Chapter5 Lefebvre
Draft, please do not quote or circulate
Co41@sussex.ac.uk
In this chapter I examine the role of fetishism in Henri Lefebvre’s theory of
social domination. I argue that Lefebvre’s conception of fetishism as an alien, abstract
and autonomous ‘concrete abstraction’ that inverts to dominate but not entirely
determine society runs through his work where it serves as a basis for a series of
attempts to conceive how domination is socially embodied. I demonstrate this in
what I designate as three phases of Lefebvre’s work. I show that: phase one consists
in Lefebvre’s classic Marxist humanist formulation of the critique of everyday life. In
this phase Lefebvre conceives of social domination in analogy with the concrete
abstraction of commodity fetishism as the objective and subjective alienation of the
human essence of total man. In phase 2 Lefebvre’s reformulation of the critique of
everyday life moves away from his classic Marxist humanist conception of social
domination. Lefebvre enumerates a typology of objective terroristic forms of
domination that are parallel to the concrete abstraction of commodity fetishism and
replaces the standpoint of total man with a typology of social alienation (3)
Lefebvre’s writings on cities and space mark a third phase in the evolution of this
strand. These writings use Lefebvre’s conception of concrete abstraction to theorize
how domination is socially embedded in the production of social spaces while
jettisoning the theory of alienation for its lack of explanatory power. I close by
criticizing the methodological and theoretical coherence of Lefebvre’s theory of
fetishism and its role in his theories of social domination.
I Literature Review.
My argument in this chapter puts me at odds with the leading commentary
on Lefebvre, which interprets his theory as paradigmatic of the theory of alienation.
However, it does put me alongside several recent analyses of particular aspects of
Lefebvre’s Marxism.
1.1 Fetishism as Alienation
The majority of Anglophone commentary on Lefebvre defines his Marxism in
the context of the debate between Althusserian and humanist interpretations of
Marx.1 In these interpretations, Lefebvre is portrayed as a seminal Marxist humanist
theorist of alienation.2 This characterization faithfully account for Lefebvre’s early
writings and describes several of the characteristics of Lefebvre’s later theory of
social domination. Yet this commentary is not concerned with a sustained
1
See (Jay 1986) (Elden 2004), (Merrifield 2006) and (Shields 1999)
Martin Jay is the most notable example.2 For Jay the ‘key concept of alienation’ was ‘the centerpiece
of his widely influential reading of Marx.’ (Jay 1986) 293. See also Merrifield’s statement that ‘in the
Anglophone world…Lefebvre reigns as a prophet of alienation and Marxist humanism.’ (Merrifield
2006) XXXII Recent studies on Lefebvre by (Elden 2004) and (Shields 1999) mirror Jay and address
Lefebvre’s Marxist theorization of domination as equivalent to his early theory of alienation.
2
1
examination of the content of Lefebvre’s Marxism, nor with analyzing how Lefebvre’s
theory of alienation fits into his theory of the constitution of social domination. This
commentary consequently neglects that (a) Lefebvre’s earlier writings conceive of
alienation in relation to the concrete abstraction of commodity fetishism in order to
construct a theory of how domination is socially embedded3 and (b) that Lefebvre’s
later theoretical accounts move away from his classic Marxist humanist theory of
alienation to utilize other means of conceptualizing domination in relation to
Lefebvre’s theory of the concrete abstraction of commodity fetishism.
1.2 Abstraction and social domination
Several recent works that examine particular theoretical aspects of
Lefebvre’s Marxism provide a solid basis from which to differentiate Lefebvre’s
Marxism from this standard humanist interpretation4. Greig Charnock’s Challenging
New State Spatialities: The Open Marxism of Henri Lefebvre5, provides a discussion of
the importance of dialectical critique, alienation and fetishism in Lefebvre’s Marxism.6
Lukas Stanek’s Henri Lefebvre on Space7, provides an excellent examination of how
Lefebvre’s concept of abstract space draws on Lefebvre’s Hegelian Marxist idea of
concrete abstraction. By doing so Stanek provides an analysis of Lefebvre’s theory of
social domination that does not simply treat it in terms of alienation. Yet, Stanek
does not to show how Lefebvre’s concept of abstract space relates to Lefebvre’s
earlier theories of concrete abstraction. Consequently, there is still room for a work
that adequately focuses on the role Lefebvre’s concept of concrete abstraction plays
in his theories of social domination, which I provide in this chapter in my study of
Lefebvre’s conception of fetishism and social domination.
In order to do so I begin by discussing the context, non-dogmatic and nonsystematic nature of Lefebvre’s Hegelian-Marxism. I then turn to explicating the basis
of Lefebvre’s Hegelian Marxism by outlining his interpretation of Marx’s critical
dialectical method and his theory of alienation. I close this section by expositing how
Lefebvre’s conception of fetishism as a concrete abstraction fuses these HegelianMarxian elements in a manner that Lefebvre distinguishes from Lukacs and critical
theory.
I then move to demonstrate how Lefebvre’s interpretation of the concrete
abstraction of fetishism fits into his theory of social domination. In part three I
3
See for example Jay’s treatment of Lefebvre which: (1) relies entirely on his earlier works, such as
Dialectical Materialism. (2) Refrains from discussing how Lefebvre conceives of the social constitution
of alienation in his early work: “The general argument of Dialectical Matena/tsm, whIch has since
become common coin among Marxist Humanists, does not bear repeating.”
4
In addition (Goonewardena et al. 2008) include a number of essays that focus on particular aspects
of Lefebvre’s thought in conjunction with his interpretation of Marx. (Roberts 2006) also provides an
excellent discussion of Lefebvre in the context of theories of everyday life, while (Osborne 2011)
touches upon Lefebvre’s theory in the Politics Of time.
5
6
(Charnock 2010)
This is done by comparing the similarities Lefebvre’s thought has with the stream of thinkers in the
school of ‘Open Marxism.’
7
(Stanek 2011)
2
discuss how Lefebvre uses fetishism in his classic Marxist humanist conception of the
critique of everyday life. In part four I show how Lefebvre’s revises this theory in
tandem with his reformulation of the critique of everyday life. In part five I show
how Lefebvre’s writings on cities and space represent a further attempt to socially
embed domination in parallel with the idea of concrete abstraction. I close by
considering how these theories construe social domination and provide some
criticisms of Lefebvre’s methodology and conception of social domination.
2 Lefebvre’s Marxism
Two important aspects of Lefebvre’s Marxism are generally not accounted
for in works that interpret his theory of social domination as symptomatic of his
classic Marxist humanist conception of alienation: the contexts in which Lefebvre’s
work appeared and his non-systematic, non-dogmatic and shifting interpretation of
Marx.8
2.1 The Contexts of Lefebvre’s Marxist Theory
As Stefan Kipfer has argued, Lefebvre’s politics shifted in response to his
historical context.9 The same can be said of the development of Lefebvre’s HegelianMarxian theory of social domination.
Lefebvre first came into contact with Marx and Hegel through the surrealists
in the 1930’s. In this decade Lefebvre and Norbert Guterman also published the first
French translation of Marx’s Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts and the first
French work of Hegelian Marxism: le Conscience Mystifee, which fused Marx’s idea of
mystification with Hegel’s unhappy consciousness. During this time Lefebvre also
wrote the unpublished fragment: Notes on Everyday Life.
Following a period when Lefebvre served as the leading intellectual and
polemicist of the French communist party, Lefebvre’s ties to the party were severed.
This freed Lefebvre to re-engage with his earlier Hegelian interpretation of Marx and
led Lefebvre to stress a non-dogmatic and non-systematic Hegelian-Marxism that
focused on areas of social life that were anathema to party doctrine. Lefebvre’s
project of the critique of everyday life and his utilization of the theory of alienation
are the prime example of Lefebvre’s writings during this period.
Lefebvre’s reformulation of the critique of everyday life occurred in the
context of his engagement with the Situationists and the New Left in the 1960s.
Lefebvre’s writings in this context incorporated the theoretical and political
concerns of the 1960s such as consumer societies, the bureaucratic state and the
emergence of new social movements. This is reflected in his reformulation of social
domination and the fragmentation and jettisoning of the explanatory power of the
theory of alienation.
These influences are also evident in Lefebvre’s writings on Cities and Space,
which lead Lefebvre to once again reformulate his Hegelian-Marxism and his
concurrent conception of domination.
8
Authors such as Elden use to describe Lefebvre’s revision of The Critique of Everyday Life and his
writings on Cities and Space. This is in spite of what I will show is Lefebvre revision and jettisoning of
alienation.
