A reading and response to 'Necessity, Labour and Time' by Moishe Postone

Moishe Postone, a historian and social philosopher who studies Marxism, in 1978 wrote a paper titled 'Necessity, Labour and Time: A Reinterpretation of the Marxian Critique of Capitalism' in the journal - Social Research , published by The New School For Social Research, NYC.

This paper begins by presenting a characterisation of traditional Marxism and the antagonism it identifies between the industrial mode of production, which once it emerges, can potentially satisfy the consumptive needs of society, and the present relations of production, which inhibit this realisation.

We can see here why he emphasises the mode of distribution in his argument. In fact, caricatures of Marxism tend to focus on production alone as the key element, which at face value is undoubtedly so, however the claims of this theory on redistributive justice rest on the possibility of a new mode of distribution opened up in this stage of historical development.

The prime obstacle confronted by this possibility is the prevailing relations of production, grasped as 'private appropriations mediated by the automatism of the self-regulatory market.'

It is understood by traditional Marxism, that the industrial mode of production, once it emerges historically, is endowed with an intrinsic independence from the 'capitalist economy' which is conceptualised in terms of extrinsic factors ie. private ownership, and the exogenous conditions of the valorisation of capital within a market economy.

This seems to be a difficult proposition to entertain as the supplies of resources, even for an industrial mode of production still have to be procured, and the forms of exchange within this historical period remain mediated by transfers of money. However, let us follow Postone's argument further to see if he addresses this.

Another bone of contention I have with this essay is that in its critique of liberal critics, perhaps from France and Western Europe; while a characterisation of the arguments used by them are provided, none of them are named.

He does however provide, clearly, what I believe to be the essentials of Marx's theorisation immanent to the process of production itself. He does this by isolating the mode of the appropriation of value by the capitalist, in the form of surplus value, and hence laying bare the relative autonomy of the process of production itself from the capitalist class and the state.

Precarious grounds for certain, yet one whose argument is analogically similar to Althusser's conception of the relative autonomy of the superstructure from the base.

We have a peculiar situation here. Marxism, most often castigated by liberal critics on charges of 'economic determinism, suddenly finds that it immanently produces the theorisation of the separation of the process of production from the market and the state - perhaps the most simplistic assertion of communism, and also, on the other end, an assertion of the autonomy of the superstructure from the base, inasmuch as we understand that the laws governing exchange of commodities and their mediation by money as elements which are not in themselves essential to the mode of production per se.

We are brought face to face with the question of what is the precise relation between idealism and materialism once more. Why? or rather how? Because in his attempt to chart a dividing line between the appropriation of surplus value and the process of industrial production itself, what is invisibilized, as mentioned earlier is precisely how the resources drawn on by the industrial mode of production are procured. Either the same entity who runs factories also runs the mines, such as perhaps the state ownership of industry - or there would be, necessarily some form of exchange that will emerge between these two sectors. And, in civilisation the way in which we account for the value of goods and services offered remain tied to money, which changes hands in any such transaction.

Here I am inclined to follow Althusser and Jameson, who now instead of trying to identify dependencies, read the economy and ideology as symptomal points of the mode of production, which is conceived as singular. Forms of its expression as it were, in other words, ways in which it becomes legible to us.

Broadly having made some progress in elucidating Postone's position and argument, I would like to present, what to me is his most interesting proposition. It is easy to apprehend Marxism as a variant of a theological call for redistributive justice. There may indeed be echoes of the latter there, though such an account misses out on the Marxian critique of the state of affairs as they present themselves today. In other words, the question cannot only be about how capitalism in its unequal distribution of wealth privileges a few. This may indeed undoubtedly be the case. Capital however is a concept developed by Marx to offer a critique of political economy ie. a critique of the prevalent theories as to how the wealth was amassed.

