Jacob Blumenfeld

In 1844, Johann Kaspar Schmidt, under the pen name ‘Max Stirner’, published a blistering critique of contemporary German philosophy, politics, and society called Der Einzige und sein Eigentum. Although Engels praised the book in private letters to Marx upon its arrival, a year and a half later he and Marx went to work demolishing every sentence in a 350-page unpublished manuscript called Saint Max, eventually edited and compiled a century later into the centrepiece of the German Ideology. Saint Max – perhaps the most bombastic, literary, philosophical, polemical text that Marx ever wrote – is rarely read and almost never commented upon, a fact I hope to rectify here. In this paper, I will reconstruct a key debate between Marx and Stirner that occurred from 1843 to 1846 in four texts: Marx’s On the Jewish Question, Stirner’s The Unique and its Property, Marx’s Saint Max, and Stirner’s Stirner’s Critics.

Jacob Blumenfeld explores the intersection of class and recognition theory, examining how the class structure degrades human dignity and autonomy. For Blumenfeld, class represents a moral injury to the status of being human. Unlike identity-based claims that seek recognition, the condition of class necessitates abolition. The paradox is that even though class can be diagnosed as a form of misrecognition, its rectification cannot be accomplished via recognition. To recognize class as a moral injury is to recognize that recognition cannot resolve the misrecognition of class. Undoing the epistemic injustices and misrecognitions of class rather demands the collective work of abolishing class itself.

Stellen Sie sich eine auf den Kopf gestellte Welt vor, in der alles, was die grundlegenden Koordinaten der eigenen Existenz ausmacht, zu bröckeln beginnt. Überall brechen Aufstände, Meutereien und Streiks aus. Die Regierung bricht zusammen. Die Menschen fordern eine Räterepublik, eine parlamentarische Demokratie, einen revolutionären Staat. Keiner glaubt mehr an die Privatwirtschaft. Wie soll es politisch und ökonomisch weitergehen? Was ist der richtige Weg, um die Gesellschaft neu zu ordnen? Wie soll die Wirtschaft organisiert werden? Wem sollten die Produktionsmittel, das Land und die natürlichen Ressourcen gehören, und wie sollten sie verteilt werden? Sollte das Privateigentum eingeschränkt oder abgeschafft werden? Und welche Güter sollten überhaupt privat besitzbar sein? Sollte der Staat, die Gemeinschaft, die Arbeiter:innen, die Familien, Unternehmen oder Einzelpersonen die Vermögenswerte der Gesellschaft besitzen? Und wie können diese gerecht und effizient aufgeteilt werden? Welche Eigentümer:innen sollten enteignet, welche anerkannt werden? Welche Rolle sollten die Arbeitnehmer:innen in der neuen Gesellschaft spielen? Was ist das Ziel des wirtschaftlichen Übergangs, und, noch wichtiger, wie kann es erreicht werden?

Vom Klimaschutz über die Vergesellschaftung großer Immobilienkonzerne bis zum Recht auf die eigenen Daten: Wir erleben gegenwärtig ein Comeback von Eigentumsdebatten. Der Band bietet erstmals eine umfassende Einführung in diese hochaktuellen Streitfragen. Welche Folgen hat die Finanzialisierung für geistiges Eigentum und das Eigentum an Wohnraum? Welche Gründe sprechen für Gemeineigentum? Sind Erbschaften von der Eigentumsidee gedeckt? Die Beiträge von u. a. Katharina Pistor, Christoph Menke, Brenna Bhandar, Rahel Jaeggi, Andrej Holm, Philipp Staab und Andreas Malm entwickeln Lösungsansätze aus den Perspektiven von Philosophie, Soziologie, Recht und Geschichte.

Dieser Artikel schaut sich die Schnittstelle zwischen Klasse, moralischer Verletzung und Anerkennung an und geht der Frage nach, wie die Klassenstruktur die Würde und Autonomie der Menschen beeinträchtigt. Außerdem werden Wege für einen sozialen Wandel vorgeschlagen, die über die Anerkennung hinausgehen. Klasse ist eine moralische Verletzung des Menschseins. Im Gegensatz zu identitätsbasierten Forderungen, die Anerkennung suchen, muss die Klasse abgeschafft werden. Das Paradoxe daran ist, dass die Klasse zwar als eine Form der Nichtanerkennung diagnostiziert werden kann, ihre Korrektur jedoch nicht durch Anerkennung erreicht werden kann. Die Klasse als moralische Verletzung zu identifizieren bedeutet anzuerkennen, dass Anerkennung die Nichtanerkennung der Klasse nicht lösen kann. Die epistemischen Ungerechtigkeiten und Nichtanerkennungen der Klasse zu beseitigen, erfordert vielmehr die kollektive Arbeit der Abschaffung der Klasse selbst.

