Title: "To Seize the Masses". Philosophy, ideology and propaganda by Karl Marx Author: Robin Pech Department: Ústav filosofie a religionistiky Supervisor: Mgr. Petr Kouba, Ph.D. Abstract: The aim of the diploma thesis is to thematize and clarify the interdependence of philosophy, ideology and propaganda by Karl Marx. The realization of philosophy, according to Marx, is a critique of modern society. The aim of this critique, however, is not only the understanding and interpretation of social relations but, above all, their change. For these purposes, Marx has developed his philosophy of history. On this basis is explained the nature of modern society and formulated the political programme of its transformation. That is further publicly promoted to ensure adequate - mass - support for the revolution. Thus, arises remarkable combination of philosophy, political ideology and propaganda, which seems to be an integral part of Marx's thought and his literary work and therefore, also a serious problem of his interpretation. Keywords: Marx, Philosophy, Ideology, Prapaganda

Drawing on Foucault’s conception of “subjugated knowledges,” this thesis attempts to articulate a subjugated anti-colonial reading of Marx so as to interrogate the discursive modifications effected within Marxism after Marx, specifically as those modifications relate to the conditions of possibility regulating Marxist understandings of race and colonialism. This genealogy proceeds by offering a critical re-examination of the ways in which Marxists of the Second International theorized a “modern,” “scientific” account of imperialism, one that expunged important insights into the nature of colonial-capitalism at the same time it established a new knowledge of capitalist expansion and the world market. This Leninist schematization of imperialism is theorized in relation to “deraceination,” a neologism arising from this project and describing the manifold discursive processes by which Marxism was uprooted from its grounding materialist premises while it underwent an ideological de-racialization that eschewed discussions of race and Indigeneity in Marxist political economy. After this critique of the Leninist schematization of imperialism, deraceination is elaborated by revisiting the early history of Marxist feminism, leading to the conclusion that the historical subjugation of the basic materiality of race and gender was accomplished in no small part through the definition of “the woman question.” By liberating this subjugated trajectory of Marxist thought, this thesis argues for the necessity of reincorporating an anti-colonial reading of Marx into our understandings of Marxism and Marxist feminism.

As the contradictions of U.S. capitalist imperialism have intensified the hardships of working class and poor Americans, spontaneous mass mobilizations have arisen with more frequency than in decades past. However, these social movements have all fallen with the same speed as they arose, often leaving nothing but hashtags and slogans to account for their existence. In this thesis, I postulate that the futility of U.S. social movements stems from their lack of organization and theoretical guidance. I hold that the U.S. masses’ organization along the lines of a non-dogmatic and non-mechanistic dialectical materialist outlook stands as the precondition for a successful anti-capitalist movement. In light of this, this thesis explores questions and misunderstandings related to the dialectical materialist outlook and creates the conditions for its concise and systematized elaboration, a task which it fulfills in the process of demonstrating its indispensability for revolutionary socialist politics.

<p>Jean-Paul Sartre' s central purpose in writing the Critique of Dialectical Reason was to render intelligible Karl Marx's principle that circumstances make people just as much as people make circumstances. With the intent of complementing Marx's work, Sartre sought to theoretically connect the marxist outline of social process with its constituting parts--individuals. He sought to do this without ascribing to circumstances a superorganic existence, and in terms of the general structure of individual action per se. In place of a super organic being he attributed unintended consequences to all individual action (as well as intended consequences). The actual influence of circumstances upon people he explained by the fact that products bear some trace of the intentions of those who made them. The product becomes a sign, and people construct about them a world of signs.</p> <p>Within this world of signs people tend to become separated as mediations between constructed things. It is in this sense, that is, in explaining how social relations tend to occur indirectly through the products of praxis, that Sartre sought to justify a rejection of organicism by developing his interpretation of Marx's theory of fetishism.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

Esta pesquisa busca examinar as categorias centrais do pensamento de Marx tendo em vista uma questão atual: a expansão da atividade intelectual como forma do trabalho subsumido ao capital. Em contraposição às teorias que veem esta transformação como fator que altera a teoria do valor e torna a compreensão marxiana do capital obsoleta, examino nos textos de Marx a relação geral entre trabalho e conhecimento, pautada em sua compreensão do indivíduo e da sociabilidade. Busco então conectar essas categorias fundantes com a história, distinguindo a dialética do desenvolvimento nas sociedades pré-capitalista e no modo de produção do capital. No interior deste último, destaco dois temas centrais, a categoria de trabalho abstrato como forma social específica do trabalho, e a relação contraditória entre o desenvolvimento das forças produtivas com a forma social do capital. É este desenvolvimento que transforma a relação entre trabalho e conhecimento, bem como a divisão