Inasmuch as we recognise wealth as wealth, in whatever form, land, labour, power, machinery, resources, etc. we acknowledge that there may be an aspect of our relationship to it which is not alienated. Proletarian labour, in its mechanical repetition can indeed be alienating, particularly so when we are distanced from the product of our labour. In such a predicament however, opposition to capitalism as a tendency or as a system cannot begin with and end with alienation, as sublime a presentation of an existentialist novelist may be.

The question, at least to a sociologist, must be where does the counter tendency arise from? Here Postone presents two lines of argument representing this spectrum. 1) A kind of naturalistic anthropology which revolts when the effects of capitalism, alienation, exploitation etc. become severe. 2) A recognition that the human spirit and subject are socially formed. Yet, in encountering itself as alienated within the conditions of capitalism, it seeks a form of sociality beyond such confines (topographical or geographical). Here, one position looks at the avant garde as a source of lumination, perhaps via an exposure to and the creation of new cultural products, a workers newspaper, a book on politics etc. which may represent, hence create a degree of self-consciousness in the proletariat. The Cultural Revolution in China is perhaps the most enduring example of this. Yet, inasmuch as the avant garde is left merely as an avant garde, which never comes together to form a school of thought or a party, it appears as an episodic occurrence, which may perhaps indeed serve as a subject of a Woody Allen movie, I am thinking here of Midnight in Paris.

The other possibility of overcoming alienation per se is to look at the periphery, the country-lands and agriculture, and in looking at the economy as a dual sector model as the likes of William Arthur Lewis have done. We may begin to trace strong tendencies such as migration and the relations of a growing populace which fuels demand yet keeps prices low by their sheer ubiquity in expanding metropolises. Here, the question of primitive accumulation takes on a red tinted light, as the dispossession of the collective means of subsistence from the peasantry, such as common farm lands and grazing grounds proletarianizes them, and here in this moment of anger, an alliance with the industrial proletariat may be forged.

Postone points out that that this may be a losing position/proposition as an alliance built on historical losses is insufficient to counteract the laws of capital which seek to advance themselves, via the perpetuation of its logic of accumulation. A tendency, it will be noted, that the worker is hardly immune to.

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In reviewing my earlier notes I see that my reading emphasised the cultural moment as well as the possibility of forming cross-class alliances for workers while assessing the possibilities, strengths and weaknesses that they may face in the present moment. This may not be clearly the focus of Postone's work though I drew on these because as tendencies they seem to be defining if not determining moments for the present state of revolutionary subjectivity.

There appear to be two key directions which the essay leads us to which my considerations have not taken up.

1.) Regarding the question of revolutionary subjectivity, and drawing on earlier assertions - does Postone re-chart the relations between the base and superstructure which negates of supersedes the symptomatic model?

2.) Regarding how the emergent (revolutionary?) consciousness regards work, a paradox emerges:- "if concrete labour is understood to be self constituting for the individual, how could a positive need for meaningful labour, and a consciousness that existing labour is alienating - emerge?"

Besides this and regarding my earlier account of the modes of resistance to capitalism, a third category should be added, one which is developed by the antagonism between the foundation of bourgeoise economy and its development. This force, which I would identify as revolutionary proper does not identify the moment of antagonism between what is capitalised and what is not yet capitalised, ie. nature. This view identifies in capitalism not merely reified forms of consciousness but also new, socially formed needs which arise as historical developments within the present state of the mode of production. These needs are neither natural nor pre-capitalistic, hence form the basis of oppositional, critical or revolutionary forms of consciousness. Here, I cannot but think of Zizek when he says in 'The Pervert's Guide to Cinema' that 'I am already eating from the trashcan. The name of this trashcan is ideology.'

The contradiction which Postone sees here with remarkable insight is this. The production of goods and services which can satisfy these new historically contingent needs would require means to realise itself, indeed a mode of production for its constitution, and within the conditions of capitalism, we would in all likelihood find proletarianised labour here. How then could proletarian labour per se - as the essential element of capital, be the source of the possible negation of capitalism? If the overcoming of capitalism involves the overcoming of that concrete labour - proletarian labour specific to it, which it is built upon, then a historically contingent need to abolish that labour must arise out of a contradiction between that and something else.'