What happens when the chance to radically reshape one’s own society presents itself, but no one can agree on what to do? This question will be explored in this article, particularly with regard to the debate on socialization that unfolded in Germany and Austria between 1918 and 1921 in a multitude of newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, books, speeches, and protocols. By recovering this lost debate, and systematizing its contents, the hope is that some of the confusion over the meaning of socialization can be, if not dissolved, at least explained. One suggestion offered here is that the ambiguity of the term is not coincidental but strategic. Resolving the meaning of socialization is thus a political question and not a semantic one.

In this chapter, I criticize some common approaches to conceptualizing property, and I propose instead a more normatively attuned, historically situated framework for thinking about what it means to call something mine. Whereas many legal theorists are busy constructing elaborate doctrines for justifying the absolute supremacy of property rights (and, consequently, normalizing the status quo distribution of wealth), I am more interested in understanding the social bonds, normative expectations, and material constraints produced in property relations. I do this with the help of Kant, Hegel, and Marx, each of whom placed property in relation to the development and denial of human freedom. But first, I discuss my shirt.

Wir diskutieren die Zusammenhänge zwischen historischen sowie aktuellen Debatten um Vergesellschaftung und demokratische Wirtschaftsplanung. Anhand der historischen Vergesellschaftungsdebatte wird gezeigt, dass sowohl die Wirtschaftsplanung als auch die Demokratisierung der Ökonomie zentrale Ziele verschiedener Vergesellschaftungskonzepte waren. Während die Vergesellschaftungs- debatte die Transformationsperspektive stärker in den Vordergrund rückt, konkretisiert die Debatte um demokratische Wirtschaftsplanung das Ziel, also die Gestaltung einer gemeinwohlorientierten und radikal-demokratischen Produktionsweise.

A “expropriação dos expropriadores” é uma deliciosa formulação, uma que Marx até compara à infame “negação da negação” de Hegel. Mas o que essa frase significa, e seria ela relevante ainda hoje? Antes de analisar o conteúdo da expressão de Marx, irei considerar brevemente os entendimentos jurídicos contemporâneos sobre a expropriação, bem como alguns exemplos. No restante do ensaio, apresento diferentes tipos de expropriação em Marx e me concentro em uma ambiguidade no cerne da noção de “expropriação dos expropriadores”, a saber, se ela descreve uma tendência imanente e objetiva dentro do desenvolvimento do modo de produção capitalista ou se prescreve ativamente uma forma de práxis política revolucionária para a classe trabalhadora. Minha resposta é que ela faz as duas coisas, embora não sem tensionamento. Por fim, desenvolvo algumas implicações dessas reflexões, mostrando como o conceito de expropriação pode ser usado hoje, nas lutas em torno da moradia, da questão climática e do trabalho.

This book provides a detailed account of the role of property in German Idealism. It puts the concept of property in the center of the philosophical systems of Kant, Fichte, and Hegel and shows how property remains tied to their conceptions of freedom, right, and recognition. The book begins with a critical genealogy of the concept of property in modern legal philosophy, followed by a reconstruction of the theory of property in Kant's Doctrine of Right, Fichte's Foundations of Natural Right, and Hegel's Jena Realphilosophie. By turning to the tradition of German Rechtsphilosophie, as opposed to the more standard libertarian and utilitarian frameworks of property, it explores the metaphysical, normative, political, and material questions that make property intelligible as a social relation. The book formulates a normative theory of property rooted in practical reason, mutual recognition, and social freedom. This relational theory of property, inspired by German Idealism, brings a fresh angle to contemporary property theory. Additionally, it provides crucial philosophical background to 19th century debates on private property, inequality, labor, socialism, capitalism, and the state. The Concept of Property in Kant, Fichte, and Hegel will appeal to scholars and advanced students interested in 19th Century German philosophy, social and political philosophy, philosophy of law, political theory, and political economy.

