Published in The rise and fall of Western tradition

Language:

English

This article re-examines the alleged philosophical affinity between Spinoza and Marx, an association popularized in contemporary theory by authors such as Althusser, Balibar, and Negri. Against the prevailing “materialist Spinoza” reading, it argues that the resemblance between the two thinkers is largely rhetorical. Spinoza’s immanence is ontological, not historical; his materialism excludes the dialectic of production that defines Marx’s thought. Their anthropologies diverge likewise: for Spinoza, bondage arises from passion and ignorance; for Marx, from alienation and exploitation. The state, which for Spinoza is reason’s instrument, becomes for Marx the embodiment of domination. Even their critiques of illusion – superstition and ideology – belong to different explanatory orders, cognitive and structural respectively. What unites them is not shared materialism but shared hostility to transcendence. The result is a comparison in contrast: Spinoza’s politics of endurance against Marx’s politics of rupture.