This conflict surfaces between existing proletarian labour and a non-identical moment immanent to capitalist development. Such a situation, which I believe is the watershed mark regarding concerns for the advanced proletariat calls for an emphasis on class consciousness, alliance and common ground; to chart each others differences, to observe commonalities, and to formulate a vocabulary or indeed a theory which can think the sublation of their common situation. This may perhaps be charted in a narrative, an exploration, or the creation of an article representing the possibilities and impasses of the predicament as they see it. Postone stresses that it would need to call the existent structure of social labour into question.

Regarding the antagonism as charted Postone picks out a tendency of mutual resistance which may develop between the proletarian parties inasmuch as they conceive of themselves as unitary wholes. This forces the discourse into an examination of something resembling a subject-object dialectic or between living labour and various forms of its reifications. This refusal to engage in or think the common ground between the proletarian parties ensures that these reifications remain de-historicised: the other remains a mere alien and we remain proletarian inasmuch as we still recognise ourselves to be alienated from our labour.

The question then emerges for Postone - how is this non-identical moment in relations between proletarian parties, under the conditions of capitalism, identifiable?

He gives us three steps:-

1.) The separation of historical necessity from natural necessity or transhistorical necessity. In thinking historical necessity we keep in mind the mediating character of institutions, which we use to overcome our alienation from nature itself.

2.) There is hence, in Postone a drive to think the immanent logic of an institution in its mediational moment. This is thought of in terms of use-value and value which remains how articles produced within structures become tradeable or assessable. It is noted that it is only the conditions of capitalism which make such an organisation possible, which propel an immanent as opposed to a retrospective logic; it is wagered that the immanence of this logic may be used to think historical necessity, a point which certain apocalyptic critiques, such as those of Ernst Bloch and Slavoj Zizek may disagree with.

In whichever way, a historical necessity is made to come to face its limits and in a contradictory moment posits a future freed from its predicament, or towards historical freedom. "History is thus to be analysed as a movement from contingency to a necessity of a contradictory nature, such that historical freedom becomes a possibility.

3.) The third step remains to think the character of the necessity characteristic of capitalism - and how it contains immanently the possibility of its own negation.

To think this investigation Postone presents a schema which may be drawn on to think interrelationships.

Necessity<-------(what relation)--------> Time

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Value

What is emphasised here, crucially is that the non-identical aspect of use value is temporal and not material. A prosaic example being; that which is really different for a subjectivity in its non-identical moment in the mode of production of capitalism is not the fact that another proletarian party may belong to or affiliate with another organisation, but the nature of the labour which is accomplished by such a party when it works for its wage.

In thinking this, the unsaid of the use value dimension entails the accumulation of knowledge necessary to its production, an aspect which is not expressed in the appearance of the commodity but perhaps only via an appreciation of the mode of its production, or in simple terms - its making.

As objectified labour 'grows with time' (for the alienated worker) the social necessity for the expenditure of immediate labour time falls (to meet societies consumptive requirements). This is a phenomenon which emerges with the onset of advanced industrialisation and is very much the norm in post-industrial societies. This is the birth of objectified labour time. Postone yet asserts that this has no expression in the value dimension where wealth is still more closely bound to the time expended rather than the mass of goods produced.

The experience of past knowledge as a 'dead nightmare' is cited yet Postone does read Marx, finding that it may be necessary to draw on earlier (and posterior understanding) in the separation of social necessity, divided into that which is necessary for capitalism and that which is not ie. that which remains a desire but does not serve the coordinates of the prevalent mode of production. I do note however that in post-industrial societies and advanced economies the populace may be making their considerations based on questions which take a basic degree of wellbeing for granted, yet even here - a point will emerge where the prevalent relations are no longer adequate to the desires of members in society.

