Int J Polit Cult Soc (2005) 19:69–79

DOI 10.1007/s10767-007-9012-6

Critical Social Theory and the Contemporary World

Moishe Postone

Published online: 14 April 2007

# Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2007

Abstract The far-reaching historical transformations of recent decades, including the

decline of the Keynesian/Fordist organization of polity and economy in the West, the
collapse of party-state command economies in the East, and the emergence of a neo-liberal
capitalist global order, suggest that contemporary critical theory must be centrally
concerned with historical dynamics and large-scale structural changes. The paper argues
that these broad developments can best be apprehended by a theory premised on the
Marxian theory of capital, but only if that category is fundamentally reconceptualized in
ways that distinguish it from its usage in traditional Marxist interpretations.

Key words Historical transformations . capital . abstract social domination . historical

dynamics . capitalism . modernity . Marx

A critical theory of capitalism, I would argue, is indispensable for understanding the

contemporary world. Yet the historical developments of the twentieth century strongly
suggest that such a theory must be different from traditional critiques of capitalism if it is to
be adequate to our social universe. In order to establish the basis for a more adequate
critical theory, I shall interrogate some common understandings of the fundamental social
relations of capitalism and outline a different understanding of those relations and, hence, of
capitalism.
The fundamental historical transformations of the recent past—such as the rollback of
welfare states in the capitalist West, the collapse or fundamental metamorphosis of
bureaucratic party-states in the Communist East, more generally, the weakening of national
states as economically sovereign entities, along with the apparently triumphant emergence
of a neo-liberal global capitalist order, and the possible emergence of rivalries among
competing capitalist blocs—have reasserted the central importance of understanding
historical dynamics and large-scale global structural changes in the contemporary world.

M. Postone (*)
Department of History, The University of Chicago, 1126 E. 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
e-mail: m-postone@uchicago.edu
70 Postone

Because these changes have included the dramatic collapse of the Soviet Union and of
European Communism, they also have been interpreted as marking the historical end of
Marxism and, more generally, of the theoretical relevance of Marx’s social theory.
This conclusion, bound to a Cold War interpretive framework, is itself called into
question, however, by the very historical changes that issued in the demise of Communism.
These changes seem to have made clear that an underlying global historical dynamic has
continued to exist in both East and West, and that the notion, so prevalent in the decades
following the Second World War, that the state could control that dynamic was at best
temporarily valid. This dynamic can be inferred descriptively from two fundamental global
shifts that occurred in the twentieth century: the transition from a more liberal to a more
state-centric configuration of capitalism in the first third of the twentieth century, and the
supersession of that latter configuration by a neo-liberal global order, beginning in the early
1970s. Together, these transitions delineate the contours, the rise and fall, of a period of the
state-centered organization of social and economic life whose beginnings can be located in
World War I and the Russian Revolution—a period characterized by the apparent primacy
of the political over the economic. What is significant about this trajectory is its global
character. It encompassed western capitalist countries and the Soviet Union, as well as
colonized lands and decolonized countries. Differences in historical development did, of
course, occur. But, viewed with reference to the trajectory as a whole, they were more a
matter of different inflections of a common pattern than of fundamentally different
developments. For example, the welfare state was expanded in all western industrial
countries in the 25 years after the end of World War II and then limited or partially
dismantled beginning in the early 1970s. These developments occurred regardless of
whether conservative or social democratic (“liberal”) parties were in power. The general
character of such developments indicates that they cannot be explained sufficiently in terms
of contingent political decisions, and strongly implies the existence of general structural
imperatives and constraints.
Consideration of the general historical patterns that characterize the twentieth century,
then, historically relativizes theories of the primacy of the political, so widespread in the
postwar decades, and also calls into questions poststructuralist understandings of history as
essentially contingent. Nevertheless, such consideration does not necessarily dispense with
what might be regarded as the critical insight driving attempts to deal with history
contingently—namely, that history, grasped as the unfolding of an immanent necessity,
should be understood as delineating a form of unfreedom.
That form of unfreedom is the object of Marx’s critical theory of capitalism, which is
centrally concerned with the imperatives and constraints that underlie the historical dynamics
and structural changes of the modern world. That is, rather than deny the existence of such
unfreedom by focusing on contingency, the Marxian critique seeks to uncover its basis and
the possibility of its overcoming. I am suggesting that the very processes underlying the
collapse of accumulation regimes that had declared themselves heirs to Marx have reasserted
the central importance of global historical dynamics, that those dynamics can be understood
best within the framework of a critical theory of capitalism, and that approaches that do not
engage this level of analysis are fundamentally inadequate to our global social universe. That
is, the historical transformations of recent decades point to the importance of a renewed
encounter with Marx’s critical analysis of capitalism.
As noted above, however, the trajectory of the past century also suggests that an
adequate critical theory of capitalism today must differ in important and basic ways from
traditional Marxist critiques of capitalism. And, as I shall attempt to show, Marx’s mature
social theory not only is the most rigorous and sophisticated theory we have of the
Critical Social Theory and the Contemporary World 71