9
Kipfer characterizes these contexts as (1) the critique of Stalinism in France and Eastern Europe
before and after his expulsion from the PCF [French Communist Party] at the end of the 1950s; (2) a
critical engagement with Situationist avant-gardism in the 1950s and 1960s; (3) a brief flirtation with
the alternative Communism of Yugoslavia and China; and (4) his contribution to New Left politics in
France both before and after 1968. In (Marx 2004) 232
3
2.2 Lefebvre’s non-dogmatic Marxism and non-systematic Marxism
The shifting nature of Lefebvre’s theory is also mirrored in what can be
characterized as Lefebvre’s non-dogmatic and non-systematic interpretation of Marx.
Marxism ‘is not a system or dogma’ for Lefebvre, but a reference’10 and a ‘starting
point’ that is indispensable for understanding the present-day world. This means
that Marx’s “basic concepts have to be elaborated, refined, and complemented by
other concepts where necessary.”11
As I will show the manner in which these basic concepts are conceived and
refined and complimented through Lefebvre’s conception of fetishism and its role in
his theory of social domination. Nevertheless there is enough of a unity in how
Lefebvre conceives of Marxism as a starting point to elaborate the main
characteristics of what can be termed Lefebvre’s critical Hegelian-Marxism
Lefebvre’s interpretation of the relationship between Hegel and Marx forms
the basis of this critical Hegelian-Marxism. Lefebvre designates this relationship-- in
which Marx ‘continues’ and ‘breaks’, ‘extends’ and ‘transforms’ the Hegelian12
method (logic and dialectics)’ and ‘certain concepts (totality, negativity, alienation)’13‘dialectical.’ For while Hegel’s method is idealist and mystifies reality, Marx’s
dialectical materialist method uses the Hegelian categories of totality, negativity and
alienation in his ‘radical critique’ of social praxis14 demonstrating “how dialectical
reason arises precisely from…practical social activity, by man as he is in everyday
life.” Critique is therefore centrally important to Lefebvre’s interpretation of Marx,
In his view ‘the fundamentals’ of Marx’s ‘thought means that 'critique' must be taken
in its widest sense.”15 Marx’s radical critique is thus defined by Lefebvre as a method
“to get to know economic phenomena . . . to study their objective and substantial
process, while at the same time destroying and denying this absolute substantiality by
determining it as a manifestation of man’s practical activity, seen as a whole
(praxis).”16 As a result Lefebvre’s interpretation of Marx’s modification of Hegel’s
theory of alienation—which describes this objective and substantial process—is
integral to critique.
This is due to Lefebvre’s interpretation of Marx’s theory of alienation as
constitutive of all heretofore historical forms of social constitution. According to
Lefebvre, Marx’s modification of Hegel’s theory of alienation consists in a theory of
alienation that “is no longer the absolute foundation of contradiction. On the contrary:
alienation is defined as an aspect of contradiction and of becoming in man.”17 Accordingly,
in contrast to Hegel, contradiction is “not in Marxist thought itself. It is an internal
contradiction in history itself.” This contradiction is “defined philosophically as this
single yet dual movement of objectification and externalization—of realization and
derealisation”. For while objectification is necessary-- “he [man i.e. humanity] must
10
(Lefebvre 1988:77).
(Osborne 2011) 19
12
Relationship a dialectical one: i.e. one full of conflict. 25
11
13
14
15
16
(Lefebvre 2009) 17
(Lefebvre 1969) 4
(Lefebvre 2009)19
(Lefebvre 2009) 19
17
(Lefebvre 2008a) 69
4
objectify himself’18-- in capitalism it takes on an alienated form in which “social objects
become things, fetishes, which turn upon him.”19 As a consequence, Lefebvre’s
interpretation of fetishism, as a concrete abstraction, fuses his interpretation of
Marx’s theory of critique and his theory of alienation.
2.3 Lefebvre’s conception of fetishism
Lefebvre conception of fetishism entails this fusion because: (a) “The
economic theory of Fetishism takes up again, raises to a higher level and makes
explicit the philosophical theory of alienation and the 'reification' of the individual.’20
(b) is conceived as a concrete abstraction that is constituted by social praxis.
The notion of concrete abstraction stems from Lefebvre’s interpretation of
Marx’s relationship to Hegel in which the “starting point for abstraction is not the
mind but practically activity.” 21 Thus Social praxis, broadly construed, 22 constitutes
economic forms such as commodity which is “an abstraction.” yet it is also
concrete.”23 As a result concrete abstraction is a ‘practical power”24 which is “the
very basis of the objectivity of the economic, historical and social process which has
led up to modern capitalism” in which “man's activity, capital, thus appears as an
objective, alien and autonomous condition'. For Lefebvre Fetishism is therefore
interpreted as a socially constituted concrete abstraction that possesses what
Lefebvre terms “real appearances” 25 and functions as an alienated, quantified,
autonomous and inverted form:
18
(Lefebvre 2008a) 71
(Lefebvre 2008a) 71
20
(Lefebvre 2009) 84
19
(Lefebvre 2009) 77
praxis is first and foremost act, dialectical relation between man and nature, consciousness and
thing (which can never be legitimately separated in the manner of philosophers who make them two
distinct substances). (Lefebvre 1969) 45.
23
Once launched on its existence the Commodity involves and envelops the social relations between
living men. It develops, however, with its own laws and imposes its own consequences, and then men
can enter into relations with one another only by way of products, through commodities and the
market, through the currency and money. Human relations seem to be nothing more than relations
between things. But this is far from being the case, or rather it is only partly true. In actual fact the
living relations between individuals in the different groups and between these groups themselves are
made manifest by these relations between things: in money relations and the exchange of products.
Conversely, these relations between things and abstract quantities are only the appearance and
expression of human relations in a determinate mode of production, in which individuals
(competitors) and groups (classes) are in conflict or contradiction. The direct and immediate relations
of human individuals are enveloped and supplanted by mediate and abstract relations which mask
them. The objectivity of the commodity, of the market and of money is both an appearance and a
reality. It tends to function as an objectivity independent of men. (Lefebvre 2009) 76
21
22
24
(Lefebvre 2009) 125
The categories are abstract, inasmuch as they are elements obtained by the analysis of the actual
given content, and inasmuch as they are simple general relations involved in the complex reality. But
there can be no pure abstraction. The abstract is also concrete, and the concrete, from a certain
point of view, is also abstract. All that exists for us is the concrete abstract. There are two ways in
which the economic categories have a concrete, objective reality: historically (as moments of the
social reality) and actually (as elements of the social objectivity). And it is with this double reality that
the categories are linked together and return dialectically into the total movement of the world.
(Lefebvre 2009) 76
25
5
Fetishism properly so called only appeared when abstractions escaped the control of
the thought and will of man. Thus commercial value and money are only in
themselves quantitative abstractions: abstract expressions of social, human relations;
but these abstractions materialize, intervene as entities in social life and in history,
and end by dominating instead of being dominated.26
The Social domination constituted by fetishism is instantiated in both sides of
the class relation: Capitalists are deprived' of everything except money while the
‘non-capitalist experiences a more brutal form of privation.” This social situation is
also indicative of the subjective aspect of alienation, human estrangement-- where
‘the essence of man has been handed over to thing, to money, to the fetish.’27—and
is reflected in everyone being alienated from human community because they are
compelled to act as atomized individuals and treat each other as means or
instruments of self-perpetuation.
However, Lefebvre also posits limits to the extent of domination through
which he distinguishes himself from Lukacs. These limits are premised on his nonsystematic interpretation of Marx and his dualistic opposition between quantitative
form and qualitative content in which quantified fetishistic abstractions cannot
entirely grasp or determine their qualitative content.
This can be seen on a theoretical level where Lefebvre argues that Lukacs’
formulation of reification systemizes what is only an aspect of Marx’s theory.28
In Lefebvre’s view, Lukacs’ systematic theory of reification while recognizing the
autonomous and abstract aspects of fetishism treats them as determinate and
neglects the social relationships that constitute it:29
The thesis of reification misinterprets the essential meaning of the socio-economic
theory expounded in Capital. The fetishes that take on a life of their own, become
autonomous, and impose their laws on interhuman relationships, can function only as
abstract things by reducing humans beings to the status of abstract things, by
relegating them to the world of forms, reducing them to these forms to their
structures and functions. There is logic immanent in commodities qua forms, a logic
which tends to constitute a world of its own, the world of commodities.30
However this process of inversion and determination has a limit:
The logic of commodities, however, for all its encroachments upon praxis and its
complex interactions with other forms of society and consciousness does not
succeed in forming a permanent, closed system. With its complex determinations
26
27
(Lefebvre and ? 2003)71
(Lefebvre 2009) 45
the “very important observations by Marx are not to be systematized as a single
theory of reification, which according to some constitutes the essence of Capital and
of Marxism generally.” (Lefebvre 1969) 48
29
(Lefebvre 1969) 49
28
30
(Lefebvre 1969) 48
6
human labor is not entirely taken over by this form, does not become an inherent
element of its content.31
Therefore, according to Lefebvre, ‘the abstract thing, the form (commodity, money,
capital) cannot carry the process of reification ("thingification") to Its conclusion.”32
This is because “It cannot free itself from the human relationships it tends to
delineate, to distort, to change into relations between things. It cannot fully exist qua
thing.” As a result, this process “Doesn’t impose an entirely closed system. Human
labor is not entirely taken over by form.”33 This means that individuals are not
transformed into things but what Lefebvre’s terms ‘animated abstractions.’
