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Published in:
Introduction: What Is Critical Theory? Read chapter Read first chapter

2017 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

30. Immanent Critique and the Exhaustion Thesis: Neoliberalism and History’s Vicissitudes

Author : Robert J. Antonio

Published in: The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Theory

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan US

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Abstract

The chapter departs from earlier discourses over the exhaustion of immanent critique, one-dimensionality, and the end of alternatives. The author addresses the current profound contradictions of capitalism and the environment, which have loomed earlier in capitalism’s growth imperative but have accelerated enormously with the latest phase of globalization and the consequent growth of the global economy relative to the biosphere (i.e., with massive increases in the production of waste and throughput of resources). This chapter addresses climate change and related ecological problems (e.g., biodiversity), and also focuses on their intersection with enormous class inequality. The core theme is the unsustainability of capitalism as we have known it, the role of critical theory, and the relation of critical theory to natural science.

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Footnotes
1
Marx (1967a: 488) held that “the historical development of the antagonisms, immanent in a given form of production, is the only way in which that form of production could be dissolved and a new form established.” He saw progressive potentials in “modern industry’s” application of science to production, much extended scale of specialized cooperation, increased education, highly concentrated capital, centralized “publically” owned firms, and interventionist state (Marx 1967a 322–335, 386, 480–491; 1967b: 436–441,819–820; Antonio 2007).
 
2
Marx still spoke emphatically about the falsity of bourgeois democracy and underestimated its human significance.
 
3
Engels asserted that younger, deterministic “Marxists” produced “amazing rubbish” and that, for this reason, elder Marx declared he was “not a Marxist” (Marx and Engels 1959: 395–412).
 
4
By social theory, I mean broader, more interdisciplinary, more normative types of theoretical practices in contrast to more narrowly focused, disciplinary, more strictly empirical “sociological theory” (or other specialized, disciplinary theories). Social theory’s veracity rides on the strength of empirical–historical argument about consequences of acting on normative claims as well as on systematic ethical argument. This post-traditional style of normative argument makes its claims public and open to contestation on consequential grounds, providing intelligent means to debate policy options (Antonio 2005).
 
5
Marx’s pessimism was clear in his letter to Vera Zasulich (drafted four times) in which he stated that only Western Europe was on a pathway to the fully developed capitalist relations of production that make socialism possible (Marx [1881] 1989b: 346–371).
 
6
Marx (1967a: 751) asserted that: “Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one.”
 
7
Marcuse rejected arguments by postwar social scientists, social and political theorists, and pundits that continuous growth, increased affluence and consumption, and well-fed working classes eliminated industrial capitalism’s contradictions and transformed it to a more democratic, postcapitalist, “advanced industrial society” (e.g., Brick 2006; Hodgson 1978).
 
8
The Cambodian “killing fields” of the communist Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot constituted a revolutionary nadir of this period.
 
9
Bell was culturally conservative, but did not embrace neoliberalism or neoclassical economics.
 
10
Adorno ([1967] 1981: 34) said earlier that: “Neutralized and ready-made, traditional culture has become worthless today.”
 
11
Besides a lack of coercion, Habermas argued that qualified participants attempting to reach an understanding share background validity claims that distinguish competent communication (e.g., inclusive, equal, truthful, sincere) from “systematically distorted communication” (Habermas 1976: 1–6; Antonio 1989).
 
12
He qualified these critical points with regard to the women’s movement (Habermas 1987:393).
 
13
Piccone considered Habermas’ Kantian inspired ethical formalism to be ersatz critical theory.
 
14
On this transition in the Telos circle and their later critical theory, see Antonio (2011).
 
15
Alan Sokol, who mocked the unintelligible writing of postmodernists, submitted a bogus manuscript on quantum physics, loaded with postmodern jargon, which was accepted and published in the prestigious cultural theory journal Social Text and debated in the “science wars” that followed (Sokal and Bricmont 1999). Postmodern theory’s terrain is complex, diverse, and contradictory; it includes important work that will likely endure (Antonio 1998).
 
16
Depth models identify “real” dynamics and structures below the cultural surface that shape society and culture (e.g., Marxian value theory and commodity fetishism).
 
17
Jameson drew on Ernest Mandel’s (1978) classic Late Capitalism.
 
18
These figures from the Piketty circle database http://​topincomes.​parisschoolofeco​nomics.​eu/​ are in 2014 dollars, include capital gains, exclude transfer payments, are based on tax data, and represent tax units (single and joint filers).
 
20
Marxists James O’Connor (1988) and John Bellamy Foster (Foster et al. 2010) and his circle have brought ecological issues into analyses of capitalist crisis tendencies.
 
21
CO2 is the most important, long-lasting greenhouse gas (GHG)—the planetary boundary has been estimated to be about 350 parts per million (ppm), and levels are now above 400 ppm (https://​www.​co2.​earth/​).The 2 °C maximum was established as a target to avert ecocatastrophe, but some scientists suggest that the target should be 1.5 °C or even 1 °C.
 
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Metadata
Title
Immanent Critique and the Exhaustion Thesis: Neoliberalism and History’s Vicissitudes
Author
Robert J. Antonio
Copyright Year
2017
Book
The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Theory

Print ISBN: 978-1-137-55800-8

Electronic ISBN: 978-1-137-55801-5

Copyright Year: 2017

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55801-5_30