historical dynamics of the modern world, but also provides the point of departure for
precisely such a reconceptualized critical theory of capitalism. I shall outline a
reinterpretation of Marx’s mature social theory that rethinks his analysis of the basic
nature of capitalism—its social relations, forms of domination, and historical dynamic—in
ways that break fundamentally with traditional Marxist approaches. This reinterpretation
could help illuminate the essential structuring elements and overarching historical dynamic
of the contemporary world while providing a critique of traditional Marxism. It also recasts
the relation of Marxian theory to other major currents of social theory.
By “traditional Marxism” I do not mean a specific historical tendency in Marxism, such
as orthodox Second International Marxism, for example, but, more generally, all analyses
that understand capitalism essentially in terms of class relations structured by a market
economy and private ownership of the means of production. Relations of domination are
understood primarily in terms of class domination and exploitation. Within this general
interpretive framework, capitalism is characterized by a growing structural contradiction
between that society’s basic social relations (interpreted as private property and the market)
and the forces of production (interpreted as the industrial mode of producing).
The unfolding of this contradiction gives rise to the possibility of a new form of society,
understood in terms of collective ownership of the means of production and economic
planning in an industrialized context—that is, in terms of a just and consciously regulated
mode of distribution that is adequate to industrial production. Industrial production, in turn,
is understood as a technical process, which may be used by capitalists for their
particularistic ends, but which is intrinsically independent of capitalism and could be used
for the benefit of all members of society.
This general understanding is tied to a determinate understanding of the basic categories
of Marx’s critique of political economy. His category of value, for example, has generally
been interpreted as an attempt to show that social wealth is always and everywhere created
by human labor. His theory of surplus-value, according to such views, seeks to demonstrate
the existence of exploitation by showing that the surplus product is created by labor alone
and, in capitalism, is appropriated by the capitalist class.1
At the heart of this theory is a transhistorical—and commonsensical—understanding of
labor as an activity mediating humans and nature that transforms matter in a goal-directed
manner and is a condition of social life. Labor, so understood, is posited as the source of
wealth in all societies and as that which constitutes what is universal and truly social.2 In
capitalism, however, labor is hindered by particularistic and fragmenting relations from
becoming fully realized. Emancipation, then, is realized in a social form where
transhistorical “labor,” freed from the fetters of the market and private property, has
openly emerged as the regulating principle of society. (This notion, of course, is bound to
that of socialist revolution as the “self-realization” of the proletariat.)
1
See, for example, G.A. Cohen, History, labour and freedom (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), pp. 209–238;
Maurice Dobb, Political economy and capitalism (London: Routledge, 1940), pp. 70–78; Jon Elster, Making
sense of Marx (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 127; Herb Gintis, “The reemergence of
Marxian economics,” in Ollman and Vernoff (Eds.) The Left Academy (New York: McGraw Hill, 1982), pp.
53–81; Ronald Meeks, Studies in the labour theory of value (New York: Lawrence and Wishart, 1956); John
Roemer, Analytical foundations of Marxian economic theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1981), pp. 158–159; Ian Steedman, “Ricardo, Marx, Sraffa,” in Ian Steedman (ed.), The value controversy
(London: NLB, 1981), pp. 11–19; Paul Sweezy, The theory of capitalist development (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1968), pp. 52–53.
2
See, for example, Shlomo Avineri, The social and political thought of Karl Marx (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1968), pp. 76–77; István Mészáros, Marx’s theory of alienation (London: Harper & Row,
1970), pp. 79–90.
72 Postone