These theoretical differences have repercussions for theories of social
domination: “the school of Lukacs has overestimated the theory of reification to the
point of making it the foundation of a philosophy and sociology (the two are
regarded as identical in this systematization).” Lukacs’ social theory is thus “a purely
speculative construction on the part of a philosopher unacquainted with the working
class” so that “the proletariat’s class consciousness replaces classical philosophy.”34
On the other hand Lefebvre’s social theory conceives of an internal opposition
between forms that cannot entirely determine content at the heart of his theory of
social domination
Lefebvre’s non-dogmatic non-systematic interpretation of Marx thus conceives
of Marxism as a dialectical social critique. In this radical critique Marx utilizes the
concept of fetishism to articulate the social constitution of the concrete abstractions
of commodities, money and capital, which are characteristic of the autonomous,
inverted alienated and alienating social domination of capitalism. At the same time
this critique also posits that qualitative content resists being entirely determined by
these forms serving as the grounds for becoming and emancipation. As I will now
show this interpretation of Marx’s basic categories serves as the starting point that
Lefebvre refines and compliments in his attempts to conceive of how domination is
socially embedded and resisted in the socially complex categories of everyday life,
urban forms and social spaces.
3 The Critique of Everyday Life
The critique of everyday life is perhaps Lefebvre’s most widely known
theoretical endeavour, consisting in several volumes published over the course of 50
years. Since these volumes do not encapsulate one sustained critique, but consist in
31
(Lefebvre 1969) 48
(Lefebvre 1969) 47
33
(Lefebvre 1969) 47
32
3434
These criticisms can also be seen in Lefebvre’s criticism of what he referred to as the “watered
down Marxism of critical theory.” As part of the school of Lukacs it is likewise totalizing and
sociologically deficient and rests on the ‘long-obsolescent notion of ideology.’ (Lefebvre
1992)
7
several phases, I separate them into the early classic Marxist humanist phase of the
critique and his later attempt to revise the critique in the 1960s.35
3.1 Notes for a Critique of Everyday Life
Two passages in Mystification: Notes For A Critique of Everyday Life show the way
fetishism will be utilized as a basis to articulate alienation in the initial formulation of
the category of everyday life. This can be seen in Lefebvre’s remark that “The theory
of fetishism contained in Marx’s work explains how” the phenomena of alienation and
mystification are possible”36due to the specific way that capitalist production creates
the alienated abstract and autonomous fetishistic form of commodities. These forms
alienate humanity while granting the world they collectively create an ‘alien power.’37
Consequently, “this insane, indissoluble will of the fetish by which we are compelled
to live”38 is used by Lefebvre to provide the basis for what he envisions as a study of
the ways in which mystification and alienation are instantiated in the everyday life of
capitalist society. Lefebvre’s notion of mystification is termed mystified
consciousness, which draws on Hegel’s notion of the unhappy consciousness.39
While alienation in everyday life focuses on the way that human social praxis
constitutes an alienated, fetishistic form that inverts and dominates humanity.40 Yet,
crucially for Lefebvre, mystification and alienation are not a closed or totalized but
represent the possibility through which unalienated ‘total man’ can be achieved.
3.2 The Critique of Everyday Life
These themes are drawn out in the first volume of The Critique of Everyday Life,
Lefebvre’s first extended attempt to theorize how domination is embodied in the
I refrain from focusing on Lefebvre’s return to the theme of everyday life in the 80s
for two reasons: (1) Lefebvre devotes more time to the critique of everyday life in the
40s and 60 (2) because his reformulation of the critique of everyday life in the 1980s
focuses on Lefebvre’s idea of rhythmanalysis rather than alienation, fetishism and
social domination.
35
36
(Elden, Lebas, and Kofman 2006) 82
Capitalism is a system for producing merchandise. When it turns into merchandise the object
becomes detached from itself, so to speak, It enters a system of relationships that are expressed
through it, so that in the end it seems to be the subject of these relationships, their causal agent.
Relationships between men are masked by relationships between objects, human social existence is
realized only by the abstract existence of their products. Objects seem to take on a life of their own.
The market dominates human beings; they become the plaything of anything with which they are
unfamiliar, and which sweeps them along. The market is already a machine and an inexorable destiny.
People are now alienated, divided from themselves. Divisions of labour, labour itself, individual roles
and functions, the distribution of work, culture and traditions, all impose themselves as constraints.
Each person experiences the collective achievements of society as the work of an alien power. (Elden,
Lebas, and Kofman 2006) 82-83
37
38
39
(Elden, Lebas, and Kofman 2006) 83
(Elden, Lebas, and Kofman 2006) 85
40
“To talk about the mechanization of man, to say that machines have turned against him, has become
a commonplace that only conceals the true situation. It is not only machines that have become
detached from man. All the immense machinery of capitalism – ideas, values, institutions, culture—all
this civilization has taken on a sort of independent existence that weighs on man and wrenches them
apart from themselves; the very expression ‘man’ is drenched in mystification, because man still has
no real existence. Alienation, that real abstraction, that false life that exists only through him and
feeds on man- the ‘human’ that has lost its way on the road towards his realization—inevitably is
dispersal, and a mutual exteriority of the elements of culture. But in this very exteriority, the
elements have a unity in the movement of alienation.” (Elden, Lebas, and Kofman 2006) 75
8
lived social and cultural forms of capitalist society. Lefevbre conceives of everyday in
conjunction with critical Marxist method, everyday life is thus defined as a ‘residual
category’41 embedded and dialectically related to the ‘socio-economic formation.’42
Everyday life is thus conceived as “profoundly related to all activities, and
encompasses them with all their differences and their conflicts; it is their meeting
place, their bond, their common ground.”43 Accordingly, everyday life is where “the
sum total of relations which make the human - and every human being - a whole
takes its shape and its form. In it are expressed and fulfilled those relations which
bring into play the totality of the real.”44 This is due to Lefebvre’s critical method of
‘Marxist social criticism’ which is the ‘only’ method capable of uncovering the genesis
of representations and feelings’ because ‘it can trace the interactions of the social
milieu and in this way understand our composite and heterogeneous consciousness
of life.’45
Everyday life is also the point where Lefebvre’s dualistic opposition between
quantity and quality resides. In his early work this dualistic opposition is conceived
to occur between the alienating forms that seek to dominate everyday life, which are
paired with the quantifying and abstract aspects of the commodity, and the
qualitatively humane ways in which this unsuccessful attempt at total domination is
resisted.
As a consequence Lefebvre’s conception of social domination in Critique of
Everyday Life is centred on the relationship between Lefebvre’s interpretation of
fetishism and his classical Marxist humanist conception of alienation.46 At this point,
Lefebvre defines alienation as consisting in the notion that: (a) capitalist social praxis
produces alien and abstract forms that invert to dominate society and (b) this
process of alienation is mirrored in other types of social alienation (c) that these
forms alienation constitute human subjectivity and cumulatively estrange humanity
from its essence as total man. Lefebvre conceives of the constitution of (a) in
relation to fetishism, with fetishism also acting as one type of (b).
These kinds of alienation are thus premised on Lefebvre’s understanding of the
relationship between fetishism and alienation and its role in social constitution. In the
case of the former fetishism is what links the young and old Marx:47 “The theory of
41
Everyday life, in a sense residual, defined by “what is left over” after all distinct, superior,
specialized, structured activities have been singled out for analysis, must be defined as a totality.
Considered in their specialization and their technicality, superior activities leave a “technical vacuum”
between one and another which is filled by everyday life. Everyday life is profoundly related to all
activities, and encompasses them with all their differences and their conflicts; it is their meeting place,
their bond, their common ground. And it is in everyday life that the sum total of relations which make
the human—and every human being—a whole takes its shape and its form. In it are expressed and
fulfilled those relations which bring into play the totality of the real, albeit in a certain manner which is
always partial and incomplete: friendship, comradeship, love, the need to communicate, play, etc.
