Sociology 621 Lecture 2 September 10, 2009 The Three Nodes of the Marxist Tradition In the last lecture I explained what distinguishes critical social science from empiricist social science. In this lecture I will map out the broad contours of Marxism as a specific type of critical emancipatory social science. I. Preliminary Remarks 1. Three strategies for exploring/studying a theoretical tradition There are three broad ways that people approach the task of teaching theoretical frameworks for social analysis: (1). Development of ideas, history of thought. In this approach you begin with precursors, then explore the origins of a specific body of ideas, and the chart the subsequent development. The exposition of the ideas therefore follows the historical sequence of their elaboration. In a way this is the approach that, to the greatest extent possible, takes the theoretical tradition on its own terms. For Marxism this would mean beginning with the Early Manuscripts and then moving forward through the German Ideology, the Communist Manifesto, Marx’s great historical essays, and then Capital and related works, followed by subsequent Marxist work. (2). Sociology of Knowledge. Here the animating principle is less the sequence of ideas as such than the social context of their production. Earlier ideas are only one relevant factor here; as important is exploring the institutional, social and political settings within which ideas and arguments are forged. (3). Analytical Reconstruction of the structure of a framework. This is a very different approach. It begins at the end of the historical process, examines the full range of theoretical arguments and breaks them down in various ways: • an inventory of theoretical tasks the framework attempts to solve • a menu of basic concepts used to pose questions, build arguments, construct specific theories • theoretical modules – systematically integrated explanatory theories This is the approach I will use. This approach is inherently the most controversial, since there are many different ways of reconstructing a theoretical terrain as complex as Marxism.Lecture 2. The Three Nodes of the Marxist Tradition 22. Marxism as a Modular system of concepts and theories I regard Marxism as a kind of modular theoretical framework rather than a unitary, fully-integrated and comprehensive capital-T Theory in which the entire edifice rises or falls together. To call it a modular theoretical framework means that it has a variety of agendas and conceptual clusters, some of which are more robust than others. They are loosely woven together; different modules are attempts at solving different kinds of theoretical and empirical problems. Sometimes the solution to a problem within one module is found in another, so it is not the case that there are no ramifications across modules. Still, this is a loosely coupled theoretical structure. Now, there may also be something we could call the indispensible “core” to the theory”: some of the modules, or some elements of them, if abandoned, would really constitute a break with the tradition as a whole, not simply with some currents within it. I find it pretty hard to unequivocally identify this core and most efforts I have seen at doing this have the effect of excluding work that I feel remains part of the “tradition”. Still, if I had to say what for me is the irreducible core which, if abandoned, would mean that it no longer made any sense to proclaim the work as part of the tradition, it would be this: class analysis as the central axis of the critique of capitalism + a normative vision of a democratic-egalitarian alternative to capitalism. As we will see at the end of the semester, for example, the overarching theory of history in the Marxist tradition – historical materialism – is a less defendable part of this framework than is the specific class analysis of capitalism. One can accept Marxist class analysis and the Marxist critique of capitalism as powerful theoretical tools without also accepting the specific theory of historical trajectory in classical historical materialism which attempts to chart the destiny of capitalism. One way of capturing this is to use the expression sociological materialism as a contrast to historical materialism. II. The Three Nodes of the Marxist Tradition Marxism as an intellectual tradition has three basic theoretical nodes, which I will call: • Marxism as class analysis • Marxism as a theory of history • Marxism as class emancipation. One way of thinking about the contrast between class analysis and the theory of history is with an analogy with medicine: Consider endocrinology and oncology as two different nodes of medical science. Endocrinology is what you could call an independent variable discipline: if you an endocrinologist you can study any disease or biological process so long as you examine the effects of hormones. As an endocrinologist you can study growth or pimples or cancer or sexuality. You are monogamous on the independent variable but promiscuous on the dependent variable (so to speak). An oncologist, on the other hand, has permission to study any possible cause so long as it helps explain cancer. You can examine viruses, toxins, genetics, etc.Lecture 2. The Three Nodes of the Marxist Tradition 3Class analysis is like endocrinology -- think of this as independent variable Marxism: it is promiscuous on the explanada [a.k.a. dependent variuable], disciplined on the explanans or explanatory mechanisms (thus: you can do a class analysis of art, religion, sexuality, poverty, war, etc.). Theory of history is like oncology: it is defined by the object of explanation = the overall trajectory of human history. That is quite an extraordinary “dependent variable” – the long term pattern and trajectory of historical transformation. This is what we will focus on for the next few weeks. Marxism as class emancipation is the third node: the moral dimension of the Marxist tradition rooted in radical egalitarianism as a moral ideal. This is captured in the aphorism “to each according to need, from each according to ability.” Classical Marxism did not devote a great deal of energy to elaborating this moral dimension. Marx, in fact, was fairly scornful of the ideal of social “justice” and felt that philosophical defenses of conceptions of justice were basically just ideological ways of defending particular