This basic framework encompasses a broad range of very different theoretical,

methodological, and political approaches. Nevertheless, to the extent they all rest on the
basic assumptions regarding labor and the essential characteristics of capitalism and of
socialism outlined above, they remain bound within the framework of traditional Marxism.
And, although powerful economic, political, social, historical, and cultural analyses have
been generated within this traditional framework, its limitations have become increasingly
evident in the light of twentieth century developments such as the rise of state-interventionist
capitalism and “actually existing socialism,” the growing importance of scientific knowledge
and advanced technology in the process of production, growing criticisms of technological
progress and growth, and the increased importance of non-class-based social identities. Indeed
classic social theorists such as Weber and Durkheim had already argued at the turn of the last
century that a critical theory of capitalism—understood in terms of property relations—is too
narrow to grasp fundamental features of modern society.
A number of theorists within the broader Marxist tradition—notably Georg Lukács as
well as members of the Frankfurt School—attempted to overcome the traditional
paradigm’s limitations, and develop a critical social theory that would be more adequate
to twentieth century historical developments. These theorists proceeded on the basis of a
sophisticated understanding of Marx’s theory as a critical analysis of the cultural forms as
well as the social structures of capitalist society, rather than as one of production and class
structure alone, much less of economics. Moreover, they grasped such a theory as self-
reflexive, that is, as a theory that attempts to analyze its own social context—capitalist
society—in a way that reflexively accounts for the possibility of its own standpoint.3
In their appropriation of Marx, these thinkers sought to respond theoretically to the
historical transformation of capitalism from a market-centered form to a bureaucratic, state-
centered form. Yet they were not able to fully realize this theoretical aim. On the one hand,
their approaches tacitly recognized the inadequacies of a critical theory of modernity that
defined capitalism solely in nineteenth century terms—that is, in terms of the market and
private ownership of the means of production. On the other hand, however, they remained
bound to some of the assumptions of that very sort of theory.
This can be seen clearly in the case of Lukács’s History and Class Consciousness,
written in the early 1920’s, which adopted Weber’s characterization of modern society in
terms of a historical process of rationalization, and embedded that analysis within the
framework of Marx’s analysis of the commodity form as the basic structuring principle of
capitalism.4 By grounding the process of rationalization in this manner, Lukács sought to
show that what Weber described as the “iron cage” of modern life is not a necessary
concomitant of any form of modern society, but a function of capitalism—and, hence, could
be transformed. At the same time, the conception of capitalism implied by his analysis is
much broader than that of a system of exploitation based on private property and the
market; it implies that the latter are not ultimately the central features of capitalism.
Yet when Lukács addressed the question of the possible overcoming of capitalism, he
had recourse to the notion of the proletariat as the revolutionary Subject of history. This
idea, however, is bound to a traditional conception of capitalism in terms of private
property. It cannot illuminate the forms of bureaucratization and rationalization that Lukács

3
See Moishe Postone, Time, labor, and social domination (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993),
pp. 84–90.
4
George Lukács, “Reification and the consciousness of the proletariat,” in History and class consciousness,
trans. Rodney Livingstone (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1971 [1923]) pp. 83–222.
Critical Social Theory and the Contemporary World 73