(Lefebvre 2008a) 97
Lefebvre’s critcal Marxism thus bypasses the schematism of the basesuperstructure
43
(Lefebvre 2008a) 57
42
44
(Lefebvre 2008a) 91-92
45
Lefebvre 2008a) 194
This classical humanist Marxist conception of alienation is encapusulated in
Lefebvre’s statement that alienation is destined to ‘become the central notion’ of
philosophy and literature. (Lefebvre 2008a) 168
47
“where economy and philosophy meet lies the theory of fetishism.” (Lefebvre 2008a) 17847
46
9
alienation becomes transformed into the theory of fetishism (fetishism of
commodities, money, capital).”48 For the later Fetishism, according to Lefebvre,
discloses how social relations create alienated fetish forms that invert to dominate
both sides of the class relation:
Money, currency, commodities, capital are nothing more than relations between
human beings (between ‘individual,’ qualitative human tasks). And yet these relations
take on the appearance and the form of things external to human beings. The
appearance becomes reality; because men believe that these ‘fetishes’ exist outside
of themselves they really do function like objective things. Human activities are
swept along and torn from their own reality and consciousness, and become
subservient to these things. Humanly speaking, someone who thinks only of getting
rich is living his life subjected to a thing, namely, money. But more then this, the
proletarian, whose life is used as a means for the accumulation of capital, is thrown
to the mercy of an external power.” 49
As a result, fetishism is fundamental to the constitution of alienation in
everyday life, accounting for the social process that establishes alienation. According
to Lefebvre, the “the theory of fetishism” therefore “demonstrates the economic,
everyday basis of the philosophical theories of mystification and alienation”50 where
everybody “moves within fetishism as a mode of existence and of consciousness.”
Lefebvre proposes to study this mode of existence by outlining several types
of alienation. Fetishism is conceived as one of these types of alienation-- economic
alienation—and is placed alongside other types of social alienation.51These types of
alienation disclose that “alienation is constant and everyday’ and articulate the “way a
dehumanized, brutally objective power holds sway over all social life; according to its
differing aspects, we have named it: money, fragmented division of labour, market,
capital, mystification and deprivation etc.”52
These forms of alienated objectivity are mirrored in the constitution of
human subjectivity. This notion of subjectivity is grounded on the way alienated and
fetishistic labour inverts to dominate and compel individualistic behaviour.53 It
consists in the dialectical counterparts to the objective forms of alienation54,
culminating in a proto-existential situation where ‘man is torn from his self, from his
(Lefebvre 2008a) 180
(Lefebvre 2008a) 179
50
(Lefebvre 2008a) 179
51
These other types consist in: individuality and private consciousness,
mystifications and mystified consciousness, money fetishism and economic alienation,
the critique of needs and psychological and moral alienation and work and the
alienation of the worker and man.
52
(Lefebvre 2008a) 166
48
49
53
“for every individual, worker or expert, the division of labour is imposed from without, like an
objective process, with the result that each man’s activity is turned back against him as a hostile force
which subjugates him instead of being subjugated by him.” (Lefebvre 2008a) 160
The types of alienated subjectivity include mystified consciousness, false needs,
private consciousness and psychological and moral alienation
54
10
own nature, from his consciousness dragged down and dehumanized by his own
social products”55 so that ‘alienation appears in day-to-day life, the life of the
proletarian and even of the petty bourgeois and the capitalist (the difference being
the capitalists collaborate with alienation’s dehumanizing power.’56 As a consequence,
humanity as a whole is alienated from its essence as total man.57
Opposed to these forms of alienation is qualitative side of Lefebvre’s dualistic
opposition between quantity and quality. Lefebvre identifies a myriad of qualitative
moments that are present in capitalist society that resist determination.58 These
oppositions are premised on the wide-ranging capacities of total man, leading
Lefebvre to designate different phenomena such as political and social institutions,
human needs and creativity as qualitative forms of opposition. As a whole, the social
state of alienation is construed as part of the necessary process of historical
‘becoming’ in which the criticism59 of alienation will lead to its overcoming and the
development of total man.60
In sum, Lefebvre’s first formulation of the critique of everyday life is centred
on how capitalist social praxis constitutes alien and abstract fetishistic social forms
that dominate sociality and alienate humanity from its own essence. At the same
time these abstract forms are not entirely determinant and are opposed by
qualitative contents of human society. This classic Marxist humanist formulation of
the critique of everyday is modified in Lefebvre’s second formulation of the critique
of everyday life.
4 The Critique of Everyday Life in the 1960s
Lefebvre re-envisioned his project of the critique of everyday life 15 years after
the first volume was published. Critique of Everyday Life Volume II and Everyday life in
the Modern World are indicative of a contextual and theoretical shift in Lefebvre’s
project. These volumes consequently reflect the development of French consumer
society and Lefebvre’s dialog with the Situationists and other members of the French
Avant Garde. Both of these contextual influences are captured in Lefebvre adopting
(Lefebvre 2008a) 166
(Lefebvre 2008a) 167
57
In every attitude which tears every man away from what he is and what he can do—
in art, in the moral sphere, in religion—criticism will reveal alienation. (Lefebvre
2008a) 167
55
56
58
Some of these are stated dualistic manner by Lefebvre “as an opposition and ‘contrast’ between a
certain number of terms: everyday life and festival—mass moments and exceptional moments—
triviality and splendour—seriousness and play, reality and dreams, Etc. (Lefebvre 2008a) 251
59
Genuine criticism will then reveal the human reality beneath this general unreality,
the human ‘world’ which takes shape within us and around us; in what we see, what
we do, in humble objects and (appearently) humble and profound feelings. A human
world which has been torn away from us, dissociated and dispersed by alienation, but
which still constitutes the irreducible core of appearances. (Lefebvre 2008a) 168
60
The drama of alienation is dialectical. Through the manifold forms of his labour,
man has made himself real by realizing a human world. He is inseperable from this
‘other self’, his creation, his mirror, his statue—more; his body. The totality of object
and human products taken together form an integral part of human reality. On this
level, objects are not simply means or implements; by producing them, men are
working to create the human. (Lefebvre 2008a) 169
11
Guy Debord’s term to describe everyday life as ‘literally colonized.’61
4.1 Critique of Everyday Life Volume II
These volumes also theoretically revise the classic Marxist humanism of the
first volume. Volume two outlines the ‘foundations for a sociology of everyday life.’
intended to join the ‘meta-philosophical’62 Hegelian-Marxian themes of Lefebvre’s
project with social complexity. This leads Lefebvre to modify the classic Marxist
humanism of Volume 1 by: (1) amending Hegelian-Marxist categories and integrating
them with theories taken from contemporary theoretical developments such as
linguistics and structuralism. (2) Jettisoning the category of total man as the basis of
his conception of subjective domination.63
Lefebvre’s revision of alienation is indicative of these modifications. Lefebvre
argues that Marx’s theory of alienation focused on one specific type of alienation—
fetishism—to the detriment of other types.64 Lefebvre proposes to supplement this
objective sense of alienation—as socially constituted alienated and inverted social
domination--by moving to elaborate a typology. This typology Lefebvre proposes
also addresses his criticism of Lukacs’ sociological deficit. In contrast to reification -which Lefebvre argues disguises the many forms alienation adopts”65—Lefebvre
argues that alienation is ‘infinitely complex.” He proposes that other forms of
alienation should be taken into account without subsuming them.66 This leads
Lefebvre to prose a typology of alienation in which alienation in the everyday would
form one type, reification another, political alienation another and new alienations
yet others.67
61
(Lefebvre 2008b) 11
Lefebvre’s concept of meta-philosophy is also developed during this time. The
terms designates that Lefebvre is using philosophical concepts to investigate social
phenemona.
63
However, A summary of the complex foundations Lefebvre elaborates to critique
this level are beyond the confines of this thesis. Furthermore many of them are not
even taken up by Lefebvre in Everyday Life in the Modern World. For these reasons I
focus on how Lefebvre amends his Hegelian-Marxism in his these volumes of the
critique of everyday life.63
62
64
Marx tended to push the many forms of alienation to one side so as to give one specific defininition
in terms of the extreme case he chose to study: the transformation of man’s activities and relations
into things by the action of economic fetishes….reduced to economic alienation within and by
capitalism, alienation would disappear completely and in one blow. (Lefebvre 2008b) 207
65
(Lefebvre 2008b) 208
This typology differs with objective sociol typology of alienation Lefebvre proposes
in volume 1by including NSM such as feminism, consumer society etc:
66
In contrast alienation within and by the state (political alienation) must not be confuses with
economic alienation (by money and commodities), although there are links between them. The
alienation of the worker differs from the alienation of women and children. The ruling class…is
alienated by artificial desires and phoney needs, whereas the prolietariat is alienated by privations and
frustrations. The alienatin of social groups, which stops them from fully ‘appropriating’ the conditions
in which they exist and keeps them below their possibilities differs from the alienation of the individual
within the group or by the group…which derealizes the individual by subjecting him to external rules
and norms. There is a technologica alienation…and an alienation as a result of a low level of
technology. There is an alienation through escapism and different one through non-escapism. We also
need to be aware of alienation in respect of society as a whole…and alienation in respect of
oneself…and so alienation is infinitely complex. (Lefebvre 2008b) 209
67
Lefebvre also proposes defining these types in terms of the distinctions Marx makes between
enfremdung, entaussarung, verdinlichung etc.
