Revolucionarna dinamika i aporije moderne

In: Politicka misao, Band 46, Heft 2, S. 39-46

Abstract

The work General Theory of Modernity prompts us to reflect on & understand modernity as a fusion of two constitutive moments: the declarative moment, as an affirmation of the right to emancipation which is capable of constant revolutionary extension, & capitalism, which is simultaneously dynamic & revolutionary, a system both destructive & exploitative. There are two wrong ways of understanding this fusion. According to the liberal understanding, the declarative moment is accomplished in capitalism. According to the vulgar Marxist understanding, the emancipatory moment is a mere ideological illusion. Bidet's concept of "metastructure" offers a possibility of a more adequate understanding of the fusion. In Bidet's understanding of the metastructure of modernity, which is based on a specific reading & reconstruction of Marx's Capital, the metastructure designates a general matrix of possibilities of combining market & organization, as basic structural characteristics of modern society. The author critically disproves such an approach. It is better to start from the structure, from an analysis of capitalism, & show that capitalism also opens up emancipatory horizons which make it possible to refute capitalism. An adequate understanding of modernity requires an adequate theory of capitalism rather than a general theory of modernity. Such an approach does not reduce the normative discourse to some sort of super-structural epiphenomenon. It is logically quite possible to assert that certain principles & ideals emerge in a concrete historical context, but one can also assert that the contents of those principles & ideals transcend that context. Adapted from the source document.