himself had focused on. That is, Lukács’s traditionalistic theory of the proletariat was in
tension with the deeper and broader conception of capitalism implied by his analysis.5
Lukács deeply influenced Frankfurt School theorists, whose approaches can also be
understood in terms of a similar theoretical tension. This, however, is not a theme I shall
further pursue here.6 What I do wish to emphasize is that coming to terms with the
inescapable and obvious centrality of capitalism in the world today requires a reconceptu-
alization of capital, one that breaks fundamentally with the traditional Marxist frame.
It has become evident, considered retrospectively, that the social/political/economic/
cultural configuration of capital’s hegemony has varied historically—from mercantilism
through nineteenth century liberal capitalism and twentieth century state-centric Fordist
capitalism to contemporary neo-liberal global capitalism. Each configuration has elicited a
number of penetrating critiques—of exploitation and uneven, inequitable growth, for
example, or of technocratic, bureaucratic modes of domination. Each of these critiques,
however, is incomplete; as we now see, capitalism cannot be identified fully with any of its
historical configurations. This raises the question of the nature of capital, of the core of
capitalism as a form of social life.
My work attempts to contribute to a critical understanding of capitalism’s core, one not
limited to any of that social formation’s epochs. I argue that at the heart of capitalism is a
historically dynamic process, associated with multiple historical configurations, which
Marx sought to elucidate with the category of capital. This core feature of the modern world
must be grasped if a critical theory of capitalism is to be adequate to its object. Although
such an understanding of capitalism can only be achieved on a very high level of
abstraction, it could then serve as a point of departure for an analysis of epochal changes in
capitalism as well as for the historically changing subjectivities expressed in historically
determinate social movements.
In attempting to rethink Marx’s analysis of capitalism’s most basic relations, I try to
reconstruct the systematic character of Marx’s categorial analysis, rather than relying on
statements made by Marx, without reference to their locus in the unfolding of his mode of
presentation. I argue that the categories of Marx’s mature critique are historically specific to
modern, or capitalist, society. This turn to a notion of historical specificity implicitly
entailed a turn to a notion of the historical specificity of Marx’s own theory. No theory—
including that of Marx—has, within this conceptual framework, transhistorical validity.
This means that all transhistorical notions—including many of Marx’s earlier
conceptions regarding history, society and labor, as expressed in the idea of a dialectical
logic underlying human history, for example—became historically relativized.7 In disputing
their transhistorical validity, however, Marx did not claim that such notions were never
valid. Instead, he restricted their validity to the capitalist social formation, while showing
how that which is historically specific to capitalism, could be taken to be transhistorical. On
this basis Marx criticized theories that project onto history or society in general categories
that, according to him, are valid only for the capitalist epoch.
If, however, such notions were valid only for capitalist society, Marx now had to
uncover the grounds for their validity in the specific characteristics of that society. He

5
M. Postone, “Lukács and the dialectical critique of capitalism,” in Robert Albritton and John Simoulidis
(Eds.), New dialectics and political economy (New York: Macmillan, 2003), pp. 78–100.
6
See M. Postone, “Critique, state, and economy,” in Fred Rush (ed.) The Cambridge companion to critical
theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
7
Marx, Grundrisse, trans. Martin Nicolaus (London: Penguin, 1973 [1857–1858]), pp. 83 ff.
74 Postone