12
As part of this revision of alienation Lefebvre also builds on his conviction that
alienation can never be total. He outlines a dialectic of alienation-disalienation-new
alienation which he contends exemplifies everyday life in capitalist society. In this
way alienation is never conceived as total and never determines or entirely captures
human social activity.
This revision of alienation is embodied in Lefebvre’s new conception of
everyday life, which is defined as a ‘something’ that exists as a ‘level’ in capitalism.68
On this level Lefebvre’s dualistic opposition is no longer considered in terms of
alienated and non-alienated essence. It is now construed in the opposition between
the category of the everyday (which consists in abstract quantifying forms of
domination) and everydayness (which entails qualitative needs, desires and
possibility.) This opposition is extended to a number new everyday phenomena
Lefebvre introduces, through which society mediates individuals seeking to enclose
them in abstract everydayness. 69
Lefebvre characterizes these amendments to the critique of everyday life in a
Hegelian-Marxist vein by designating everyday life as the content of this variety of
abstract forms. This opposition between form and content is also representative of
the dialectic of alienation-dis-alienation that is reflective of the dual opposition
between everyday and everydayness in which fetishistic concrete abstractions cannot
fully determine the content of social activity:
In the everyday, alienations, fetishisms and reifications (deriving from money and
commodities all have their various effects. At the same time, when (up to a certain
point) everyday needs become desires, they come across goods and appropriate
them. Therefore critical study of everyday life will reveal the following conflict:
maximum alienation and relative disalienation….The theory of alienation and
reification must take this dialectic into account if it is not to lapse into that
speculative form of reification known as dogmatism. There is a ‘world’ of objects, but
it is also a human world, and area of desires and goods, an area of possibilities, and
not simply a ‘world’ of inert things.70
4.2 Everyday Life in the Modern World
These Hegelian-Marxian elements of Lefebvre’s reformulation of the critique of
Everyday Life are drawn out in Everyday Life in the Modern World. In this work
Lefebvre outlines a study of contemporary capitalism. His definition of which- as
‘forced bureaucratic consumption-- reflects the concerns with consumer society and
bureaucracy outlined in volume II. Lefebvre proposes to study capitalism by
conceiving of the different social phenomena he sees as indicative of what he terms
‘terroristic forms of domination.’ These forms are indicative of ‘terrorist society’ and
exemplify ‘forced bureaucratic consumption.’ As a whole terrorist society consists
in: (a) social production that is oriented for the ends of one class, impoverishing the
other class. (b) Widespread biological, physiological, natural educational and
developmental repression (c) Lefebvre’s fragmented and revised typology of
In this reinvisioning Critique of Everyday Life Volume II’s ‘guideline will be a
critical study of what can and ought to change in human reality. By emphazing one
part (one level) of reality, and above all by referring to critique of this level of reality.
(Lefebvre 2008b) 97
68
69
70
These include time, exploitation and appropriation etc.
(Lefebvre 2008b) 66-67
13
alienation71 (d) the reproduction of (a)(b) and (c) through ideology and compulsion
in everyday life. These factors lead to the diffuse of nature ‘terrorist society’ in which
‘pressure is exerted from all sides on its members’ and ‘comes from everywhere and
from every specific thing; the system’… ‘submit[ing] every member to the whole.’72
Lefebvre’s study of terroristic forms aims to understand ‘the conditions from
which terrorism arises.’73 He proposes to conduct this study by transforming the
residual category of everyday life into ‘space.’ For Lefebvre everyday life is now the
space where these terrorist forms of capitalism are embedded in what he terms the
‘lived.’ These terroristic forms of domination are conceived as fetishistic concrete
abstractions analogous to Marx’s theorization of the constitution and constituent of
the fetishism of the commodity form.74These forms and the space they ‘infiltrate’
thus also constitute Lefebvre’s dualistic opposition between the everyday and
everydayness, quantity and quality.75 Abstract, quantative ‘pure formal space’ defines
the world of terror”[istic]76 forms. Yet these terrorist forms cannot reduce the
71
The theory of alienation is reputed to be out of date; indeed, certain forms of
alienation may perhaps have vanished….New types of alienation have joined ranks
with the old, enriching the typology of alienation; political, ideological, technological,
bureaucratic, urban etc. We would suggest that alienation is spreading and becoming
so powerful that it obliterates all trace or consciousness of alienation….what is new is
that the theory of alienation….has become a social practice, a class strategy whereby
philosophy and history are set aside so as to confuse the issue and successfully inhibit
any consciousness of the actual state of total alienation.(Lefebvre 1984) 94
72
(Lefebvre 1984) 147
73
(Lefebvre 1984) 150
74
Our inquiry into the manner in which forms exist has led to an investigation of social reality. Ought
we to reconsider and modify our concept of 'reality'? The existence and the effects of forms are
unlike those of sensorial objects, technical objects, meta physical substances or 'pure' abstractions;
though they are abstract they are none the less intellectual and social objects, they require sensorial,
material and practical foundations but cannot be identified with such vehicles. Thus trade value
requires an object (a product) and a comparison between objects in order to appear and express its
content which is productive collective labour and a comparison between labours. However, object
and content without form have neither a specifically intellectual nor a specifically social reality. To a
certain extent form defines a thing's significance ; yet it possesses something both more and less,
some thing different from what is signified; it constitutes an object's significance but also appropriates
it, allows itself to be signified and absorbs the signifier…. They are real but not in the terms of other
types of reality; they are projected on the screen of everyday life without which they would have
nothing to explore, define and organize. (Lefebvre 1984) 186
One of example of this can be seen in the following: ‘A summary analysis suffices
to show that there are two distinct types of leisure ‘structurally’ opposes: a) leisure
integrated with everyday life (the perusual of daily papers, television etc.) and
conducive to profound discontent …b) the prospect of departure, the demand for
evasion, the will to escape through worldliness, holidays, lsd, debauchery of
madness.’ (Lefebvre 1984) 85
75
76
in edl in relation to terrorism and edl lays out theory that ‘pure formal space defines the world of
terror….terror defines a pure formal sp, its own, the sp of its power and its powers; time has been
evicted from this unified sp; the writing that fixes it has eliminated speech and desire, and in this literal
sp, isolated from action, presence and speech, so called human actions and objects are catalogued,
classed and tied away, together with writings that are lined up on written matter. * *thus terror is not
14
‘irreducible’ qualitative aspects of the lived.77 For while these forms aspire to a
concrete existence they are ultimately reliant on human social actions they cannot
entirely determine. Furthermore, the interrelation between these forms is not
total.78
In sum, Lefebvre’s re-envisions the critique of everyday life in the 1960s by
moving away from his classic Marxist humanism. The theory of alienation is
fragmented on an objective level and supplanted on a subjective level by the
jettisoning of total man. Yet at the same time there are continuities in Lefebvre’s
attempt to conceive of (1) a complex socially embedded theory of domination in
analogy with the properties of the concrete abstraction of commodity fetishism and
(2) an internal opposition between form and content and quantity and quality in
everyday life demonstrating that the concrete abstractions are not entirely
determinate. As I will now show Lefebvre’s work on Cities and space represent
Lefebvre’s attempt to transpose these elements to the categories of the urban form
and abstract space.
4 Fetishism and Social Domination in Cities and Space.
4.1 The Urban Form
Lefebvre’s writing on urbanization and cities were undertaken shortly after the
publication of Critique of Everyday Life Volume II and Everyday Life in the Modern World.
In these works Lefebvre examines the historic and social process of what Lefebvre
refers to as the ‘urban revolution.’ Lefebvre employs many of the same themes he
brought to the critique of everyday life to do so. In particular he conceptualizes this
historical and social process by adapting his interpretation of Marx’s theory of
fetishism as a socially constituted concrete abstraction constitutive of society to
characterize the urbanization of cities and opposes it to a qualitative idea of urban
dwelling.
This can be seen in Lefebvre designation of what he terms the ‘urban form’ as a
the space of fc but of true consciousness or of the conscience of reality, isolated from possibility,
virtuality and shaping activity; terror is not simply pathological, it becomes normal (Lefebvre 1984)
177.
