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Subversive thought is none other than the cunning of reason when confronted with a social reality in which the poor and miserable are required to sustain the illusion of fictitious wealth. Yet, this subsidy is absolutely necessary in existing society, to prevent its implosion. The critique of political economy is a thoroughly subversive business. It rejects the appearance of economic reality as a natural thing, argues that economy has not independent existence, expounds economy as political economy, and rejects as conformist rebellion those anti-capitalist perspectives that derive their rationality from the existing conceptuality of society. Subversion focuses on human conditions. Its critical subject is society unaware of itself. This book develops Marx's critique of political economy as negative theory of society. It does not conform to the patterns of the world and demands that society rids itself of all the muck of ages and founds itself anew.
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Critical Theory and the Critique of Political Economy
ABOUT THE SERIES Critical Theory and Contemporary Society explores the relationship between contemporary society as a complex and highly differentiated phenomenon, on the one hand, and Critical Theory as a correspondingly sophisticated methodology for studying and understanding social and political relations today, on the other. Each volume highlights in distinctive ways why (1) Critical Theory offers the most appropriate concepts for understanding political movements, socioeconomic conflicts and state institutions in an increasingly global world and (2) why Critical Theory nonetheless needs updating in order to keep pace with the realities of the twenty-first century. The books in the series look at global warming, financial crisis, post–nation state legitimacy, international relations, cinema, terrorism and other issues, applying an interdisciplinary approach, in order to help students and citizens understand the specificity and uniqueness of the current situation. Series Editor Darrow Schecter Reader in the School of History, Art History and Humanities, University of Sussex, UK
BOOKS IN THE SERIES Critical Theory and Film: Fabio Vighi, Reader and Co-director of the Žižek Centre for Ideology Critique at Cardiff University, UK Critical Theory and Contemporary Europe: William Outhwaite, Chair and Professor of Sociology at Newcastle University, UK Critical Theory of Legal Revolutions: Hauke Brunkhorst, Professor of Sociology and Head of the Institute of Sociology at the University of Flensburg, Germany Critical Theory in the Twenty-First Century: Darrow Schecter, Reader in the School of History, Art History and Humanities, University of Sussex, UK Critical Theory and the Digital: David Berry, Department of Political and Cultural Studies at Swansea University, UK Critical Theory and the Contemporary Crisis of Capital: Heiko Feldner, Co-director of the Centre for Ideology Critique and Žižek Studies at Cardiff University, UK and Fabio Vighi, Reader and Co-director of the Žižek Centre for Ideology Critique at Cardiff University, UK Critical Theory and Libertarian Socialism: Charles Masquelier, Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Surrey, UK
Critical Theory and the Critique of Political Economy On subversion and negative reason
WERNER BONEFELD
N E W Y OR K • L ON DON • N E W DE L H I • SY DN EY
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www.bloomsbury.com Bloomsbury is a registered trade mark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2014 © Werner Bonefeld, 2014 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any in