sought to do so by locating and analyzing the most fundamental form of social relations that
characterizes capitalist society and, on that basis, unfolding a theory with which he sought
to explain the underlying workings of that society. That fundamental category is the
commodity.8 Marx took the term “commodity” and used it to designate a historically
specific form of social relations, one constituted as a structured form of social practice that,
at the same time, structures the actions, worldviews and dispositions of people. As a
category of practice, it is a form both of social subjectivity and objectivity.9
What characterizes the commodity form of social relations, as analyzed by Marx, is that
it is constituted by labor, it exists in objectified form and it has a dualistic character.
In order to elucidate this description, Marx’s conception of the historical specificity of
labor in capitalism must be clarified. Marx maintains that labor in capitalism has a “double
character”: it is both “concrete labor” and “abstract labor.”10 “Concrete labor” refers to the
fact that some form of what we consider laboring activity mediates the interactions of
humans with nature in all socities. “Abstract labor” does not simply refer to concrete labor
in general, but is a very different sort of category. It signifies that, in capitalism, labor also
has a unique social function that is not intrinsic to laboring activity as such: it mediates a
new form of social interdependence.
Let me elaborate: In a society in which the commodity is the basic structuring category
of the whole, labor and its products are not socially distributed by traditional ties, norms, or
overt relations of power and domination—that is, by manifest social relations—as is the
case in other societies. Instead, labor itself replaces those relations by serving as a kind of
quasi-objective means by which the products of others are acquired.11 A new form of
interdependence comes into being where people do not consume what they produce, but
where, nevertheless, their own labor or labor-products function as a quasi-objective,
necessary means of obtaining the products of others. In serving as such a means, labor and
its products in effect preempt that function on the part of manifest social relations.
In Marx’s mature works, then, the notion of the centrality of labor to social life is not a
transhistorical proposition. It does not refer to the fact that material production is always a
precondition of social life. Nor should it be taken as meaning that material production is the
most essential dimension of social life in general, or even of capitalism in particular. Rather,
it refers to the historically specific constitution by labor in capitalism of a form of social
mediation that fundamentally characterizes that society. On this basis, Marx tried to socially
ground basic features of modernity, such as its overarching historical dynamic, and changes
in its process of production.
Labor in capitalism, then, is both labor, as we transhistorically and commonsensically
understand it, according to Marx, and a historically specific socially mediating activity.
Hence its objectifications—commodity, capital—are both concrete labor products and
objectified forms of social mediation. According to this analysis, then, the social relations
that most basically characterize capitalist society are very different from the qualitatively
specific, overt social relations—such as kinship relations or relations of personal or direct
domination—which characterize non-capitalist societies. Although the latter kind of social
relations continue to exist in capitalism, what ultimately structures that society is a new,
underlying level of social relations that is constituted by labor. Those relations have a

8
Marx, Capital, Vol. I, trans. Ben Fowkes (London: Penguin, 1976 [1867]), pp. 125–129.
9
Marx, Grundrisse, op. cit., p. 106.
10
Marx, Capital, Vol. I, op. cit., pp.131–139.
11
Ibid., pp. 273–274.
Critical Social Theory and the Contemporary World 75

peculiar quasi-objective, formal character and are dualistic—they are characterized by the
opposition of an abstract, general, homogeneous dimension and a concrete, particular,
material dimension, both of which appear to be “natural,” rather than social, and condition
social conceptions of natural reality.
The abstract character of the social mediation underlying capitalism is also expressed in
the form of wealth dominant in that society. Marx’s “labor theory of value” frequently has
been misunderstood as a labor theory of wealth, that is, a theory that seeks to explain the
workings of the market and prove the existence of exploitation by arguing that labor, at all
times and in all places, is the only social source of wealth. Marx’s analysis is not one of
wealth in general, any more than it is one of labor in general. He analyzes value as a
historically specific form of wealth that is bound to the historically unique role of labor in
capitalism; as a form of wealth, it is also a form of social mediation.
Marx explicitly distinguishes value from material wealth and relates these two distinct
forms of wealth to the duality of labor in capitalism.12 Material wealth is measured by the
quantity of products produced and is a function of a number of factors such as knowledge,
social organization, and natural conditions, in addition to labor. Value is constituted by
human labor-time expenditure alone, according to Marx, and is the dominant form of
wealth in capitalism. Whereas material wealth, when it is the dominant form of wealth, is
mediated by overt social relations, value is a self-mediating form of wealth.
As I shall elaborate, Marx’s analysis of capital is of a system based on value that both
generates and constrains the historical possibility of its own overcoming by a social order
based on material wealth.
Within the framework of this interpretation, then, what fundamentally characterizes
capitalism is a historically specific form of social mediation, constituted by labor, that is
dualistic—both abstract and concrete. Although this historically specific form of mediation
is constituted by determinate forms of social practice, it becomes quasi-independent of the
people engaged in those practices.
The result is a historically new form of social domination—one that subjects people to
impersonal, increasingly rationalized, structural imperatives and constraints that cannot
adequately be grasped in terms of class domination, or, more generally, in terms of the
concrete domination of social groupings or of institutional agencies of the state and/or the
economy. It has no determinate locus and, although constituted by determinate forms of
social practice, appears not to be social at all.13
Significant in this regard is Marx’s temporal determination of the magnitude of value. In
his discussion of the magnitude of value in terms of socially-necessary labor-time, Marx
points to a peculiarity of value as a social form of wealth whose measure is temporal:
increasing productivity increases the amount of use-values produced per unit time. But it
results only in short term increases in the magnitude of value created per unit time. Once
that productive increase becomes general, the magnitude of value falls to its base level. The
result is a sort of treadmill dynamic.14 On the one hand, increased levels of productivity
result in great increases in use-value production. Yet increased productivity does not result
in proportional increases in value, the social form of wealth in capitalism.
Note that this peculiar treadmill dynamic is rooted in value’s temporal dimension, and
not in the way that pattern is generalized, e.g. through competition. The historically