77
Everyday life is part of the content, but ambiguous; on the one hand it derives from the
efficiency of forms, is their result or resultant. Product and residue, such is the definition of everyday
life; forms simultaneously organize it and are projected upon it, but their concerted efforts cannot
reduce it; residual and irreducible, it eludes all attempts at institutionalization, it evades the grip of
forms. Everyday life is, furthermore, the time of desire; extinction and rebirth. Repressive and
terrorist society cannot leave everyday life well alone but pursue it, fence it in, imprision it in its own
territory. But they would have to suppress it to have done with it, and that is impossible because they
need it. (Lefebvre 1984) 189
78
(Lefebvre 1984) 188
There is no single absolute chosen system but only sub-systems separated by cracks, gaps
and lacunae; forms do not converge, they have no grip on the content and cannot reduce it
permanently; the irreducible crops up after each reduction…only a relative, temporary reduction can
be achieved….urban life is the setting for this. (Lefebvre 1984) 190
15
concrete abstraction.79 For Lefebvre the ‘urban form’ is the result of the urban
revolution of social space that has occurred in the contemporary phase of capitalism.
This process has modified the relationship between town and country as well as the
structure of cities and remodelled all of them in the image of ‘industrial urbanization.’
This process of industrial urbanization consists in the form of urbanization the
Keynesian state capitalist mode of production imposes upon urban spaces.
Urbanization homogenizes urban regions rendering previously distinct and localized
areas into one undifferentiated abstract mass space that swallows up and obliterates
city neighbourhoods and the historical difference between the town and country.80
This process is implemented by what Lefebvre refers to as Urbanism which he
defines as the form of organizational capital….in other words, a bureaucratic society of
controlled consumption…[that] supplements “the logic of commodities” because it
“controls consumption of space and habitat”81 The Urban form is therefore a
concrete abstraction because it is constituted in tandem with the neo-capitalist state,
mirroring its characteristics, and consisting in the place where production becomes
socialized and where social relationships occur. 82
For Lefebvre the abstract urban form thus inhabits several levels of social
space.
The first level is the level of the concrete abstractions of exchange, networks
and urban phenomena. This is the level shaped by the logic of these abstractions,
which as abstract alien forms, invert to try to dominate urban life. This level is thus
the level of the form of organized capital consisting in the “totalizing repressive space
of the logic of commodities present in every object that is bought, sold and
consumed,” as well as the logic of urbanism and of the state planned bureaucratic
society of controlled consumption.
The second level consists in the social terrain these abstractions inhabit. Like
the category of everyday life, what Lefebvre terms the ‘urban fabric,’ can be said to
consist in how these abstractions are embedded in the constitutive structure and
79
The urban is, therefore, pure form: a place of encounter, assembly, simultaneity. This form has no
specific content but is a centre of attraction and life. It is an abstraction, but unlike a metaphysical
entity, the urban is a concrete abstraction, associated with practice. Living creatures, the products of
industry, techonology of wealth, works of culture, ways of living, situations, the modulations and
ruptures of the everyday- the urban accumulates all content. (Lefebvre 2003) 119
80
Lefebvre periodizes this historical development as follows “First period. Industry and the process of
industrialization assault and ravage pre-existing urban reality, destroying it through practice and
ideology, to the point of extirpating it from reality and consciousness. Led by a class strategy,
mdustrialization acts as a negative force over urban reality: the urban social is denied by the industrial
economic. Second period (in part juxtaposed to the first). Urbanization spreads and urban society
becomes general. Urban reality, in and by its own destruction makes itself acknowledged as sociaeconomic reality. One discovers that the whole society is liable to fall apart if it lacks the city and
centrality: an essential means for the planned organization of production and consumption has
disappeared.” (Lefebvre 2003) 81
81
(Lefebvre 2003) 164
Space is no longer only an indifferent medium, the sum of places where surplus
value is created, realized, and distributed. It becomes the product of social labor, the
very general object of production, and consequently of the formation of surplus
value. This is how production becomes social within the very framework of
neocapitalism (Lefebvre 2003)155 However, the urban is not indifferent to all differences,
82
precisely because it unites them. In this sense, the city constructs, identifies and delivers the essence
of social relationships. (Lefebvre 2003) 118
16
terrain of the city. The urban fabric is thus where the logic of level one is socially
embodied in the fragmented, homogenous, alienated and opaque industrial urban
form of the city. But it is also where these ‘logics’ clash with resistant qualitative
elements of the urban fabric such as grass roots collective self-management.
In Writings on Cities Lefebvre further develops this notion of studying how
social forms are embedded in urban environments. He outlines a number of forms
that possess a ‘double existence as mental and social.’83 These forms would
presumably be situated at the level of the urban fabric further locating
metaphilosophical Hegelian Marxist notions of social domination in everyday life.
These forms are coupled with oppositions in the urban environment that the urban
form cannot determine-- such as the right to city-- that contest the abstract logic of
commodities and bureaucratic controlled consumption.
Level three is where this embodiment is resisted by qualitative human
capacities that cannot be entirely determined. Lefebvre holds that there are
elements in the urban fabric that cannot be reduced to quantified abstractions, which
resist these abstractions. These elements of the ‘non-reducible’ tie in with the strand
of Lefebvre’s thought that conceives of creativity and expression as qualitative
oppositions to abstraction
We can then see how Lefebvre’s writings on urban form and cities develop and
concretize the themes of the critique of everyday life. Rather than a residual
category Lefebvre embodies the lived experience of everyday life in the social space
of the urban form. Like everyday life the urban form is defined as a historically
specific multi-level phenomenon that is analogous and supplementary to Lefebvre’s
interpretation of Marx’s theory of fetishism. As a consequence, urban space is
theorized as a concrete abstraction that functions as an abstract alien form that
attempts to dominate the social environment of those who construct it. This
attempted dominance cannot achieve complete closure because of types of
resistance and potential inherent within the urban city. The idea of urban space
would be drawn on in The Production of Space.
4.2
SPACE
For Lefebvre the “theory of social space encompasses on the one hand the
critical analysis of urban reality and on the other that of everyday life.” Both
“everyday life and the urban, indissolubly linked, at one and the same time products
and production, occupy a social space.”84 Lefebvre’s analysis of space is therefore
“concerned with the whole of practico-social activities, as they are entangled in a
complex space, urban and everyday, ensuring up to a point the reproduction of
relations of production (that is, social relations). The global synthesis is realized
through this actual space, its critique and its knowledge.”85 Lefebvre’s theory of
social space thus represents another attempt to conceive of the constitution of
socially embedded domination by locating his earlier projects in the production of
social space.86
These forms include logic, mathematics, contracts, practico-material objects which
are socially embodied quantitative forms equivalent to exchange and the urban form.
83
84
85
(Lefebvre 1996) 185
(Lefebvre 1996) 185
86
As with is other theories Lefebvre views his theory of social space as
complimentary to Marx’s critical method. This by seen in his statement that a
17
The Production of Space also marks the point where Lefebvre integrates
Nietzsche into his Hegelian Marxian social theory. Lefebvre formally aligns Nietzsche
with aspects of Lefebvre’s thought that oppose rational calculation and celebrate
artistic activity, creativity and desire. As I have implied this strand of Lefebvre’s
thought was originally aligned with his theory of total man and became more
pronounced in Lefebvre’s writings in the 60’s.87 Lefebvre conceptually aligns this
Nietzschean strand with his Hegelian-Marxism by using it to articulate another facet
of his dualistic opposition between abstracte/concrete, quantity and quality. Lefebvre
formally integrates Nietzchean into his critical methodology by formulating what he
terms the ‘metaphilosophical’ ‘triadic dialectic.” As in his earlier work, the triadic
dialectic reads the Hegelian conception of the concrete universal through Marx’s
concept of ‘social practice.’ In The Production of Space this Hegelian-Marxism is
transformed into a triad by adding Nietzsche’s conception of ‘art, poetry, and
drama.’ This Nietzschean aspect of the triadic dialectic is also used by Lefebvre to
incorporate the linguistic field and signs as aspects of social praxis that function in
space.88 This leads Lefebvre to conceive of social space as the place where these
three interrelated types of social activity emerge as representational, represented
and abstract space. In what follows I focus on the later.
Lefebvre’s concept of abstract space is premised on his Hegelian-Marxian
theory of social constitution. What Lefebvre terms social space designates that space
is socially constituted. This leads Lefebvre to conceive of social space as the location
of social and cultural life where social labour and social contradictions ‘emerge’ and
‘regulate life’ This is reflected in Lefebvre’s two conceptions of how abstraction
emerges in space: (1) the abstraction of humanity from nature (2) the social forms
that social interaction with nature manifests itself in.89
The abstraction of humanity from nature is exemplary of the Nietzschean
aspect of Lefebvre’s thought90 which views rationality as a pernicious type of
abstraction that separates humanity from nature. Rationality is abstract, according to
Lefebvre, because it functions ‘by virtue of the forced introduction of abstraction
‘comparable approach’ to ‘Marx’s fundamental critique of capitalism’ is ‘called for
today, an approach which would analyse not things in space but space itself, with a
view to uncovering the social relationships embedded in it.’ (Lefebvre 1996) 89
87
This can be seen in third level of non-reducibility of the abstract urban form and the hedonistic
opposition to terrositic forms
88
The way that this is integrated, in Lefebvre’s notion of the linguistic field, lie outside of the concerns
of this thesis.
