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Lecture Notes: Housekeeping, Social Theory Intro, and Marx’s Estranged Labour (1844)

Housekeeping and Course Logistics

  • Instructor notes no revised syllabus with room number yet due to prior revisions since Tuesday; next time there is a significant development, it will be updated at the top of the syllabus.
  • CourseWorks announcements: you should have received two announcements via CourseWorks for the lecture (one to direct you to today’s room, one to announce the tweaks to the reflection post requirement).
  • Reflection posts: you must post a total of 10 reflections over the semester; the reflection posts are 20% of the course grade (see the updated syllabus).
  • Reflection post content:
    • You reflect on the text for the week, what's on the syllabus, and/or the lecture.
    • You reflect on the week’s readings or the slides’ content, or the lecture as delivered.
    • You do not need to reflect on your discussion section; the requirement to mention discussion sections has been dispensed with.
    • Reflection posts relate to what happens on the lecture days (Tuesday and Thursday) and the week’s readings as presented in slides.
  • Deadlines for reflections:
    • They are due on Friday by midnight. In the first week, you may choose to do one; if you do, it’s due by tomorrow’s midnight (i.e., Friday midnight, before Saturday).
    • You do not have to do one every week; only 10 reflections are required across the term.
  • Weeks and posting scope:
    • There are approximately 13 or 14 weeks in the term; you must post 10 times.
    • Refer to the syllabus for the exact number and weeks.
  • Essay submissions:
    • There are separate CourseWorks pages for your lecture and for your section; essays (the longer, major essays, not the weekly discussion posts) must be uploaded to your section page.
    • An assignment bucket has been created on each section’s CourseWorks page for essay submissions.
    • If you encounter access issues, there are multiple weeks to address them as needed.
  • Section meetings:
    • This week’s section meeting is today (Thursday); confirm with section lead and TA (Robin referenced).
  • General course logistics:
    • There are two CourseWorks pages: one for the lecture and one for your section.
    • For essays, upload to your section CourseWorks page; expect guidance on deadlines as the weeks unfold.
  • Accessibility and support:
    • If you have issues accessing CourseWorks, raise them early so we can address them.

First Lecture: Overview and Aims

  • The lecture today includes a PowerPoint (a rarity for this course) due to uncertainty about room and board setup; occasional board use will complement the slides.
  • Core question: What is social theory? How do philosophy, politics, and social theory relate?
  • Readings for today:
    • A Strange Labour (1844) — an unpublished manuscript by Karl Marx from his youth, written about 1824 in his twenties, predating Capital.
    • Michael Heinrich, Introduction to Marx’s Capital (authoritative modern scholarly introduction).
    • Wendy Brown, Forward to a new translation of Capital (written in 2024): fresh perspective tailored to contemporary students.
  • Context for today’s readings:
    • Marx’s early writings are manuscripts, not the polished Capital; they lay out foundational themes that inform classical social theory.
    • The course foregrounds Marx, Weber, and Durkheim as the spine of classical sociological theory, with a plan to broaden to Durkheimian and Weberian extensions and to consider extrasociological foundations later.
    • The instructor emphasizes that the lectures are not about passively delivering readings; they aim to provide context, reading strategies, and connections to help you engage with the text critically and develop your own stance.
  • Key teaching philosophy:
    • Education is self-education; students must read and reflect to form their own interpretations.
    • The instructor’s presentation and syllabus are partial; students should form their own positions and be prepared to defend them in writing and discussion.
    • The course will culminate in reflective essays about the historical and intellectual forces shaping each student’s position in the campus and world today.

What Social Theory Is (as framed in the course)

  • The course surveys major theories of society, social issues, and social change.
  • Social theory with a capital S/T emerges in Central and Western Europe in the mid 18 ext{0s} (mid-19th century) and seeks to distinguish itself from philosophy and theology by building concepts on empirical study and investigations of the material world.
  • Core aim: to present social theory as a form of science, or at least aspires to rigorous, systematic explanations of social life.
  • Classical social theory faces several large social changes: the Industrial Revolution and the rise of capitalist society; urbanization; the reorganization of work and life.
  • The discipline’s central concerns (as rehearsed for the course): work, labor, money, cooperation, exchange, bureaucracy, domination, reproduction, and more.
  • The critique of political economy and its relation to social theory: Marx challenges the idea that capitalist relations are natural or inevitable; social theory seeks to uncover the invisible, impersonal forces shaping daily life.
  • The distinction between social theory and empirical social science: social theorists try to reveal the laws or tendencies governing society, not merely catalog what they observe.
  • The “deadweight of tradition” in sociology: ongoing reckoning with inherited theories and methods; tradition matters in academic sociology and cannot be wholly discarded.
  • The approach of the course: to connect classical theories with present concerns and translate insights into contemporary contexts (and translate ideas as needed).
  • The general trajectory for the course: start with Marx, then engage with thinkers who extend, critique, or rework his ideas (Durkheim, Weber, Durkheimians, Weberians), and finally explore non-traditional foundations and debates about the future of social theory.