12
Ibid., pp. 131–138; Marx, Grundrisse, op. cit., pp. 701–702.
13
The Marxian analysis of abstract domination is a more rigorous and determinate analysis of what Foucault
attempted to grasp with his notion of power in the modern world.
14
See Marx, Capital, Vol. I, op. cit., p. 137 for the initial determination of this treadmill dynamic.
76 Postone

specific, abstract form of social domination intrinsic to capitalism’s fundamental forms of

social mediation is the domination of people by time. This form of domination is bound to a
historically specific, abstract form of temporality—abstract Newtonian time—which is
constituted historically with the commodity form.
This dynamic is at the core of the category of capital, which, for Marx, is a category of
movement. It entails a ceaseless process of value’s self-expansion, a directional movement
with no external telos that generates large-scale cycles of production and consumption,
creation and destruction.
Significantly, in introducing the category of capital, Marx describes it with the same
language that Hegel used in the Phenomenology with reference to Geist—the self-moving
substance that is the subject of its own process.15 In so doing, Marx suggests that a
historical Subject in the Hegelian sense does indeed exist in capitalism. Yet—and this is
crucially important—he does not identify that Subject with the proletariat (as does Lukács),
or even with humanity. Instead he identifies it with capital.
Marx’s critique of Hegel in Capital suggests that capitalist relations are not extrinsic to the
Subject, as that which hinders its full realization. Rather, he analyzes those very relations as
constituting the Subject. In his mature theory, then, Marx does not posit a historical meta-
subject, such as the proletariat, which will realize itself in a future society, but provides the
basis for a critique of such a notion. This implies a position very different from that of
theorists like Lukács, for whom the social totality constituted by labor provides the standpoint
of the critique of capitalism; that totality is to be realized in socialism.16 In Capital, the
totality and the labor constituting it have become the objects of critique. The historical Subject
is the alienated structure of social mediation that is at the heart of the capitalist formation. The
contradictions of capital point to the abolition, not the realization of the Subject.
In Capital Marx roots capitalism’s historical dynamic ultimately in the double character
of the commodity and, hence, capital. The treadmill dynamic that I have outlined is at the
heart of this dynamic. It cannot be grasped if the category of surplus-value is understood
only as a category of exploitation—as surplus-value—and not also as surplus-value—as the
surplus of a temporal form of wealth. The temporality of this dynamic is not only abstract.
Although changes in productivity, in the use-value dimension, do not change the amount of
value produced per unit time, they do change the determination of what counts as a given
unit of time. The unit of (abstract) time is pushed forward, as it were, in (historical) time.
The movement here is of time. Both abstract time and historical time are constituted
historically as structures of domination.
This dialectic of value and use-value becomes historically significant with the emergence
of relative surplus value, and gives rise to a very complex, non-linear historical dynamic
underlying modern society. On the one hand, this dynamic is characterized by ongoing
transformations of production, and more generally, of social life. On the other hand, this
historical dynamic entails the ongoing reconstitution of its own fundamental condition as an
unchanging feature of social life—namely that social mediation ultimately is effected by
labor and, hence, that living labor remains integral to the process of production (considered
in terms of society as a whole), regardless of the level of productivity. The historical
dynamic of capitalism ceaselessly generates what is “new,” while regenerating what is the
“same.” This dynamic both generates the possibility of another organization of social life
and, yet, hinders that possibility from being realized.
15
G. W. F. Hegel, Preface to the Phenomenology of spirit, in Walter Kaufmann, ed., Hegel: Texts and
commentary (Garden City, NY, 1966), p.28; Marx, Capital, Vol. I, op. cit., pp. 255–256.
16
Lukács, op. cit., pp, 102–121, 135, 145, 151–53, 162, 175, 197–200.
Critical Social Theory and the Contemporary World 77