89
As it did not denote a particular ‘product’—a thing or an object—but a cluster of relationships, this
concept required that the notions of production and product, and their relationships, be
enlarged….space can no longer be conceived of as passive or empty, nor as having, like ‘products’ no
other meaning then that of being exchanged and disappearing. As a product, interactively or
retroactively, space intervenes in production itself: organization of productive work, transport, flow
of raw materials and energy, product distrobution networks. In its productive role, and as producer,
space (well or badly organized) becomes part of the relations of production and the forces of
production. Thus the concept cannot be isolated or remain static. It becomes dialectical: productproducer, underpinning economic and social relations. Does it not also play a part in reproduction,
reproduction of the productive apparatus, of enlarged reproduction, or relations which it realizes in
practice, ‘on the ground?” (Lefebvre 1992) 208
90
This aspect also has parallels with the Nietzschean narratives in The Dialectic of Enlightenment which
deserve to be looked at in greater detail.
18
into nature’ resulting in a type violence that is inherent to rationality.9192 This process
of abstraction thus seperates and fragments human interaction with nature and
emerges in social space.
Lefebvre’s other conception of abstraction concerns how this process of
human interaction with nature is contained in social space. In capitalism this occurs
in abstract space, which is the space where capitalist social forms emerge.93 Like his
previous work, abstract space is conceived analogously with Lefebvre’s
interpretation of the concrete abstraction of commodity fetishism.
Lefebvre thus characterizes the commodity as a ‘concrete abstraction.’
Abstract ‘on account of its status as a thing, divorced, during its existence, from its
materiality, from the use to which it is put, from productive activity, and from the
need that it satisfies.”94 Concrete “just as certainly, by virtue of its practical power.”
The “enigma” that results from this concrete abstraction is “entirely social.”95 From
this it follows that since the concrete abstraction of the commodity is an object
produced by social labour it must necessarily function in space.96 There is therefore “
a language and a world of the commodity. Hence also a logic and a strategy of the
commodity.”97 In Lefebvre’s view ‘the genesis and development of this world, this
discourse and this logic were portrayed by Marx.’98 Yet at the present moment
capitalism has been globalized99 so that “The actualization of the worldwide
dimension, as a concrete abstraction, is under way.. 'Everything' - the totality - is
bought and sold.” As a consequence, ‘the commodity world brings in its wake
certain attitudes towards space, certain actions upon space, even a certain concept
of space,’100 that Lefebvre terms abstract space. Abstract space thus possesses the
same characteristics as the commodity: it is a concrete abstraction that possesses
quantative, homogenous and equivalent properties. As a result abstract space is
conceived as the space where abstract forms emerge and try to regulate life in social
space.
This process takes place in what Lefebvre terms contradictory space.
Contradictory space is reflective of the dualistic opposition of the commodity
form,101 wherein abstract space is opposed by a qualitative and differentiated type of
space that exists within and in opposition to abstract space which Lefebvre terms
91
The violence involved does not stem from some force intervening aside from rationality, outside or
beyond it. Rather, it manifests itself from the moment any action introduces the rational into the real,
from the outside, by means of tools which strike, slice and cut — and keep doing so until the purpose
of their aggression is achieved (Lefebvre 1992)288
92
(Lefebvre 1992)288
93
(Lefebvre 1992) 100
94
(Lefebvre 1992) 340
95
Lefebvre 1992)340
96
‘The commodity is a thing: it is in space, and occupies a location’ so that “social relations, which are
concrete abstractions, have no real existence save in and through space. Their underpinning is spatial.
(Lefebvre 1992) 340
97
(Lefebvre 1992) 341
98
(Lefebvre 1992) 350
99
‘Chains of commodities (networks of exchange) are constituted and articulated on a world scale.’
(Lefebvre 1992) 343
100
(Lefebvre 1992) 342
the “paradigmatic (or 'significant') opposition between exchange and use,
between global networks and the determinate locations of production and
consumption, is transformed here into a dialectical contradiction, and in the process
it becomes spatial.” (Lefebvre 1992)
101
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concrete space.102 Social space is therefore contradictory and marked by a number
of dualistic oppositions that play out in a number of areas in Lefebvre’s
analysis.103These areas reside at a number of levels.
Abstract space structures these levels in the forms of what Lefebvre refers to
as the ‘great fetishes’ of neo-capitalism. Lefebvre utilizes the Trinity Formula as the
analogical basis for his theory of how these great fetishes of abstract space, abstract
labour, bureaucracy and the state are interrelated. 104 These abstract social entities
combine as a whole to structure social life:
102
1. has a part to play among the forces of production, a role originally played by
nature, which it has displaced and supplanted;
2. appears as a product of singular character, in that it is sometimes simply
consumed (in such forms as travel, tourism, or leisure activities) as a vast
commodity, and sometimes, in metropolitan areas, productively consumed (just
as machines are, for example), as a productive apparatus of grand scale;
3. shows itself to be politically instrumental in that it facilitates the control of
society, while at the same time being a means of production by virtue of the
way it is developed (already towns and metropolitan areas are no longer just
works and products but also means of production, supplying housing,
maintaining the labour force, etc.);
4. underpins the reproduction of production relations and property relations
(i.e. ownership of land, of space; hierarchical ordering of locations;
organization of networks as a function of capitalism; class structures; practical
requirements);
5. is equivalent, practically speaking, to a set of institutional and ideological
superstructures that are not presented for what they are (and in this capacity
social space comes complete with symbolisms and systems of meaning sometimes an overload of meaning); alternatively, it assumes an outward
appearance of neutrality, of insignificance, of semiological destitution, and of
emptiness (or absence);
6. contains potentialities — of works and of reappropriation -existing to begin
with in the artistic sphere but responding above all to the demands of a body
'transported' outside itself in space, a body which by putting up resistance
inaugurates the project of a different space (either the space of a counterculture, or a counter-space in the sense of an initially Utopian alternative to
actually existing 'real' space). (Lefebvre 1992) 330
104
This analogical basis stems from Lefebvre’s interpretation of the trinity formula as a triadic theory
of value ‘according to which there were three, not two, elements in the capitalist mode of production
and in bourgeois society. These three aspects or 'factors' were the Earth (Madame la Terre), capital
(Monsieur le Capital), and labour (the Workers). In other words: rent, profit, wages — three factors
whose interrelationships still needed to be identified and clearly set forth.12 And three, I repeat, rather
than two: the earlier binary opposition (wages versus capital, bourgeoisie versus working class), had
been adandoned.’ (Lefebvre 1992) 325
This is replicated in Lefebvre’s theory of the relationship between capital, space and the state: ‘the
capitalist 'trinity' is established in space - that trinity of land—capital-labour which cannot remain
abstract and which is assembled only within an equally tri-faceted institutional space: a space that is
first of all global, and maintained as such - the space of sovereignty, where constraints are
implemented, and hence a fetishized space, reductive of differences; a space, secondly, that is
fragmented, separating, disjunctive, a space that locates specificities, places or localities, both in order
20
neo-capitalist space is a space of quantification and growing homogeneity, a
commodified space where all the elements are exchangeable and thus
interchangeable; a police space in which the state tolerates no resistance and no
obstacles. Economic space and political space thus converge toward the elimination
of all differences.105
These elements of abstract space are managed and used as instruments of repressive
rule by bureaucratic political power, which while not a ‘substance or pure form”
does “make use of realities and forms” by creating and controlling space.106
The abstract forms of neo-capitalism are embedded in what Lefebvre terms
spatial practice--a wide-ranging category that “subsumes the problems of the urban
sphere (the city and its extensions”) and “everyday life” which are in “thrall to
abstract space.” Spatial practice is thus where abstract space transforms107 ‘lived
experience’ and ‘bodies’ into ‘lived’ abstractions.108 So that ‘under the conditions of
to control them and in order to make them negotiable; and a space, finally, that is hierarchical, ranging
from the lowliest places to the noblest, from the tabooed to the sovereign.’ (Lefebvre 1992) 283
1(Lefebvre 1992) 92
Political power and the political action of that power's administrative apparatus cannot be
conceived of either as 'substances' or as 'pure forms'. This power and this action do make use of
realities and forms, however. The illusory clarity of space is in the last a n a l y s i s the illusory clarity of
a power that may be glimpsed in the reality that it governs, but which at the same time uses that
reality as a veil. Such is the action of political power, which creates fragmentation and so controls it which creates it, indeed, in order to control it. But fragmented reality (dispersion, segregation,
separation, localization) may on occasion overwhelm political power, which for its part depends for
sustenance on continual reinforcement. This vicious circle accounts for the ever more severe
character of political authority, wherever exercised, for it gives rise to the sequence forcerepression-oppression. This is the form under which state-political power becomes omnipresent: it is
everywhere, but its presence varies in intensity; in some places it is diffuse, in others concentrated. In
this respect it resembles divine power in religions and theologies. Space is what makes it possible for
the economic to be integrated into the political. 'Focused' zones exert influences in all directions, and
these influences may be 'cultural', ideological, or of some other kind. It is not political power per se
that produces space; it does reproduce space, however, inasmuch as it is the locus and context of the
reproduction of social relationships - relationships for which it is responsible.