entre trabalho material e trabalho intelectual nesta fase avançada do evolver do capital. A partir do exame deste tema, aponto por fim algumas das mudanças atuais que revelam o aprofundamento da contradição que permeia a reprodução capitalista. Na abordagem destes temas, discuto com autores que buscam explicar as vicissitudes atuais, bem como com comentadores da obra marxiana que privilegiam o ponto de vista lógico ao examinar seus textos. / This research seeks to examine the central categories of Marxs thought regarding a current issue: the expansion of intellectual activity as a form of labor subsumed to capital. In contrast to theories that see this transformation as a factor that changes the theory of value and makes the Marxian understanding of capital obsolete, this research examines the overall relationship between labor and knowledge in Marxs texts, based on his understanding of the individual and sociability. It aims then to connect these founding categories with history, distinguishing the dialectic of development in pre-capitalist societies and the capitalist mode of production. Inside the latter, two central themes are highlighted, the abstract labor category as a specific social form of work, and the contradictory relationship between the development of productive forces and capital-relation. It is this development that transforms the relationship between labor and knowledge, as well as the division between material and intellectual production, at this late stage of capital expansion. From the examination of this issue, it is pointed at last some of the current changes that reveal the depth of the contradiction that pervades capitalist reproduction. In addressing these issues, authors who seek to explain the current changes are discussed as well as interpretations of Marxs thought that favor the logical point of view.

Cette étude de philosophie sociale vise à comprendre la spécificité du capitalisme en tant que forme historique d’organisation sociale et de transformation du monde. Elle propose une réflexion descriptive et normative sur la pratique sociale capitaliste, afin de mieux cerner la complexité, la diversité et la plasticité de la dynamique capitaliste. Nous avons choisi de partir de la façon dont Marx conçoit la logique du capital sous l’angle de l’abstraction réelle, ce qui nous permet de saisir la pratique capitaliste selon les termes d’une normativité abstraite, d’un « devoir-être » qui pose comme fin « suprasensible » l’idéalisation d’une survaleur infinie. Marx fournit de précieuses ressources théoriques non seulement pour comprendre l’abstraction capitaliste, mais aussi pour déterminer les formes selon lesquelles celle-ci intervient et restructure la réalité concrète à travers l’action des capitalistes, en rendant explicites les tensions liées à une telle restructuration de l’existant selon des postulats abstraits. À travers la confrontation de la conceptualisation marxienne avec des courants plus contemporains d’interprétation de la dynamique capitaliste, comme les analyses macroéconomiques et institutionnalistes de la Théorie de la Régulation et les travaux psycho-sociologiques portant sur l’organisation néomanagériale du travail et de la consommation, nous montrons que la théorisation de la pratique capitaliste doit rendre compte de la diversité et de la plasticité de la trajectoire du capitalisme, ainsi que de la manière dont celui-ci réussit à se reproduire, même parmi tant de crises et d’obstacles, au moins jusqu'à présent. C’est pourquoi nous proposons une esquisse de modèle de pratique capitaliste qui, s’inspirant de certains aspects de la philosophie pratique kantienne (notamment le concept d’imagination), tente de forger un concept d’imagination capitaliste, lequel permet de comprendre l’ouverture constante à de nouveaux modes de réalisation des idéalisations capitalistes. Cette conception de la pratique capitaliste nous conduit finalement à repenser sur de bases plus créatives et imaginatives la critique immanente du capitalisme. / This work on social philosophy aims at understanding the specificity of capitalism as a historical form of social organization and transformation of the world. It presents a descriptive and normative reflection on the capitalist social practice in order to better understand the complexity, diversity and plasticity of capitalist dynamics. Our starting point is Marx’s understanding of the logic of capital as a real abstraction. This enables us to grasp the capitalist practice by way of an abstract normativity, a “duty” which sets the idealisation of an infinite surplus value as a “suprasensible” end. Marx provides valuable theoretical resources not only to understand capitalist abstraction, but also to determine the form in which it operates and restructures concrete reality through the action of capitalists. It does so by making explicit the tensions related to such restructuring. Moreover, we contrast the Marxist conceptualization with more contemporary currents of interpretation of capitalist dynamics such as the macroeconomic and the institutionalist analyses of Regulation Theory and psycho-sociological studies on the neomanagement organization of labor and consumption. In this way, we show that the theory of capitalist practice must not only reflect the diversity and plasticity of the trajectory of capitalism but also reveal how it manages to reproduce itself (at least so far) even among so many crises and obstacles. That is why we propose an outline of a model of capitalist practice inspired by certain aspects of Kantian practical philosophy (especially the concept of imagination). With this model we intend to create a concept of capitalist imagination, which helps to understand the constant openness to new embodiments of capitalist idealizations. This conception of capitalist practice finally leads us to rethink the immanent critique of capitalism on a more creative and imaginative basis.