Marx grasps this historical dynamic with his category of capital. As capital develops, it
becomes less and less the mystified form of powers that “actually” are those of workers.
Under those circumstances, the abolition of capital would not mean returning its power to
its source—the workers. Rather, the productive powers of capital increasingly become
socially general productive powers that are historically constituted in alienated form and no
longer can be understood as those of immediate producers.17 This constitution and
accumulation of socially general knowledge renders proletarian labor increasingly
anachronistic; at the same time the dialectic of value and use-value reconstitutes the
necessity of such labor.
One implication of this analysis of capital is that capital does not exist as a unitary
totality, and that the Marxian notion of the dialectical contradiction between the “forces”
and “relations” of production does not refer to a contradiction between “relations” that are
intrinsically capitalist (e.g., the market and private property) and “forces” that purportedly
are extrinsic to capital (labor). Rather, it is one between the two dimensions of capital. As a
contradictory totality, capital is generative of the complex historical dynamic I began to
outline, a dynamic that points to the possibility of its own overcoming.
Because this dynamic is quasi-independent of its constituting individuals, it has the
properties of an intrinsic historical logic. In other words, Marx’s mature theory no longer
hypostatized history as a force moving all human societies; it no longer presupposed that a
directional dynamic of history in general exists. It did, however, characterize modern
society in terms of an ongoing directional dynamic and sought to explain that historical
dynamic with reference to the dual character of the social forms expressed by the categories
of the commodity and capital. The existence of a historical dynamic is now taken to be a
manifestation of heteronomy.
In this evaluation, the critical Marxian position is closer to poststructuralism than it is to
orthodox Second International Marxism. Nevertheless, it does not regard heteronomous
history as a narrative, which can simply be dispelled discursively, but as a structure of
domination that must be overcome. From this point of view, any attempt to rescue human
agency by focusing on contingency in ways that bracket the existence of such historically
specific structures of domination is—ironically—profoundly disempowering.
As an aside, it should be noted that, by grounding the contradictory character of the
social formation in the dualistic forms expressed by the categories of the commodity and
capital, Marx historicizes the notion of contradiction. The idea that reality or social relations
in general are essentially contradictory and dialectical appears, in light of this analysis, to be
one that can only be assumed metaphysically, not explained. This also suggests that any
theory that posits an intrinsic developmental logic to history as such, whether dialectical or
evolutionary, projects what is the case for capitalism onto history in general.
The understanding of capitalism’s complex dynamic I have outlined allows for a critical,
social (rather than technological) analysis of the trajectory of growth and the structure of
production in modern society. Marx’s key concept of surplus-value not only indicates, as
traditional interpretations would have it, that the surplus is produced by the working class—
but it shows that capitalism is characterized by a determinate, runaway form of “growth.”
The problem of economic growth in capitalism, within this framework, is not only that it is
crisis-ridden, as has frequently been emphasized by traditional Marxist approaches. Rather,
the form of growth itself—one entailing the accelerating destruction of the natural
environment—is problematic. The trajectory of growth would be different, according to this