The ‘expropriation of the expropriators’ is a delicious turn of phrase, one that Marx even compares to Hegel’s infamous ‘negation of the negation’. But what does it mean, and is it still relevant today? Before I analyse the content of Marx’s expression, I briefly consider contemporary legal understandings of expropriation, as well as some examples of it. In the remainder of the essay, I spell out different kinds of expropriation in Marx and focus on an ambiguity at the core of the notion of ‘expropriating the expropriators’, namely, whether it describes an immanent and objective tendency within the development of the capitalist mode of production or else actively prescribes a form of revolutionary political praxis for the working class. My answer is that it does both, though not without tension. Finally, I develop some implications of these reflections by showing how the concept of expropriation can be put to use today, in struggles around housing, climate and work.

Max Stirner’s The Unique and Its Property (1844) is the first ruthless critique of modern society. In All Things are Nothing to Me, Jacob Blumenfeld reconstructs the unique philosophy of Max Stirner (1806–1856), a figure that strongly influenced—for better or worse—Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Emma Goldman as well as numerous anarchists, feminists, surrealists, illegalists, existentialists, fascists, libertarians, dadaists, situationists, insurrectionists and nihilists of the last two centuries. Misunderstood, dismissed, and defamed, Stirner’s work is considered by some to be the worst book ever written. It combines the worst elements of philosophy, politics, history, psychology, and morality, and ties it all together with simple tautologies, fancy rhetoric, and militant declarations. That is the glory of Max Stirner’s unique footprint in the history of philosophy. Jacob Blumenfeld wanted to exhume this dead tome along with its dead philosopher, but discovered instead that, rather than deceased, their spirits are alive and quite well, floating in our presence. All Things are Nothing to Me is a forensic investigation into how Stirner has stayed alive throughout time.

There is a common belief that genuine awareness and acceptance of the existence of anthropogenic climate change (as opposed to either ignorance or denial) automatically leads one to develop political and moral positions which advocate for collective human action toward minimizing suffering for all and adapting human societies toward a fossil-free future. This is a mistake. Against the idea that scientific awareness of the facts of climate change is enough to motivate a common ethical project of humanity toward a unifying good, I argue that climate change awareness can just as well equally motivate heightened divisions of humanity into anti-egalitarian, xenophobic, class-differentiated zones of competitive survival. I call this climate barbarism, and seek to explain its conceptual grounds.

What I will argue here is that the ethical potentiality of the human being that Aristotle cites in the Nicomachean Ethics refers to the general, rational capacity for someone to appropriate and develop their own specific, natural capacities which make them human; the name of this ability is called virtue, which, when expressed in actions, we call good. To separate out the concepts at work here demands an exegesis of the two kinds of dunamis in Metaphysics Theta, that is, dunamis as causal power of change and dunamis as a potential way of being for an existent capacity. Once we grasp this, we can clarify the nature of virtue as the active, complete state of a capacity in human being which defines their function even though it must be acquired, and it need not ever be actualized. The concepts of habit (ethos) and practical judgment (phronesis) give Aristotle the means to solve the problem of how such a potentiality is acquired and how it is actualized, and hence we will end with a discussion of them.

The concept of anarchy is often presented as a recipe for pure disorder. The Anarchist Turn brings together innovative and fresh perspectives on anarchism to argue that in fact it represents a form of collective, truly democratic social organisation. The book shows how in the last decade the negative caricature of anarchy has begun to crack. Globalisation and the social movements it spawned have proved what anarchists have long been advocating: an anarchical order is not just desirable, but also feasible. The contributors, including leading anarchist and critical theorists, argue that with the failure of both free markets and state socialism the time has come for an 'anarchist turn' in political philosophy. In doing so they relate the anarchist hypothesis to a range of other disciplines such as politics, anthropology, economics, history and sociology.

In the history of interpretations of Hegel, how one reads the chapter on “Absolute Knowing” in the Phenomenology of Spirit determines one’s whole perspective. In fact, Marx’s only comments on the Phenomenology concern this final chapter, taking it as the very “secret” of Hegel’s philosophy. But what is the secret hidden within the thicket of this impenetrable prose? My suggestion is that it turns on a very specific meaning of the “abolition of time” that Hegel describes in the very last paragraphs. But the meaning of this idea is not what Marx criticized in his last Manuscript of 1844, that is, it is not simply a form of idealism which abolishes the finitude of man. Rather this relationship to time accepts such finitude, making it the central axis upon which the possibility of freedom turns. In this paper, I will present a reading of “Absolute Knowing” that focuses on the meaning of overcoming time, and connect it to some thoughts on “disposable time” that Marx discusses in the Grundrisse.