Capitalism is revealed as a form which bases itself upon time, ie. upon its employment in the form of labour power, and its expenditure and replenishment in the form of consumption - and yet seeks to maintain time itself as Present.

With the development in the forces of production we reach a historical moment, which, as Postone asserts, - the expenditure of immediate labour is de-linked from wealth. Since a general reduction however of immediate labour cannot occur under capitalism, a new historical category of superfluous labour is named which is yet a historical necessity for capital to draw on the 'reserve army of labour' as Lenin once termed this remainder, and to use it as a market for its products. This is yet a critical category however as it does reflect the antagonism with the social form or the relations of production as presently existing. It is useful to separate society from its capitalist form, perhaps by pointing out the superfluidity of their previously necessary connections. This may allow for "the judgement of the older form and the imagination of a newer one." This may be seen as analogous to the conception of alienated time and leisure time which emerges in conditions of advanced capitalism, while this relation is antagonistic however the relation between non-alienated time and disposable time are complementary.

This emergent possibility charts a movement which creates the possibility of the individual reincorporating that which they were alienated from in the creation of society.

He sees a dialectic between the objectified past and the objectified present. The past as such oppresses the living. This is where I stop following Postone for I do not see how the objectified past as such can "allow for people's liberation from the present by destroying its necessary moment (?) and thereby make the future possible". The only way in which this amalgamation is readable to us is via the interpretation of the objectified past as a commodity present under the conditions of capitalism (for how else is the past concretely objectified?). A commodity, which like all others drew upon living labour in its making, hence harboured a non-identical moment vis-a-vis others. Here the primacy of the singularity of the example is crucial, for which commodity we consider will determine the form of alienated labour that went into it, which we apprehend in merely its objectified form. It is to be kept in mind that the form in question, as a piece of work, as a totality - may yet be expressive of the truth of those who made it: even as it is not so as a commodity, ie. I still hold, perhaps unlike Postone the primacy of class, yet concede that it may become, in the form of class interest, an impediment to the revolutionary movement.

Having added these clauses I can yet see how then it is only through such an analyses that 'older relations can be reversed or transcended'. I would like to note that in Postone's work there is apparent a desire to conceive a redemptive moment for a history of labour yet this is held precisely at the price of a distance he keeps from individual instantiations, no; rather objectifications of that labour in the form of commodities.

A thrust in Postone's position seems to be that the antagonism between the forces, and the relations of production must be found in the mode of production itself. A note I should perhaps have included earlier is that wealth, in the dialectic of necessary and superfluous labour - is conceived as the category of disposable time.

Drawing from our observations and following the argument, we see how "The Marxian contradiction between forces and relations of production should therefore be understood as one between the concrete form of the mode of production as the objectification of immediate labour time (value as the basic category of the capitalist relations of production) and the immanent potential of past labour time which is preserved, but not expressed by that form.

The possibility which emerges from emancipation then entails the realisation of the possibility which the social form of the machine under capitalism inhibits. A brief note on machinery is required here. The machine is a necessary component of industrial capitalism, yet in it's emergence it transforms the relationship labour has to the mode of production. Within the same unit of time, it's utilisation aids in the production of more of any given commodity. It is hence a source of capital for the capitalist. It also entails that labourers are freed from jobs, as with the help of machinery fewer of them can accomplish the same work more effectively.

What does this mean for the product of their labour then? ie. the commodity? With the advancements of technology any given product may be produced faster, at greater magnitudes while relying less on labour for its organic composition. Or in Moishe Postone's words, requiring less immediate labour time.

It is this understanding which opens the possibility and advocates the rejection of two antinomic and socially critical positions.

1.) Some romantic attempt to overcome industrial society itself to return to some form of pre-industrial society.

2.) The attempt to conceive of a just redistribution of the great mass of goods and services produced while accepting the continuation of capital determined technology, a technology which undermines the soil, ie. environment and the worker.

This would mean not merely abolishing the market and the state while leaving the mode of production untouched, in which case it would continue to produce commodities provided it could acquire the resources required for their manufacture. It would have to entail the overcoming of the alienated relations of human production to nature.