17
See Postone, Time, labor, and social domination, op. cit., pp. 324–349.
78 Postone

approach, if the ultimate goal of production were increased quantities of goods rather than
of surplus value.18
This approach also provides the basis for a critical analysis of the structure of social
labor and the nature of production in capitalism. It indicates that the industrial process of
production should not be grasped as a technical process that, although increasingly
socialized, is used by private capitalists for their own ends. Rather, the approach I am
outlining grasps that process as intrinsically capitalist. Capital’s drive for ongoing increases
in productivity gives rise to a productive apparatus of considerable technological
sophistication that renders the production of material wealth essentially independent of
direct human labor time expenditure. This, in turn, opens the possibility of large-scale
socially general reductions in labor time and fundamental changes in the nature and social
organization of labor. Yet these possibilities are not realized in capitalism. Although there is
a growing shift away from manual labor, the development of technologically sophisticated
production does not liberate most people from fragmented and repetitive labor. Similarly,
labor time is not reduced on a socially general level, but is distributed unequally, even
increasing for many. The actual structure of labor and organization of production, then,
cannot be understood adequately in technological terms alone; the development of
production in capitalism must be understood in social terms as well.
According to the reinterpretation I have outlined, then, Marx’s theory extends far beyond
the traditional critique of bourgeois relations of distribution (the market and private
property); it is not simply a critique of exploitation and the unequal distribution of wealth
and power. Rather, it grasps modern industrial society itself as capitalist, and critically
analyzes capitalism primarily in terms of abstract structures of domination, increasing
fragmentation of individual labor and individual existence, and a blind runaway
developmental logic. This approach treats the working class as the crucial, most basic
element of capitalism rather than as the embodiment of its negation. It reconceptualizes
post-capitalist society in terms of the possible abolition of the proletariat and of the
organization of production based on proletarian labor, as well as of the dynamic system of
abstract compulsions constituted by labor as a socially mediating activity. That is, it
conceptualizes the overcoming of capitalism in terms of a transformation of the general
structure of labor and of time. In this sense it differs both from the traditional Marxist
notion of the realization of the proletariat, and from the capitalist mode of “abolishing”
national working classes by creating an underclass within the framework of the unequal
distribution of labor and of time, nationally and globally.
By shifting the focus of analysis to the mode of mediation and away from the market and
private property, this reinterpretation provides the basis for a critical theory of post-liberal
society as capitalist and also could provide the basis for a critical theory of the so-called
“actually-existing socialist” countries as alternative (and failed) forms of capital
accumulation, rather than as social modes that represented the historical negation of
capital, in however imperfect a form.
Although the logically abstract level of analysis outlined here does not immediately
address the issue of the specific factors underlying the structural transformations of the past
30 years, it can provide a framework within which those transformations can be grounded
socially and understood historically. It provides the basis for an understanding of the non-
linear developmental dynamic of modern society that could incorporate many important
insights of postindustrial theory. Unlike the latter, however, it could also elucidate the
constraints intrinsic to that dynamic and, hence, the gap between the actual organization of
18
Ibid., pp. 307–314.
Critical Social Theory and the Contemporary World 79

social life and the way it could be organized, especially given the increasing importance of
science and technology.
In as much as it seeks to ground socially, and is critical of, the abstract, quasi-objective
social relations, and the nature of production, work, and the imperatives of growth in
capitalism, and does not focus exclusively on issues of exploitation, this approach can
address a range of contemporary concerns, dissatisfactions and aspirations in a way that
could provide a fruitful point of departure for a consideration of the new social movements
of recent decades and the sorts of historically constituted world views they embody and
express. It might also be able to approach the global rise of forms of “fundamentalisms” as
populist, fetishized forms of opposition to the differential effects of neo-liberal global
capitalism.
Finally, this approach also has implications for the question of the social preconditions
of democracy, inasmuch as it analyzes not only the inequalities of real social power that are
inimical to democratic politics, but also reveals as socially constituted—and hence as
legitimate objects of political debates—the systemic constraints imposed by capital’s global
dynamic on democratic self-determination.
By fundamentally rethinking the significance of value theory and reconceptualizing the
nature of capitalism, this interpretation changes the terms of discourse between critical
theories of capitalism and other sorts of social theory. It implicitly suggests that an adequate
theory of modernity should be a self-reflexive theory capable of overcoming the theoretical
dichotomies of culture and material life, structure and action, while grounding socially the
overarching non-linear dynamic of the modern world, its form of economic growth, and the
nature and trajectory of its production process.
In addressing such issues, the interpretation I have presented seeks to contribute to the
discourse of contemporary social theory and, relatedly, to our understanding of the far-
reaching transformations of our social universe.