The Sociology of Marx

by Henri Lefebvre

The crucial importance of Karl Marx’s thought for his own time and for ours is beyond dispute, but the there have always been two considerable impediments to understanding: first, the supposed complexity with which Marx articulated his ideas; second, the accretions which commentators, disciples, and hagiographers have built into the original structure. Henri Lefebrve, who has held the chair in sociology at Strasbourg and since 1965 in Paris, has written an interpretative introduction which restores the clarity of outline and the vigor of the original. Lefebrvre also demonstrates by ample quotation that Marx, far from being the tortuous and intractable stylist we had imagined, is a masterful and witty writer.
 
But beyond this, the reader is presented with a thesis. Lefebvre argues that Marx was not a sociologist, not an economist, not yet an historian or a philosopher. On the other hand, one can find in his writings a sociology, a political economy, a theory of history, and significant intimations of a philosophy. The explanation of this apparent paradox lies in the fact that Marx was writing in a period prior to the compartmentalizing of science, when the nature of things could still be grasped as a whole. Thus, through Marx, we can obtain a coherent picture of reality as it was at the inception of the modern age. An understanding of Marx is necessary for an understanding of our time. This book is indispensible not only as a guide to Marx, but for its sight into contemporary problems.

Genres: Sociology, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Politics

214 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

Henri Lefebvre was a French sociologist, Marxist intellectual, and philosopher, best known for pioneering the critique of everyday life, for introducing the concepts of the right to the city and the production of social space, and for his work on dialectics, alienation, and criticism of Stalinism, existentialism, and structuralism.

In his prolific career, Lefebvre wrote more than sixty books and three hundred articles. He founded or took part in the founding of several intellectual and academic journals such as Philosophies, La Revue Marxiste, Arguments, Socialisme et Barbarie, Espaces et Sociétés.

Lefebvre died in 1991. In his obituary, Radical Philosophy magazine honored his long and complex career and influence:
the most prolific of French Marxist intellectuals, died during the night of 28–29 June 1991, less than a fortnight after his ninetieth birthday. During his long career, his work has gone in and out of fashion several times, and has influenced the development not only of philosophy but also of sociology, geography, political science and literary criticism.

Reviews

[Malcolm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lefebvre’s oeuvre never fails to astound me, and coming back to this 15 years after I first read it was a welcome reminder of his versatility, the power of his thought, and that amid all the circuitousness of some of his work (such as The Production of Space and parts of the first volume of Critique of Everyday Life) there are times where he is direct and brilliantly clear.

One of the many things I like about this book is that he sets out not to trace the shape of a Marxist sociology but to outline how a sociological reading of work by Marx can inform sociological thinking and study. More importantly, however, Lefebvre challenges the now-all-to-common-simplistic notion that Marxist sociological thinking is all about class: he does this by putting Marx’s work on alienation at the core of the book. Alienation has become a problematic term woven through functionalist social policy and over-written by a medicalised and individualising set of psychological approaches: for Marx alienation is a collective and social condition where under capitalism workers individually and as a class are separated from what Marx calls their ‘species-being’. This approach is fundamentally at odds with the crudely functionalist forms of psychology and social policy that currently determine the meaning of the term.

The second key aspect to the argument is Marx’s sociology is grounded in praxis – it is not abstract theorising or ‘thought experiments’ but based in actually existing social practice. This means that although, for Lefebvre, Marxian thought and analysis requires a dialectical approach, its distinctive characteristic is its historical analytical form which allows it to challenge ideologies. It is only after exploring these issues that Lefebvre gets on to ‘class’ and the state.

The really unsettling thing about (re) reading this in 2011 is that so much of his analysis of the contemporary remains current, even though the book was written in 1966 (and published in English in 1968).

[Sinan Öner]

French Sociolog, Philosopher, Historian Henri Lefebvre's "The Sociology of Marx" is one of the best sociological work about Karl Marx's social philosophy - Karl Marx's view on the political economics of modern capitalist societies. In the world, there are a lot of Marxist sociologs or a lot of sociology researchers who work about Marxism. But, Henri Lefebvre's "The Sociology of Marx" concentrates on Karl Marx's writings, books which are related to sociology as a social science. So, Henri Lefebvre writes on the different sociological concepts, categories and paradigms when he is thinking about the sociology of Karl Marx. For Henri Lefebvre, one of the key concepts of Marx's sociology is the necessity - Henri Lefebvre writes the human being is the exist of necessity, during the history, the human beings, individiually, or as a society, need somethings, the necessity of anything is the main or the central thing to be exist in the world (Henri Lefebvre in his "The Sociology of Marx" writes the principles or the concrete views of Karl Marx on the different social relations, social conflicts-changes, social productions-consumptions, social structures, and social historical experiences.)

[Ivan Labayne · Rating 3 out of 5]

"the head knows more than the lower limbs but relies on them in matters of detail. The lower limbs...believe the head is perfectly capable of a rational grasp of the overall situation. In this way, they delude each other. Knowledge is split... empirical and rational, reality and illusion, the material and the spiritual. Just as in philosophy!"

Ayos na supplementary reading para sa ilang key concepts ng basic Marxist thought tulad ng alienation, ideology at state; the last one at times, more elaborate than Lenin's.

[Felipe Feitosa Castro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excelente livro de acompanhamento ou revisão, mas que peca no final por não apresentar uma curva tão objetiva quanto no restante do material.

Funciona perfeitamente enquanto compilado teórico referente a cada grupo de obras de Marx, divido por tema, época, contexto e/ou definições.

[Bastián Olea Herrera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Último libro del año. Un buen libro para leer (una vez más) a Marx, esta vez elucidando sus inadvertidos avances en el estudio sociológico. Con amplios pasajes sobre Hegel y frases de bronce de Marx, se exploran conceptos tales como praxis, burocracia, estado, la alienación, la reificación, el desarrollo, la superación de la filosofía y la política, y la revolución; todos conceptos provenientes del ala más social/filosófica y menos económico/política de la amplia obra de Marx.

[Christopher Hill · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although there is a lot of interesting source material quoted in this book, there is also an equal amount of academic babble which limits the usefulness of the book to anyone who actually wants to know about the relationship between sociology and Marxism. If I didn't already know this jargon I'd have been completely lost.