Esta pesquisa busca examinar as categorias centrais do pensamento de Marx tendo em vista uma questão atual: a expansão da atividade intelectual como forma do trabalho subsumido ao capital. Em contraposição às teorias que veem esta transformação como fator que altera a teoria do valor e torna a compreensão marxiana do capital obsoleta, examino nos textos de Marx a relação geral entre trabalho e conhecimento, pautada em sua compreensão do indivíduo e da sociabilidade. Busco então conectar essas categorias fundantes com a história, distinguindo a dialética do desenvolvimento nas sociedades pré-capitalista e no modo de produção do capital. No interior deste último, destaco dois temas centrais, a categoria de trabalho abstrato como forma social específica do trabalho, e a relação contraditória entre o desenvolvimento das forças produtivas com a forma social do capital. É este desenvolvimento que transforma a relação entre trabalho e conhecimento, bem como a divisão entre trabalho material e trabalho intelectual nesta fase avançada do evolver do capital. A partir do exame deste tema, aponto por fim algumas das mudanças atuais que revelam o aprofundamento da contradição que permeia a reprodução capitalista. Na abordagem destes temas, discuto com autores que buscam explicar as vicissitudes atuais, bem como com comentadores da obra marxiana que privilegiam o ponto de vista lógico ao examinar seus textos. / This research seeks to examine the central categories of Marxs thought regarding a current issue: the expansion of intellectual activity as a form of labor subsumed to capital. In contrast to theories that see this transformation as a factor that changes the theory of value and makes the Marxian understanding of capital obsolete, this research examines the overall relationship between labor and knowledge in Marxs texts, based on his understanding of the individual and sociability. It aims then to connect these founding categories with history, distinguishing the dialectic of development in pre-capitalist societies and the capitalist mode of production. Inside the latter, two central themes are highlighted, the abstract labor category as a specific social form of work, and the contradictory relationship between the development of productive forces and capital-relation. It is this development that transforms the relationship between labor and knowledge, as well as the division between material and intellectual production, at this late stage of capital expansion. From the examination of this issue, it is pointed at last some of the current changes that reveal the depth of the contradiction that pervades capitalist reproduction. In addressing these issues, authors who seek to explain the current changes are discussed as well as interpretations of Marxs thought that favor the logical point of view.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-29T11:13:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 tese_7469_DISSERTAÇÃO_POLLYANNA_TRABALHO IMATERIAL E A TEORIA DO VALOR_versão final.pdf: 1655764 bytes, checksum: 2a7e1f233861f15daa6ed2d2b39eb741 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-07-10 / Esta pesquisa tem por objetivo discutir a problemática central existente entre a teoria do valor de Karl Marx e a chamada teoria do trabalho imaterial. Refere-se essa divergência à tese da superação da teoria do valor trabalho de Marx para compreensão da atual dinâmica do modo de produção capitalista, que para alguns, encontra-se hoje sob a égide da produção imaterial. Segundo os autores alinhados a essa corrente, como André Gorz, Antônio Negri e Mauricio Lazzarato, por ser essa produção repleta de caráteres subjetivos e, portanto irreprodutíveis, torna-se impossível estabelecer uma relação entre seu preço e o tempo de trabalho dispendido para sua reprodução. Logo, a teoria marxista do valor torna-se insuficiente para subsidiar as análises desse novo momento econômico. Nosso trabalho apresenta uma crítica a essa perspectiva, chegando à conclusão que a teoria do valor de Marx tem ainda enorme pertinência para análise das novas formas assumidas pelo capitalismo contemporâneo e que, principalmente, fornece as bases teóricas para a compreensão das temáticas referentes ao que se denomina imaterial. Para isso, avançamos em um aspecto central, que reside na constatação de que há uma incompreensão acerca da [verdadeira] natureza do imaterial, que podemos entender como toda ideia e elaboração intelectual humana. A não apreensão desse sentido faz com que aqueles