Marxist Humanism and Communication Theory

Media, Communication and Society Volume One

Christian Fuchs

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781000345537
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Critical Theory

This book outlines and contributes to the foundations of Marxist-humanist communication theory. It analyses the role of communication in capitalist society.

Engaging with the works of critical thinkers such as Erich Fromm, E. P. Thompson, Raymond Williams, Henri Lefebvre, Georg Lukács, Lucien Goldmann, Günther Anders, M. N. Roy, Angela Davis, C. L. R. James, Rosa Luxemburg, Eve Mitchell, and Cedric J. Robinson, the book provides readings of works that inform our understanding of how to critically theorise communication in society. The topics covered include the relationship of capitalism, racism, and patriarchy; communication and alienation; the base/superstructure-problem; the question of how one should best define communication; the political economy of communication; ideology critique; the connection of communication and struggles for alternatives.

Written for a broad audience of students and scholars interested in contemporary critical theory, this book will be useful for courses in media and communication studies, cultural studies, Internet research, sociology, philosophy, political science, and economics.

This is the first of five Communication and Society volumes, each one outlining a particular aspect of the foundations of a critical theory of communication in society.

Chapter One

Introduction

1.1What is Marxist humanism?

1.2Why do we need Marxist humanism today?

1.3The structure of this book

1.4Alienation

Literature

The overall task of this book is to outline elements and some foundations of a Marxist-humanist theory of communication by engaging with the works of some relevant thinkers. Such an approach is inherently a critical theory of society and communication, which means that it analyses how class, exploitation, domination, and power shape communication and how communication processed mediate class, exploitation, domination, and power.

The approach I take in has been further developed in the book Communication and Capitalism: A Critical Theory that is available open access (Fuchs 2020). The book at hand documents how I arrived at my own theoretical insights on how to theorise communication and capitalism by reading, engaging with, interpreting a variety of critical theory approaches. Marxist Humanism & Communication Theory provides an introduction on how to read specific critical theorists’ approaches as critical theories of communication.

The book at hand is the first volume of a series of a book titled Communication & Society. The overall aim of Communication & Society is to outline foundations of a critical theory of communication and digital communication in society. It is a multi-volume theory social theory book series situated on the intersection of communication theory, sociology, and philosophy. The overall questions the Communication & Society deals with are: What is the role of communication in society? What is the role of communication in capitalism? What is the role of communication in digital capitalism?

1.1 What is Marxist humanism?

What is Marxist humanism? It is an analytical approach that has several features:

Hegel and dialectical philosophy

Marxist humanism is a form of Hegelian Marxism, which means that it uses dialectical philosophy for understanding society. It stresses the dialectics of subject/object, practices/structures, labour/capital, economic/non-economic, continuity/discontinuity, chance/necessity, etc. in society.

Practices

Marxist humanism analyses society by taking human beings’ practices as foundational dimension. It stresses the role of social production as the material dimension of society.

Praxis

Marxist humanism analyses the role of class and social struggles in class and dominative societies. Praxis is human beings’ struggle for a good society where everyone benefits and there is wealth, freedom, and happiness for all.

Human essence

Marxist humanism argues that there is an essence of human beings. It recognises that humans face different living conditions, but stresses that humans as such have common features. The commonalities of human beings are the foundation of practical and ethical universalism that argues for the realisation of common rights of all human beings. The notion of the commons plays an important role in this context.

Alienation

Alienation is one of Marxist humanism’s central categories. Alienation denotes conditions of society where humans cannot control the conditions of their own existence. Alienation means that there is a difference in the potentials and actualities of humans and society. In alienated societies, humans and society cannot realise their potentials. Humans are alienated from what they could be, which means they are hindered from developing and realising their full potentials. There are different types of alienation. Alienation is characteristic for dominative societies, societies structured by domination. Domination means that one group benefits at the expense of other groups who have disadvantages and that the dominative group has means of coercion at hand in order to enforce its rule.

Democratic socialism, socialist democracy

Marxist humanism is a type of humanism. It understands humanism as the ethico-political stress on the importance of creating conditions in society that allow humans and society to realise their full potentials. For Marxist humanism, humanism is socialism and socialism is humanism. Socialism denotes a society of the commons, where all humans benefit. Socialism is a realisation of the economic, political and cultural commons: All humans live in wealth (economic commons), have democratic participation rights (political commons), and are respected (cultural commons). Democratic socialism sees socialism as inherently humanist and democratic. It is anti-fascist, anti-Stalinist, and anti-capitalist. It is critical of the anti-democratic potentials and realities of these types of systems. Marxist humanism doesn’t limit the understanding of democracy to the political system but argues for the extension of democracy to society at large, including the economy. Marxist/socialist humanism stresses the democratic need for the collective self-management of the economy and society. It understands democracy as a participatory democracy.

Open Marxism

Orthodoxies such as Stalinism turn socialism into a dogmatic, deterministic, mechanistic, reductionist and quasi-religious practice. In contrast, Marxist humanism is a form of open Marxism that stresses the need for the unity in diversity of critical theories, practices, praxis and the need for Marxist theory and practice to be reflexive and develop so that it can take account of how society is changing.

Truth

Marxist humanism rejects relativist assumptions that there is no truth in society. It stresses that truth means a condition where humans and society can realise their full potentials and that falseness of society means the hindrance of the realisation of such potentials.

