From: "kent strock" <sigmund5-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Bourdieu vs Marx?
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 06:22:55 +0000



on the point of "clear cut distictions" it seems a bit of a solipistic 
point...criticizing B. on Marxian grounds? Grounds on which Bourdieu does 
not tread for ontological reasons?


Life is the lie we tell everybody else.
-vic chesnutt





>From: Magnus Marsdal <magnus.marsdal-AT-klassekampen.no>
>Reply-To: bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.eduon the
>To: "'bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu'" 
><bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
>Subject: Bourdieu vs Marx?
>Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 10:21:44 +0200
>
>Anja Weiss asked:
>
>Why do you find it worthwhile to find the concept of economic exploitation
>in
>Bourdieu's theory and to argue for an emphasis on economic capital? I
>have always prefered Bourdieu's theory because it allows us to take a
>more differentiated view on today's societies while agreeing with Marx
>that recources are distributed unequally and that this unequal
>distribution is a result of "Herrschaft" (domination) and made invisible
>by ideology or symbolic violence respectively. I can see that some
>topics can be dealt with better by refering to Marx, but why reduce
>Bourdieu's strengths - which fill in a weakness of Marx' rather
>onedimensional perspective on social inequality - onto a theory of
>economic exploitation?
>
>This is about Bourdieu vs. Marx. I will try to explain my preoccupation
>with the relation between the two. It has little to do with fitting
>Bourdieu onto Marxism, I believe.
>
>a) I find both the theories of "class" within both Bourdieu and Marx very
>fruitful. They seem to have strong explicatory power within important
>topics in my society.
>
>b) But are they compatible? It's perfectly ok that they are different, but
>it would seem a litte to eclectic to support both theories if they are
>seriously att odds with each other.
>
>c) And they might be. Bourdieu proposes a theory of "classes of life
>conditions" (depicted with the help of a "distribution
>capitals"-vocabulary), whereas the Marxian theory of class takes
>"exploitation of labour" as its vantagepoint. While Bourdieu's "social
>space" is a seamless hierarchy of distributions with no clear-cut
>boundaries between classes at the level of structure (capital
>distribution), the Marxian theory of exploitation clearly depicts a
>clear-cut boundary between two important classes (between exploiter and
>exploited).
>
>d) The Marxian traditions tend to elaborate a theory of capitalist society
>from this class-relation, which is taken to be the "kernel" of capitalism
>(an assumption grounded on an assumption of the primacy of material
>reproduction/labour relations within historical development). Within such
>Marxism, one attempts to relate most other social phenomena to the
>economical "kernel" of exploitation within the production sphere. It is my
>view that this approach severly limits the perspecives and constitutes a
>vulgar-Marxist derailing of social theoy.
>
>e) Bourdieu to the rescue? Quite a few dissillusioned Marxists seem to find
>in Bourdieu a possible way out of their troubles. He depicts domination and
>social stuggle with what seems to be a much more adeqate vocabulary than
>the one developed within Marxist traditions (for example his concept "The
>field of power" is much more adequate than "The ruling class", when it
>comes to understanding modern societies).
>
>f) But what about exploitation? It might not be the kernel of every process
>in society, but it surely is the kernel of Marxist class theory. Can you
>hold on to the class theory of exploitation, and at the same time embrace
>Bourdieu's vision of the seamless "social space"? This could prove a
>problem. Many might want the best of both worlds.
>
>g) This is why some people might want to develop a concept of
>"exploitation" compatible with Bourdieu's different forms of capial. If
>this could be done, it would seem to integrate Marx and Bourdieu quite
>nicely, in a general "economy of practice" where the same principles
>operate for all forms of capital. This would allow us to see Bourdieu as
>"an elaboration of Marx". This would also be a restatement of the theory of
>explotiation as the "kernel" of most processes i society.
>
>h) I, for one, don't think such a project is feasible. It won't work. You
>might find good parallels to economic exploitation in some instances, but
>in others, the procject inn g) would seem like bending reality to fit
>inside pre-constructed concepts.
>
>i) I think that if there is a fruitful fusion, it is not accoplished
>through reading Bourdieu in a manner consistent with Marx, but rather  like 
>to provoke you by the following question:
>Why do
>you find it worthwhile to find the concept of economic exploitation in
>Bourdieu's theory and to argue for an emphasis on economic capital? I
>have always prefered Bourdieu's theory because it allows us to take a
>more differentiated view on today's societies while agreeing with Marx
>that recources are distributed unequally and that this unequal
>distribution is a result of "Herrschaft" (domination) and made invisible
>by ideology or symbolic violence respectively. I can see that some
>topics can be dealt with better by refering to Marx, but why reduce
>Bourdieu's strengths - which fill in a weakness of Marx' rather
>onedimensional perspective on social inequality - onto a theory of
>economic exploitation?
>
>Best regards
>Anja
>--
>Dr. Anja Weiss
>DFG-Projekt
>Hochqualifizierte
>Migrant/innen.
>Highly qualified migrants.
>Zur Transnationalisierung sozialer Lagen.                   The
>transnationalisation of social inequality.
>
>
>fon:       *49-(0)89-6004-4516/-3139
>fax:       *49-(0)89-6004-3138
>e-mail:   anja.weiss-AT-gmx.de
>mail:      Universitt der Bundeswehr Mnchen
>              Sozialwissenschaftliche Fakultt, D-85577 Neubiberg
>privat:    Rosenheimer Str. 42, 81669 Mnchen
>http://www.rz.unibw-muenchen.de/~s51bppcn/
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