Marx, Labour and the Question of "Social Ontology"


Talita Yaltırık, York University

The question of whether Marx has a social ontology is a controversial question in the history of Marxism. In this presentation, I trace the ontological implications of Marx’s positioning of labour in the sense of human activity by questioning the possibilities of a “social ontology” which is based on Marx through the interpretations of Marx by Lukács (1978) in his later writing Ontology of Social Being , Mészáros (1975), Arthur (1986) and Gould (1978). In this examination, by considering the different appearances of labor in Marx’s writings, I recognize the important distinction which is noted by Mészáros between labour as "productive activity" which has an ontological attribution and as the “capitalistically structured activity” which is the base of all alienation (Mészáros, 1975, p. 78). By considering this distinction which I refer to as the distinction between labour as human activity and labour as alienated labour in this presentation, I examine the aforementioned theoreticians’ approaches to Marx’s writings on an ontological ground through the centrality of the concept of labour. In this examination, I also consider the commonalities and divergences between their conceptualizations of labour and their approaches to the question of ontology. According to Lukács, through Marx’s understanding, the way is opened for describing social existence ontologically on a material basis (Lukács, 1978). According to Lukács’ interpretation of Marx in the Ontology of Social Being , "man" and all of his relationships have both “insuperable natural basis and the permanent social transformation of this” (Lukács, 1978, p. 6). Lukács claims the centrality of the category of labour, which is at the base of this double transformation, in Marx’s works (Lukács, 1978, p. 6). In this way, Marx’s approach goes beyond the exclusive opposition between social being and natural being which is asserted by many bourgeois philosophers (Lukács, 1978, p. 7). By pointing out the possibilities of the concept of "human productive activity", Mészáros also argues that both the “‘anthropological principle’” and “relativistic ‘historicism’” can only be transcended through “a synthesis of history and anthropology”, and it is possible with a “comprehensive, materialist, dialectical ontology ” which has the central reference to “‘self-developing human labour’” (Mészáros, 1975, p. 48). According to Arthur, Marx approaches objectification, in other words, the mediation of "productive activity", which is at the center of the social and historical development of "mankind", ontologically because it is the element that links the human and the natural, the ideal and the material, teleology and causality to each other (Arthur, 1986). Arthur argues that this aspect of Marx’s approach separates him from idealist social ontologies and biological reductionists (Arthur, 1986). According to Gould, Marx approaches labour as an activity of self-creation which is through interaction with nature and other individuals, rather than in immediacy, and he describes it as objectification (Gould, 1978). Gould explicitly describes Marx’s "concrete social theory" as social ontology, and she shows Marx’s interest in social reality as the difference between Marx and most of the traditional ontologists, while she claims that he meets with them in their common interest in the nature of reality (Gould, 1978). According to Gould, Marx’s point of radical departure is his interpretation of the ontological categories in a concrete way as having social and historical meaning (Gould, 1978). Despite the singularity of their approaches, all of these theoreticians point out the uniqueness of Marx’s ontology by emphasizing how it goes beyond the dichotomy of natural and social through his positioning of the concept of labour which has ontological attribution. In this light, in this presentation, by examining Marx’s writings through these theoreticians’ approaches, I aim to present the possibilities of the unique contribution of Marx to thinking of a social ontology which goes beyond the dichotomous ways of approaching social reality.

This paper will be presented at the following session: