The Theological Metaphors of Marx

by Enrique Dussel, Eduardo Mendieta (Foreword), Camilo Pérez-Bustillo (Translator)

In The Theological Metaphors of Marx , Enrique Dussel provides a groundbreaking combination of Marxology, theology, and ethical theory. Dussel shows that Marx unveils the theology of capitalism in his critique of commodity fetishization. Capitalism constitutes an idolatry of the commodity that undergirds the capitalist expropriation of labor. Dussel examines Marx’s early writings on religion and fetishism and proceeds through what Dussel refers to as the four major drafts of Capital , ultimately situating Marx’s philosophical, economic, ethical, and historical insights in relation to the theological problems of his time. Dussel notes a shift in Marx’s underlying theological schema from a political critique of the state to an economic critique of the commodity fetish as the Devil, or anti-God, of modernity. Marx’s thought, impact, and influence cannot be fully understood without Dussel’s historic reinterpretation of the theological origins and implications of Marx’s critiques of political economy and politics.

Genres: Religion

288 pages, Hardcover

Published April 19, 2024

About the author

ENRIQUE DUSSEL nace el 24 de diciembre de 1934, en el pueblo de La Paz, Mendoza, Argentina. Exiliado político desde 1975 en México, hoy ciudadano mexicano, es profesor en el Departamento de Filosofía en la Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM, Iztapalapa, ciudad de México), y en el Colegio de Filosofía de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la UNAM (Ciudad Universitaria). Licenciado en filosofía (Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina), doctor en filosofía por la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, doctor en historia en La Sorbonne de Paris y una licencia en teología en Paris y Münster. Ha obtenido doctorados honoris causa en Freiburg (Suiza) y en la Universidad de San Andrés (La Paz, Bolivia). Fundador con otros del movimiento Filosofía de la Liberación. Trabaja especialmente el campo de la Ética y la Filosofía Política.

Reviews

[Elliot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great work from one of my favorite theorists. Was waiting on this english translation for a few years and it didn't disappoint. Originally published in 1994, Theological Metaphors of Marx truly is a monumental interpretation of fetishism and religious metaphors (idol, sacrifice, Mammon/Moloch, satan/demons, Marx's hundreds of explicit and implicit citations and uses of Hebrew/Christian scripture) throughout Marx's entire corpus. What Dussel demonstrates convincingly at a textual level is that these metaphors and Marx's critique of capitalist fetishism are not random and scattered but coherent and systemic- part of a unified ethical critique of capitalism (Dussel fully rejects any sort of Althusserian Marx). To be clear, Dussel recognizes that these form a "metaphorical" analogical/symbolic negative metatheology that undergird Marx's "scientific" political economic critique. This is not some sort of ridiculous "Marx was actually unconsciously subjectiviely a Christian" type of argument (which some Latin American authors have made). Rather- it is a recognition that to propoerly read Marx one must deal with the ways that Marx uses these metaphors negatively to combat the fetishization of bourgeoise political economy and religious culture (Ricardo, Smith, Locke, etc) and in doing so militates much of the Hebrew/Christian tradition critically. Ultimately Dussel argues that Marx's critique succeeds in *negating*the fetishistic idolatry of capitalism but fails to affirm the "alterity of the absolute that makes it possible to have a point of support in exteriority that can undertake new critiques in terms of every possible future order." (Found in someone like Levinas, for example- this is articulated really well in Dussel's Ethics of Liberation).

My own assesment of this one- I think it's a phenomenal work of Marxology. Dussel is up there with Heinrich for me- someone where it is evidently clear they have done significant work reading Marx not only in the German but across all of his many manuscripts, editions, notebooks, etc. (see for example Dussel's work Towards an Unknown Marx- which is an in-depth interpretation of Marx's 1861-63 manuscripts). This is an absolute blast to read because you receive a real sense of Marx's development and how the many works fit together. I think Dussel is broadly correct in his understanding of the negative metatheology that metaphorically undergirds Marx's scientific critique, and contra those who argue Marx's later "scientific" critique is not ethical, Dussel convincingly argues that this forms the ethical critique of capitalism (especially given the way Dussel argues that Marx's category of liviing labor provides the ethical exteriority from which to critique the totality of Capital). I am skeptical of Dussel's more positively critical religious project that Marx's negation of fetishism has to be supplemented with an affirmation of exteriority- I'm much more interested in ways that this can be done immanently rather than "transcendentally or metaphysically" (in someone like Ernst Bloch for example- it's worth pointing out that Dussel lands ultimately on the side of Moltmann's critique of Bloch but from the point of a much more decolonial liberation theology). Anyway, I'll stop here- I highly recommend this to anyone remotely interested in Marx!

[M Govea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lo brillante no es decir que Marx “era religioso” (porque no lo era), sino evidenciar cómo su lenguaje, su pasión política, su impulso por liberar al oprimido, cargan con una potencia simbólica que recuerda, irónicamente, a lo sagrado. Pero un sagrado encarnado, histórico, sin divinidad ni cielo.

Lectura sutil, afilada, que hace pensar más allá de etiquetas. Te revuelve, te ilumina, te incomoda. Como debe ser.