In other words, a new social mode of production would be based on a new technology. Postone's outlines of what this technology may be is predicated only in negative ie. it would not dominate people or nature. There are two examples I would like to cite here. 1.) You can buy today for your kitchen a fermentation box, or composting bin in which you can put your kitchen waste. This when mixed with soil and left for a week or two makes for rich manure which fertilises the soil and helps grow healthy plants. 2.) The second is what Elon Musk plans to introduce to the marketplace, Neuralink; a brain-machine interface. This is to be a network where our very thoughts would be able to control and determine a machine (Zizek offers an important intervention here in 'Hegel In A Wired Brain').

The re-regulation of labour here is to be plotted so that it can be satisfying in its own right, distanced from structures which alienate it, and the product would be made for social consumption itself.

In summing up we may see that Postone envisions the freeing up of immediate labour time via the abolition of the conditions of its perpetuation ie. capitalism, the state, private ownership of property etc. This would allow us to make more meaningful and satisfying labour, made possible via the accumulation of the past, history and ultimately our heritage.

My objection here, minor though pertinent - was that Postone does not specify the form in which such an accumulation, of our past, is to take place. Is it a narrative, a registry, an index, an encyclopedia etc. - and who is to make it? This is a place where our act of reading and the work of interpretation and criticism is highlighted and I do look to the world of art with hope. Also highlighted is the antagonism between intellectual and manual labour, which in certain cases may be a blunter manifestation of what Postone mentions as the non-identical moment among proletarian parties.

A step that Postone takes ahead of a trade unionist measure of protecting class formations and their reproduction; which ultimately reconstitutes class itself, is by insisting on the changing content of revolutionary class consciousness which may be thought of as a historical reversal of class constituting consciousness.

Of insight to me, in my study is an examination of how Postone rejects any fetish of the proletariat itself as the historical Subject whose task is to emerge openly as Subject for the permeation of revolutionary consciousness.

In Postone's conceptualisation the Proletariat is envisioned as the source of the alienating subject - capital. In this model the proletariat abolishes itself, as proletariat - leading to a termination in the reproduction of capital; allowing humanity to become the historical subject. In simplistic terms, maybe we can all go back to being nice and caring to one another, go fishing in the morning and reading criticism in the evening.

In positioning his theoretical intervention as such, we can see prior critiques, such as Lenin's and Lukacs ' in a new light; as critique of an epoch where the radical rejection of capitalist labour was not a possibility. This also highlights why workers, even revolutionary workers, change historically.

It also allows us to revision the need felt for meaningful activity. This emergence, as may be derived - Postone views as not necessarily political and can even be harmful, such as forms of depression and illness. Indeed, revolutionary class consciousness may be expressing what the prevalent mode of production under capitalism cannot realise. The revolutionary consciousness as such, strikes at the root of the present social order: alienated labour.

The advantage of such an analyses is the suspension of arguments based on class or any identitarian or sociological grouping (thought in its adjectival sense), without first analysing the economic and existential coordinates within which they occur. If this is what Postone means by his historical framework I would be happy to endorse his point of view.

Postone cites the women's and the student's movement as two international tendencies which have developed, perhaps starting with Western advanced capitalist countries, which repeatedly grapple with the issue of alienated and alienating labour. While one can see and agree with this, Postone does not go into the specific demands of the movements themselves.

Another antinomy is between job security and the ecological movement. Reason will have to intervene and resolve this before we do irreparable harm to nature.

An advantage that is presented in this framework, which I do recognise as a Marxian sociologist is the positing of the proletariat as the producers of surplus value without going into their class or identitarian affiliations. This is a strategic and not an apolitical measure, as it allows for a self-recognition which enables them, the proletariat - to reach beyond their historical immediacy. Capital, we are reminded, is produced through value creating labour.

I offer this reading in memory of Moishe Postone, who passed away three years ago.

Chennai, 2021.