Domination

This contribution compares the traditional marxist and critical marxist interpretations of domination in Capital. Part One argues that traditional marxism conceives of Capital as a marxian political economy. Contra Smith’s ideal of social harmony, Capital argues that capitalism is characterized by class exploitation and domination. Despite these insights and the aspects of Marx’s thought that traditional marxism draws on, this theory of domination eludes the important cluster of ideas first introduced in “the fetishcharacter of the commodities and its secret,” that play a central role in Capital. By focusing on these ideas, critical marxism argues that Capital is a critique of political economy, which ultimately amounts to a critical theory of society. The critique of political economy is thus a critique of the constitution and reproduction of the historically specific social form of capitalist political economy. Consequently, domination is not conceived as the class domination of the transhistorical institutions of the economy and state. Domination is social domination; a process of autonomization, inversion, and personification that compel the class antagonism, stemming from the historically specific organization of capitalist society.