Ideology critique

Marxist humanism includes ideology critique as a dimension of critical theory. Ideology is understood as worldview, consciousness and practices that present and represent the world in distorted ways that do not correspond to actuality in order to justify and legitimate partial interests of the ruling class and dominant groups and to try to make those who have disadvantages believe that this condition is natural, necessary, unchangeable, or caused by scapegoats. Ideology is reified and false consciousness (Lukács 1971).

Critical ethics

Marxist humanism includes a form of critical ethics. It advances principles of how a good society looks like. Categories such as the commons, socialism, participation, democracy, (in)justice, freedom, exploitation, class, power, domination, etc. are of crucial importance for such critical ethics.

Marx’ works

Marxist humanism is interested in advancing the engagement with Marx’s works and the tradition of thought building on Marx. It sees the whole body of Marx’s works as important and stresses that there is a coherent unity of and the connection of philosophy and political economy in Marx’s works. It argues that there is no “epistemological break” in Marx’s works. The epistemological break is a term introduced by Louis Althusser (1969), by which this French theorist claims that Marx’s early works such as Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 are esoteric and unscientific and that one should ignore them.

1.2 Why do we need Marxist humanism today?

Marxist humanism emerged in 20th-century social theory. Its theoretical foundations are Hegel’s dialectical philosophical and Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Its axiological and political concern has been the establishment of democratic socialism as an alternative to capitalism, fascism, Stalinism, and other forms of authoritarian statism. Its analyses focused on the human being, human essence, human practices, alienation, political praxis, class struggles, ideology critique, and the dialectics of subject/object, practices/structures, labour/capital, the economic/the non-economic, continuity/discontinuity, etc.

Representatives of Marxist humanism have, among others, included Theodor W. Adorno, Günther Anders, Kevin Anderson, Simone de Beauvoir, Ernst Bloch, Angela Davis, Raya Dunayevskaya, Zillah Eisenstein, Barbara Epstein, Frantz Fanon, Erich Fromm, Lucien Goldmann, André Gorz, David Harvey, Max Horkheimer, C. L. R. James, Karl Korsch, Karel Kosík, Henri Lefebvre, Georg Lukács, Herbert Marcuse, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Bertell Ollmann, the Praxis Group in Yugoslavia, Sheila Rowbotham, M. N. Roy, Edward Said, Jean-Paul Sartre, Adam Schaff, Kate Soper, E. P. Thompson, Raymond Williams (see Alderson and Spencer 2017; Fromm 1965). Marxist humanism’s decline had to do with the general decline of the Marxist theory under neoliberal conditions, the postmodern turn against Marxism, structuralism’s attack on the human being that fostered the rise of post-humanism, and the influence of Althusser and Foucault in social theory (Alderson and Spencer 2017).

There are six reasons why we need a renewal of Marxist humanism today.

The first reason is the emergence of authoritarian capitalism. In critical theory, the concept of authoritarianism goes back to Erich Fromm (1969), who defines it as a social character who submits to those in power and enjoys dominating others. For Fromm, fascism is the most developed form of authoritarian society and authoritarian capitalism. Max Horkheimer (1939/1989, 78) sees authoritarian and therefore also fascist potentials immanent in capitalism itself. But not every form of capitalism fully develops its authoritarian potentials. Adorno et al.’s (1950) F-scale outlines a large number of characteristics of the authoritarian personality. The core of this approach are four features: authoritarianism combines the antidemocratic belief of the necessity of strong, top-down leaders, nationalism, the friend/enemy-scheme and ideological scapegoating, and the belief in law-and-order politics, violence, militancy, and war as the best political means (Fuchs 2018). Authoritarian capitalism is a society that combines capitalism with these principles. New forms of nationalism and authoritarianism have emerged in recent years. They pose dangers to democracy and can result in a new world war, genocide, fascism, etc. Marxist humanism stresses socialism and humanism as opposed to fascism.

Racism has intensified in contemporary authoritarian capitalism. The police killing of George Floyd became a symbol of how racism denies people of colour their humanity. Racist anti-humanism led to the Black Lives Matters movement.

The second reason is the limits of postmodernism in contemporary capitalism. Althusser and Foucault have had a major influence on the emergence and development of postmodernism and poststructuralism that have attacked Marxist theory, class politics, the notions of the human being, truth, alienation, commonalities, universalism, etc. While there are postmodern theorists who made productive use of Marx, certain versions of postmodernism have contributed to the decline of Marxist theory in an age when class contradictions have been exploding. Marxist humanis...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Figures
• Tables
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Erich Fromm and the critical theory of communication
• 3 Revisiting the Althusser/E. P. Thompson-controversy: Towards a Marxist theory of communication
• 4 Raymond Williams’s communicative materialism
• 5 Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space and the critical theory of communication
• 6 Towards a critical theory of communication with Georg Lukács and Lucien Goldmann
• 7 Günther Anders’s critical theory of technology
• 8 Jean-Paul Sartre as social theorist of communication. A theoretical engagement with “Critique of Dialectical Reason”
• 9 M. N. Roy, socialist humanism, and the critical analysis of communication
• 10 Capitalism, racism, patriarchy
• 11 Conclusion
• Index