autores vinculados à teoria do trabalho imaterial, incorram em dois equívocos essenciais: em primeiro lugar, essa confusão leva-os a classificar os setores produtores de serviços muitos deles produtivos e materiais para Marx como parte da produção imaterial. Revelamos dessa forma, como a determinação dos preços desses serviços ainda se assenta sobre a magnitude de seus valores. Em segundo, há um desconhecimento da verdadeira forma de produção desse imaterial a produção do conhecimento e de como se determina seu preço. Assim, à luz da teoria de Marx, é possível perceber que o conhecimento em si não é criador de riqueza e que sua remuneração ocorre por meio da apropriação de parcela do valor gerado na produção material, de forma semelhante ao que ocorre à renda da terra, de modo que a compreensão de sua dinâmica só é possível a partir da categoria marxista do valor. / This research aims to discuss the existing problems between the central theory of value of Karl Marx and the so-called "theory of immaterial labor". It refers to the thesis of this divergence overcoming Marx's labor theory of value to understand the current dynamics of the capitalist mode of production, which for some, is today under the aegis of immaterial production. According to the authors aligned to this current, as André Gorz, Antonio Negri and Maurizio Lazzarato, being this production full of subjective characters and thus irreproducible, it is impossible to establish a relationship between its price and the time spent in it‘s production. Hence, the Marxist theory of value becomes insufficient to support the analysis of the ―new‖ economic times. Our work presents a critique of this perspective and concludes that Marx's labor theory of value is still relevant to the analysis of the new forms taken by contemporary capitalism, and that it mainly provides the theoretical basis for understanding the issues related to it is called ―immaterial‖. In order to carry it out, we move forward in an central aspect, which lies at the realization that there is a misunderstanding about the true nature of the immaterial, understood as every idea and human intellectual development. The failure to grasp this meaning makes those authors linked to the theory of immaterial labor, incur in two basic misconceptions: first, this confusion leads them to classify the sectors producing services - many of them productive and materials for Marx - as part of immaterial production. We show that the pricing of these services is still based on the magnitude of their values. Second, there is a lack of understanding the form of production of immaterial - the production of knowledge - and how to determine its price. Thus, in the light of Marx's theory, one can see that knowledge itself is not wealth creator, and that its revenue is obtained through the appropriation of the share of the value generated in the material production, similarly to what happens to the ground rent so that understanding of its dynamics is only possible from the marxist value category

[pt] O Antropoceno, enquanto o reconhecimento do impacto da atividade humana no planeta, tem sido um ponto crucial e transdisciplinar de debate. Esta dissertação intervém na teorização sobre o Antropoceno nas Relações Internacionais (RI), defendendo a importância de incluir uma crítica à produção nesses esforços. Entender a produção como uma determinação histórica central para compreender nossa situação atual e posicionar o trabalho e a tecnologia como tópicos cruciais é um movimento teórico e político importante porque constrói um terreno comum entre lutas ambientais e trabalhistas. Em primeiro lugar, esclarecemos a conexão entre o Antropoceno e a produção, argumentando como negligenciá-la prejudica o caráter crítico de certas abordagens em RI. Essa afirmação é feita por meio de um diálogo com o conceito de metabolismo desenvolvido na Ecologia Marxista, enfatizando o trabalho como atividade metabólica, ou seja, uma forma de relacionamento socialmente mediada com a natureza. Em segundo lugar, destacamos como essas interações com a natureza não são apenas sempre parciais, mas mediadas por ferramentas, máquinas e outros aparelhos. Opondo concepções de tecnologia como expressão de certas ideias de matéria, optando por ver a maquinaria como uma conurbação de fluxos que condensa divisões sociais mutantes do trabalho e cuja materialidade, desde a Revolução Industrial, se baseia sobretudo em como eles dividem e gerenciam energia e informação. Olhar para essa divisão permite