Why Marx? Foundational Context

  • Marx’s place and timing:
    • Born in 1818 in Trier, Kingdom of Prussia; parents were Jewish and converted to Christianity to improve social mobility; father a lawyer; mother from a prosperous merchant family.
    • He earned a PhD in philosophy by age 23 and spent the next decades as a political agitator, journalist, and self-directed scholar; he never held a university lecturing post.
  • The shift from philosophy to political economy and social theory:
    • In the 1840s, Marx deliberately breaks with his philosophical training to study capitalist society as its object; he engages with political economy as a critical project, not as neutral description.
    • He rejects Adam Smith as the “patron saint of political economy” and aims to critique its naturalizing narratives that precarious labor and private property are natural and inevitable.
  • Political economy in Marx’s day vs today:
    • Political economists of his day sought to justify the capitalist order as natural, progressive, and enlightened.
    • Marx’s goal is a critical rejoinder to political economy, examining the social relations and ideological forms that reproduce capitalism, not simply praising its outcomes.
  • Marx’s activism and life context:
    • He helped organize the International Workingmen’s Association and was involved in global labor movements.
    • He supported emancipation efforts across the world (e.g., liberation of Black Americans, anti-colonial struggles, Irish independence) as essential components of a socialist project, though the course will focus on social theory rather than political program specifics.
  • Personal struggles and their relevance to theory:
    • Between 1844 and Capital’s first publication in 1867, Marx faced chronic illness, financial precarity, and a roving life as a political journalist; Engels provided crucial financial and intellectual support (example quote: "I'm forced to fritter away my days earning a living; only the nights remain free for real work.")
    • This context helps explain the practical and intellectual challenges involved in producing Capital and shaping social theory.

A Key Concept: Estranged Labor and Alienation (from A Strange Labour, 1844)

  • Marx’s core claim in this early work is that labor under capitalism is alienating to the worker in several ways; alienation is a structural feature of capitalist production, not a temporary misfortune.
  • The four forms of alienation (as developed in Estranged Labour):
    • Alienation from the product of labor: Workers do not own or control what they produce; the product is appropriated by the employer and sold on the market, not by the worker who created it.
    • Alienation from the process of labor: Workers do not control how they work or how time is spent; the work day is organized by the boss, not by the worker themselves.
    • Alienation from species-being (species-being or “essence” of human life): For Marx, humans realize themselves through the free creative activity of labor; capitalism reduces work to a means of survival and to repetitive, alien tasks that curb human potential.
    • Alienation from other humans: Social relations become mediated by wage labor and competition; the worker and the boss occupy opposing roles in a system designed to extract surplus value from labor.
  • The deeper implication: the labor process under private property and wage relations distorts human nature and social life; this fracturing is not simply economic but philosophical and ethical.
  • The idea of alienation as an argument against the naturalness of capitalist relations helps frame later chapters in Capital, which expand on how markets, commodity relations, and capital accumulation shape social life.

Denaturalization: Power of Objects and Social Relations

  • A key interpretive claim (drawn from Wendy Brown’s forward, 2024): objects in the social world can exercise power and reveal the social relations that produced them, even though their material form appears neutral or self-evident.
  • Brown’s framing (quoted conceptually):
    • It is necessary to see beyond the surface of concrete objects to understand their historical and social genesis, constitutive relations, and power dynamics.
    • The table example illustrates how an object is a product of social relations (production processes, labor, capital investments) and not merely a neutral thing; its origins and the power it exerts are not visible in the object itself.
  • Implication for theory: to understand political economy and capitalist society, one must trace the social origins and power embedded in everyday things and market arrangements, not merely describe their present appearance.
  • This emphasis on the historical and social constitution of everyday objects helps motivate Marx’s broader project of uncovering hidden social forces and the unconscious logic of capital.

Reading Strategy and Theoretical Practice (Guidance from the Instructor and Heinrich)

  • Reading Marx is challenging but worthwhile: the prose is dense, sometimes quirky, with literary references; it rewards deep engagement rather than skimming.
  • Heinrich’s guidance on reading Marx:
    • From the first lines, try to grasp the core argument; you can read iteratively and deepen understanding as you proceed.
    • Expect a difficult but rewarding path; the material interlocks as you accumulate more context and cross-links across chapters.
  • The necessity of reading the complete excerpts provided (not just selected pages):
    • The instructor emphasizes reading through all excerpts to understand the full argument, even if some parts seem especially dense or technical.
  • The aim of the course’s first weeks:
    • Prepare to move from 1844’s estranged labor to Capital (1867) and develop a coherent understanding of Marx’s theory of capitalist society, beginning with the analysis of the commodity and labor process in Capital.