105
106
(Lefebvre 1992) 320-21
107
So what escape can there be from a space thus shattered into images, into signs, into connectedyet-disconnected data directed at a 'subject' itscll doomed lo abstraction? For space offers itself like a
mirror to the thinking 'subject', but, after the manner of Lewis Carroll, the 'subject' passes through
the looking-glass and becomes a lived abstraction. (Lefebvre 1992) 313-314
108
The error - or illusion — generated here consists in the fact that, when social space is placed
beyond our range of vision in this way, its practical character vanishes and it is transformed in
philosophical fashion into a kind of absolute. In face of this fetishized abstraction, 'users' spontaneously
turn themselves, their presence, their 'lived experience' and THEİ R bodies into abstractions too.
Fetishized abstract space thus gives rise to two practical abstractions: 'users' who cannot recognize
themselves within it, and a thought which cannot conceive of adopting a critical stance towards it
(Lefebvre 1992) 93
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modern industry and city life, abstraction holds sway over the relationship to the
body.”109
These levels of domination are interrelated and condition each other.110
As a consequence, this multi-level theory of domination leads Lefebvre to jettison
the theory of alienation for lacking explanatory power:
At this level it becomes apparent just how necessary — and at the same time how
inadequate — the theory of alienation is. The limitations of the concept of alienation
lie in this: it is so true that it is completely uncontested. The state of affairs we have
been describing and analyzing validates the theory of alienation to the full — but it
also makes it seem utterly trivial. Considering the weight of the threat and the level
of terror hanging over us, pillorying either alienation in general or particular varieties
of alienation appears pointless in the extreme. The 'status' of the concept, or of
liberal (humanist) ideology, is simply not the real issue.111
Lefebvre uses the theory of concrete space to outline a number of types of
opposition to abstract space. These qualitative, localized, differentiated aspects of
concrete space persist through out the areas and levels of social space. They are also
reflective of the different theoretical elements in his triadic dialectic. Lefebvre’s
notion of re-appropriating space and workplace democracy are aligned with the
Marxian elements of his theory. His espousal of difference over homogeneity draws
on the Nietzschean aspects of Lefebvre’s thought. Lastly, other types of opposition
such as the qualitative space of leisure, the consumption of exchange value, and
libidinal release promote a type of opposition to abstraction through a politicization
of desire.
Lefebvre’s theory of abstract space thus draws on his interpretation of
fetishism as a concrete abstraction. This formulation of abstract space is utilized to
show where the abstract, quantitative and homogenous ‘great fetish’ forms of
domination emerge and how they attempt to regulate life in contradictory social
space. At the same time abstract space is opposed by the qualitative contents of
concrete space. Lefebvre’s theory of space thus represents an attempt to ground
and concretize his persistent concerns of articulating how abstract social forms are
socially embedded.
Conclusion
In this chapter I examined the role of fetishism in Henri Lefebvre’s theory of
social domination. I argued that Lefebvre’s conception of fetishism as an alien,
abstract and autonomous concrete abstraction that inverts to dominate but not
entirely determine sociality runs through his work where it serves as a basis for his
attempts to conceive how domination is socially embedded. I demonstrated this in
three phases. My examination of Lefebvre’s classic Marxist humanist work showed
(Lefebvre 1992) 204/5
“everything (the 'whole') weighs down on the lower or 'micro' level, on the local
and the localizable - in short, on the sphere of everyday life. Everything (the 'whole')
also depends on this level: exploitation and domination, protection and —
inseparably — repression.” (Lefebvre 1992) 368
109
110
111
(Lefebvre 1992) 371
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how Lefebvre conceived of his theory of objective and subjective alienation in
tandem with his interpretation of fetishism and total man. I then moved to Lefebvre’s
writing in the 60s, which used fetishism as a basis for Lefebvre’s supplementary
theory of terrorist social forms that were embodied in a myriad of typologies of
alienation no longer based on human essence. I finished by showing how Lefebvre
transposed these theoretical interests in his writings on cities and space, which
jettisoned the theory of alienation as an explanation of domination, but still used the
theorization of fetishism as a concrete abstraction as the basis of his theory that
construed how social constitution of domination was embedded in cities and space.
This demonstrates that Lefebvre’s theory of social domination is more complex than
a theory of alienation, with his theory of fetishism as a concrete abstraction holding a
previously unrecognized important to his work. However, there are also some
problems with this theory of fetishism and social domination.
These criticisms may not be fair due to Lefebvre’s emphasis on nonsystematicity but they are valid. For it is one thing to be non-systematic in the sense
of being opposed to the systematic function of a social system. It is another thing to
be opposed to systematicity as such, since systematicity can provide you with an
understanding of how the society you are seeking to criticize and understand
functions. Unfortunately, Lefebvre’s theory is often non-systematic in the second
sense. This can be seen in a number of places and ultimately undermines his various
formulations of a theory that endeavors to supplement Marx by conceiving of how
domination is socially embedded.
This can first be seen in Lefebvre’s interpretation of Marx. Lefebvre’s
interpretation is certainly admirable in stressing a non-dogmatic treatment of Marx.
It also forthright about how the gaps in Marx’s theory make it necessary to
supplement Marx with other theories or other theorists. However, the nonsystematic manner in which Marx is interpreted and supplemented is problematic.
In the first case Lefebvre’s non-systematic interpretation prevents him from
accounting for how certain categories fit into Marx’s attempt to systematically
portray how capital functions at its ideal average. Providing such an account could
have lent coherence to his social analysis. Instead, much like Lukacs and Adorno, this
social analysis focuses on extrapolating from certain categories such as the
commodity or the trinity formula. This means that Lefebvre’s accounts of the genesis
of the forms that underlie his analysis relies on vague and unsubstantiated
terminology such as praxis, social labour or socio-economic form which are treated
as constitutive of theories of social constitution. This is likewise the case for the
supplementary types of concrete abstraction Lefebvre proposes or develops which
are accounted for by analogy or by positing that they are interrelated particular
Marxian categories.
In the second case this non-systematic leads Lefebvre to supplement Marx
with an eclectic array of theories in his various attempts to conceive of how
domination is socially embedded with some degree of social complexity. However,
rather than capturing social complexity or domination, it is often the case that this
combination of theorists clash with each other. This is noticeably the case in the
construction of his triadic dialectic where little justification is given for how or why
dialectic should or could be triadic. Nor are theoretical incongruities between Hegel,
Marx and Nietzsche discussed. The same is the case for an eclectic array of theories
Lefebvre draws from structuralism, Heidegger and others. This means that
Lefebvre’s attempt to capture social complexity is often undermined by this process
of theoretical supplementation.
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At the same time it can also be said that the fundamental categories of
Lefebvre’s social theory are too simplistic. On one hand these categories are nondeterministic and open enough to capture social complexity. But on the other hand
they are too open to explain any degree of determinacy. This is the case for the
categories Lefebvre constructs, such as everyday life, the urban form and space that
are often too vague and residual to articulate how or where domination is socially
embedded.
This also the case for Lefebvre’s simplistic dualistic opposition that treats any
form of quantification or abstraction as dominating or dehumanizing and any type of
qualitative behavior as resistant and humane. Such an opposition leads to Lefebvre
bundling together disparate phenomena due to his reductive assessment of their
essence. As a result rationality and types of homogeneity are treated as equivalent to
abstractions that compel human behavior while phenomena as disparate as
consumption, festivals, artistic creativity, grass roots democracy and urban living are
characterized as qualitative and are thus seen as equivalent and inherently
oppositional to social domination.
As a result, despite some potentially interesting innovations that could
potentially articulate how a theory of domination is socially embedded, Lefebvre’s
theory of fetishism and social domination is problematic. In the first place his
interpretation of fetishism is under theorized. In the second place this under
theorized interpretation is used as the basis for a series of theories that are
ultimately unable to provide an account of how the constitution of domination is
socially embedded, and at points even failing to offer a plausible account of
domination.
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