Reification and Speculation
In: Studies in political economy: SPE ; a socialist review, Heft 58, S. 121-140
ISSN: 0707-8552
Draws on Georg Lukacs's concept of reification to argue that a new form of reification that applies to late capitalism has emerged from the unpatterned naturalistic chaos associated with the hegemonic rise of speculative capital. Although relations of production in late capitalism are the primary cause of reification, it is maintained that both science & technology have played a contributing role. Lukacs's construction of reification is reviewed, highlighting the influence of Karl Marx, as well as Georg W. F. Hegel's notion of the transformation of epistemology into a historical ontology. The consequences for labor of the current dominance of speculative capital are examined, & the limits of reification, the objective reality of a global economy of capital concentration, & the possibilities of resistance are discussed. J. Lindroth