uma narração sintética da trajetória tecnológica em que o Antropoceno emerge e o projeta como um regime de informação e energia. Por último, analisamos a hipótese do comunismo como gestão coletiva da alienação. A alienação aparece não como alienação de um potencial criativo que compartilhamos com a natureza, mas como a capacidade ambivalente do ser humano e da natureza de criarem coisas das quais perdemos o controle e que podem vir a nos determinar, mudando o significado tanto do humano quanto da natureza. Enquanto o capitalismo é um modo específico de alienação baseado na produção de valor que gera determinações específicas, o comunismo aparece como a reconstrução experimental coletiva de nossa organização social de produção, uma tarefa inacabável que implica uma mudança na forma como o humano e a natureza são determinados pela produção. / [en] The Anthropocene, which entails the recognition of the impact of human activity on the planet, has been a crucial point of transdisciplinary debate. This thesis intervenes in the theorization about the Anthropocene in International Relations (IR) by arguing for the importance of including a criticism of production in those efforts. Casting production as a central historical determination for understanding our current predicament, and positioning labor and technology as crucial topics is an important theoretical e political move because it enables the establishment of a common ground between environmental and labor struggles. First, we clarify the connection between the Anthropocene and production, arguing how neglecting it blunts the critical edge of critical approaches within IR. This claim is made through a dialogue with the concept of metabolism as advanced in Marxist Ecology, emphasizing labor as metabolic activity, that is, a socially mediated form of relating to nature. Second, we foreground how those interactions with nature are not only always partial, but mediated by tools, machines and other apparatuses. We run against conceptions of technology that cast it as the expression of certain ideas of matter, opting to see machinery as a conurbation of flows that condenses mutating social divisions of labor and whose materiality, since the Industrial Revolution, is particularly based on how they split and manage energy and information. Looking at that split allows a synthetic narration of the technological trajectory in which the Anthropocene emerges and casts it as a regime of information and energy. Last, we end by entertaining the hypothesis of communism as the collective management of alienation. Alienation appears not as estrangement from a creative potential we share with nature, but as the ambivalent capacity of the human and of nature to create things from which we lose control and may come to determine us, changing what both human and nature mean. While capitalism is a specific mode of alienation based on value production that generates specific determinations, communism appears as the collective experimental remaking of our social organization of production, an unfinishable task that while performed changes how the human and nature are determined by production.

[pt] Esta tese tem como objetivo investigar a recepção de Spinoza na obra de Marx. Analisa-se, em maior profundidade, as possíveis ressonâncias e convergências em diversos conceitos de Marx presentes entre o período de 1843 a 1871. Com base na análise dos Cadernos Spinoza, da Crítica da Filosofia do Direito de Hegel, da Crítica da Filosofia do Direito de Hegel-Introdução, da Questão Judaica, d A Sagrada Família, d A Ideologia Alemã e d A Guerra Civil na França, demonstra-se que, embora Marx tenha se referido pouquíssimas vezes de forma direta ao filosofo holandês, podemos encontrar algumas ressonâncias do pensamento spinozano em alguns dos conceitos produzidos por Marx durante o período delimitado pela pesquisa. / [en] This thesis aims to investigate Spinoza s reception in Marx s work. The possible resonances and convergences in several concepts of Marx present between the period from 1843 to 1871 are analyzed in greater depth. Based on the analysis of Spinoza s Book, Hegel s Critique of the Philosophy of Law, of Hegel-Introduction, of the Jewish Question, of The Holy Family, of The German Ideology and of The Civil War in France, it is shown that, although Marx rarely referred directly to the Dutch philosopher, we can find some resonances of Spinoza s thought in some of the concepts produced by Marx during the period delimited by the research.