power from himself in the shape of political power, only then will human emancipation have been accomplished.(1843c:168)\n\n[The Paris Commune] was .. . a revolution not against this or that, legitimate, constitutional, republican or Imperialist form of state power. It was a revolution against the State itself, of this supernaturalist abortion of society, a resumption by the people for the people of its own social life. (1871: 150)\n\nCohen at one point in his book remarks that ‘even the mature idea of the political superstructure has some analogy with the doctrine of commodity fetishism' (1978: 128). Too true. But why, then, perpetuate the fetish within the analytic categories of historical materialism itself?\n\nInterlude: the giraffes among the acacias\n\nWhat follows is a brief, but I hope a useful, digression from my main argument. It is entirely concerned with a series of issues arising out of G.A. Cohen's formulation of 'traditional historical materialism'.l This chapter, which is the most philosophically technical in this book, may be skipped by those persuaded of my arguments thus far and disinclined to pursue Cohen further, since the aspect of his work I want to take up here – his functionalism – rests on premisses I have already rejected. If my view of Marx's basic concepts is accepted, there is evidently no possibility of developing a general functional model (any more than there is of elaborating a general causal model) of the forces/relations or base/superstructure relationship, as Cohen attempts. The issue of functional explanation in Marxism is worth discussing independently none the less, for two main reasons.\n\nFirst, Cohen is undoubtedly correct that many forms of Marxism are tacitly functionalist. These include certain internal relations perspectives, and I wish clearly to distinguish my own position from these.² Functionalist formulations are also endemic in some variants of Marxist-feminism. Second, and more importantly, Cohen maintains that Marx's claims in the 1859 Preface can only be rendered coherent if they are interpreted functionally. Only thus, he contends, can we reconcile Marx's recognition that specific superstructures are conditions of existence for economic structures, and economic structures for development of the productive forces, with his assertion of the respective explanatory primacy of the latter term in each pair. Marxism in Cohen's view entails an inescapable commitment to functionalism.\n\nI believe Cohen to be right on this issue if - but only if - his definitions of the entities in question are accepted. Non-functionalist causal interpretations of the forces/relations and base/superstructure ‘correspondences' run into unavoidable problems of circularity, of the sort raised by Acton. To this extent Cohen renders Marxist debate a significant service in showing that an orthodox conception of Marx's basic concepts does entail a functional reading of his explanatory propositions - a conclusion many Marxists have been reluctant to accept, even whilst wishing to maintain their conceptual orthodoxy. Interestingly, it was a recognition that only a covert teleology could reconcile a conception of superstructures as conditions of existence of economic structures with the assertion of economic determination ‘in the last instance’ which led Hindess and Hirst³ eventually to argue the ‘necessary non-correspondence' of these supposed levels of the social formation.\n\nT\n\n112\n\nIDEAL SUPERSTRUCTURES\n\n5","previous_page":null,"next_page":null}