Lévinas is the philosopher of the absolutely Other, the thinker of the primacy of the ethical relation, the poet of the face. Against the formalism of Kantian subjectivity, the totality of the Hegelian system, the monism of Husserlian phenomenology and the instrumentalism of Heideggerian ontology, Lévinas develops a phenomenological account of the ethical relation grounded in the idea of infinity, an idea which is concretely produced in the experience with the absolutely other, particularly, in their face. The face of the other, irreducible to any ontological structure of being or any epistemological intentionality of representation, reaches out from on high across the abyss of the isolated ego, commanding respect all the while granting the possibility of murder. This experience overflows the subjective capacity of the separated ego, forcing it “beyond being.” This anarchic relation with the Other is the groundless condition of possibility for ethical life, that is, truly human life. The structure of the ethical relation can then be determined in hindsight as the ground of meaning for what it is to be an I at all. -/- This is a pretty uncontroversial reading of Lévinas' work, especially Totality and Infinity. And yet, there is one small problem. If this is what Lévinas is doing, then why does the largest section of Totality and Infinity – section II, “Interiority and Economy” – have nothing to do with ethics, the other, or the face at all? Why is it devoted to an arduous analysis of what he calls separation, egoism, economy, enjoyment, labour, and possession? In other words, why does Lévinas spend so much energy on writing about the egoist at the heart of his magnum opus, which is supposedly a text devoted to the Other? And furthermore, why is this section one of the least discussed in the secondary literature on Lévinas? -/- These questions motivate the present inquiry, which modestly seeks to understand what Lévinas is up to in this section. Once laying out the basic story, I will focus on the concepts of labour and possession, for I think these are the unrecognized pivots upon which the transition from ego to Other turns. I will also make some slight attempts to interpret Lévinas' direct or indirect comments on Plato, Kant, Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger. For although he distances himself from these giants, he stands on their shoulders as well.

Nach Marx is a German volume of twenty essays on Marx and social philosophy today, edited by Rahel Jaeggi of Humboldt University in Berlin and Daniel Loick of the Goethe University in Frankfurt. The collection comes from the “Re-thinking Marx” conference in Berlin of 2011, organized by Jaeggi with contributions from philosophers and political theorists who are German-speaking (Hauke Brunkhorst, Alex Demirović, Rainer Forst, Axel Honneth, Rahel Jaeggi, Daniel Loick, Andrea Maihofer, Oliver Marchart, Christoph Menke, Hartmut Rosa, Michael Quante, Titus Stahl), Anglophone (Wendy Brown, Daniel Brudney, Andrew Chitty, Raymond Geuss, Frederick Neuhouser, Terry Pinkard, Moishe Postone) and Francophone (Etienne Balibar). All the authors can be said to have sympathy with the Frankfurt School approach to critical theory, although what that concretely entails is open to interpretation. Perhaps the only points of agreement are that Marx inaugurated the critical approach to society, and that capitalism is the object of critique. But how to read Marx and how to critique capitalism are anything but settled.

Norman Levine: Marx’s Discourse with Hegel. Basingstoke: Palgrave Mac- millan 2012. 360 pages. ISBN 978-0230293342. Review by Jacob Blumenfeld “Marx appropriated Hegel’s method, but he rejected Hegel’s system.” This is the core idea that Norman Levine repeatedly asserts throughout his most recent book, Marx’s Discourse with Hegel. Although this is Levine’s main point, it is by far the least interesting and perhaps the least convincing idea to stem from his extensive research. His contribution to the long debate concerning the influence of Hegel on Marx is rather more of a philological nature than anything else. Levine has done the painsta- king and rigorous archival work, with the help of the MEGA, of documenting exactly a) which texts of Hegel’s were available to Marx and when he read them, b) which texts of Hegel’s were available to Marx but were never read, and c) which texts of Hegel’s were never available to Marx (ch. 2). Given this “visible” and “invisible” bibliography of Hegel, Levine then reconstructs, year by year from 1837 to 1848, exactly how Marx’s knowledge of certain texts from Hegel directly influenced Marx’s philosophy, politics, and vocabulary, as can be seen in his dissertation, newspaper articles, manuscripts, and books (ch. 3). With this in view, Levine is able to judge how Marx mis-read Hegel (ch. 4), and how Marx’s method is indebted to Hegel (ch. 5).