In Marx for Beginners, Rius uses an off-the-cuff writing style combined with a comic-like layout to guide the beginning theorist through the complicated writings of Karl Marx. The text is a summation of Marx’s personal origin, an explanation of his theories on social economic theory, and a bridges the gap of time from Marx’s era into the modern world, all culminating in a beautiful example of an artist’s approach to theoretical writing.
Rius begins his work by detailing Marx himself, especially his economic struggles which would in turn motivate his theories on class-based economics. Unlike the stereotypical image of the intellectual, publishing from ivory towers with no real-world experience, Rius shows Marx as an intellectual in the working class, struggling to afford food, and much like the working class today, unable to provide healthcare. This personal-background not only helps the reader identify with Marx’s struggle, but from the standpoint of our class, shows how providing personal and historical information around a work serves to strengthen one’s argument.
Rius continues by highlighting the important concepts and passages in Marx’s work, interjecting the occasional drawing to help keep the reader grounded in Marx’s deep-thoughts. Rius lays the foundation of Marx’s principles by proving that in a capitalist system, money is exchanged for labor-power/time, not necessarily skill. He amplifies this point by quoting Marx on the death of male-dominated, skilled workforce, and its replacement by an exploitive-workforce that ignores age/sex, “Differences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working class. All are instruments of labour, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex” (114).
After establishing the socio-economic problems within Marx’s current time period, he goes on to explain how society had evolved from a primitive community, to slavery, feudalism, and finally arriving at capitalism. He talks about how the motivation for advancement is always spearheaded by the greed of the upper class. Yet Marx believes the next step will be advancement to socialism and must be led by the proletariat. He explains that “there can no longer be any wage-labour when there is no longer any capital” (118) and “The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition bourgeois property” (117). Marx asserts that the future lies in the hands of a unionized workforce party, and eventual revolution.
Rius concludes his piece by connecting the plight of Marx to the modern-era, showing how time is not enough on its own to heal the problems in a capitalist system. A great example of capitalist-flaws in the modern age presents itself in the 1999 film Office Space. Consider the following scene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU15uvxuJqM
Here, the protagonist Peter explains that he sees no extra incentive by working harder (Marx’s surplus value) and that he only works hard enough not to get fired. These are classic illustrations of the principles Marx wrote about all those years ago, here seen alive and well in our new era, the skills of the proletariat redefined, yet still a slave to machines and continuing to sell their labor-power at a reduced rate.
Rius’s presentation of Marx is incredibly strong, providing both a comical, yet academic approach to interpreting Marx. The only place that lacks in the writing is towards the middle when Rius begins directly quoting longer Mark’s passages. Here it seems he abandons his translation of Marx’s text, and instead only chimes in to comment when he feels his readers are bored, and then only makes a joke or two to keep them going, rather than translating Marx’s heavy-prose for the layman. Yet, in the context of our class, this reading serves as an example of theoretical-writing and how one needs to approach the work, regardless of subject. An artist can sometimes lack the knowledge of how to approach a subject both artistically and academically.
In the second and third readings for this week, Marx’s achievements in helping create the foundation for critical theory are recognized and applauded. In Introduction to Critical Theory, Held speaks about Marx’s economic work becoming a staple for theory in all avenues of study. He provides a brief historical timeline of the real-world application of Marx’s work, going beyond Rius’ by showing the physical result of Marx’s theory. Held also stresses the importance of history when analyzing theory, “in order to grasp the axes around which critical theory developed it is essential to understand the turbulent events which were at the root of its founder’s historical and political experience” (16). But beyond simple economics, Held talks about how Marx had changed theory everywhere by explaining, “nature of reason, truth and beauty—but reformulated the way in which these had been previously understood” (15).
While Held’s article clearly shows the extent of Marx’s influence and how it applies to this class, and the role of a modern artist, Horkheimer’s Critical Theory stresses how economics have become a weight on critical theory. He goes so far to say, “The theory is concerned with society as a whole, but this broad scope is forgotten in economism where limited phenomena are made the final court of appeal” (249). Horkheimer sees Marxist theory as important, and agrees with Held that it extends into all realms of thought, but clearly feels that one cannot center upon economics when theorizing other subjects. At the same time, he shoves off the utopian ideal that Marxist philosophy is powerful enough to solve the world’s problems, not just economically, but across the board. He writes, “a philosophy that thinks to find peace within itself, in any kind of truth whatsoever, has therefore nothing to do with the critical theory” (252).
Taking these three articles into account, it is clear that Marx wants the theorist to understand history and examine the world through a class-centered lens, and with modern works like Office Space highlighting his exact ideals, it is clear that Marx’s approach has validity. Held’s reverence for the work of Marx addresses our course through historical examples and preaches how the ideals of critical theory extend to all schools of thought and practice, while Horkheimer reminds that for one to be truly critical, one cannot be weighed down in economics, but, like Held says, extend their vision to all fields. Horkheimer asserts that in the end, to be truly successful, one can never accept any theoretical concept that promises peace within itself. Rather, he challenges the theorist to accept Marx’s method, but apply it to all of life, never stopping to accept success. These three articles serve as an excellent foundation for the course, combining to provide a strong critical theory foundation (Marx), a history lesson displaying how that foundation grew into the real world and where it stands today (Held), and finally a warning to avoid certain pitfalls in practicing these theoretical methods when applying them in our own work (Horkheimer).