The Commodity, Labor Process, and Next Steps (Preview for Capital)

  • Today’s session sets the stage for Capital; next week will begin with Marx’s theory of the commodity as the foundation for capitalist society and progress to the labor process.
  • The plan for subsequent weeks includes:
    • Detailed engagement with Capital Volume I, moving through the key concepts and the labor-capital dynamics.
    • A progression to Durkheim and Weber (and their followers) who extend and test Marx’s ideas against different social phenomena.
  • The course will also consider whether social theory has a future and what new foundations or critiques might be necessary in contemporary scholarship.

What to Expect in the Readings and Class Discussion

  • The readings are not meant to be mere political manifesto or ideology; they are theoretical inquiries into how capitalist society operates.
  • The class will explore how politics intersects with social theory, and how different scholars conceptualize power, markets, and social change.
  • The class will explicitly tackle translation challenges and how different translations frame Marx’s ideas; the Brown forward reflects a contemporary reading and the aims of making Marx legible to today’s students.
  • The class will examine the relationship between theory and practice, including discussions about student movements, historical forces, and personal intellectual development—linking the course to lived experience on campus and beyond.

Summative Reflection: Reading and Practice Tips

  • Active reading strategy:
    • Read in a focused, undistracted environment (paper copy or PDF with a pen and notebook).
    • Take notes on how concepts connect; look for interlocking ideas across chapters and authors.
    • Write short summaries of key arguments after each section and prepare to discuss them in section discussions.
  • Engagement expectations:
    • Attend lectures and participate in section discussions; engage with the material beyond transcription and regurgitation.
    • Develop a personal stance on controversial issues (e.g., politics and social theory) and be prepared to defend it in writing and discussion.
  • End-of-semester reflections:
    • A fifteen-minute individual reflection is planned (per person) at the end of the semester to consider the historical and intellectual forces shaping you as a student and thinker in relation to these texts.

Important Dates and Numerical References (Recap)

  • Readings and dates mentioned:
    • A Strange Labour: written in 1844, manuscripts originally from 1824; cashing out the relationship to Capital (1867).
    • Capital Volume I: published in 1867.
    • Marx’s early life: born 1818; writings in the 1840s; 23-year gap before Capital’s publication.
    • The forward and introduction by Wendy Brown (the 2024 translation context).
  • Reflection posts:
    • Total reflections: 10 over the semester; reflection post is 20 ext{ extperthousand}
    • Each reflection is counted toward the 20 ext{ extpercent} course grade; weekly reflections align with that week’s readings.
  • Course length and weekly structure:
    • Approximately 13 or 14 weeks in the term; you must post reflections in 10 of those weeks.
  • Time allocations:
    • End-of-class reflection: 15 ext{ minutes}$$ per person.
    • The early weeks emphasize the transition from 1844’s estranged labor to Capital and the development of a laboratory-like understanding of social theory.

Key References in Today’s Session

  • A Strange Labour (Marx, 1844): early writings outlining alienation and the critique of political economy; foundational to the development of Capital.
  • Capital Volume I (Marx): the mature theory to be studied in depth in the coming weeks; the present session sets up the foundational questions.
  • Michael Heinrich (Introduction to Marx’s Capital): provides expert contextualization and reading strategies for Marx’s work.
  • Wendy Brown (Forward to a new translation of Capital, 2024): offers a contemporary interpretive framework, stressing theory as the work of revealing historical and social genesis and the constitutive relations of capital; emphasizes that theory aims to see beyond immediate appearances to uncover underlying structures and power relations.

Important Quotations to Remember (Paraphrased/Quoted Here for Reference)

  • “Education is self-education.” The teacher emphasizes the student’s need to cultivate a personal relationship with the text and to develop independent, defendable stances.
  • Wendy Brown (Forward):
    • “To understand capital, then we need to see otherwise. This is the work of theory.”
    • “The term theory comes from Greek theoria: to see, to watch from an intellectual distance, in order to see more than one sees in the midst of things.”
    • “Everything is objective, yet not its origin, placement, constitution, or power through its destiny.”
  • Marx on the role of science and the search for laws of motion:
    • The social theorist aims to reveal the invisible, impersonal forces that govern daily life and social relations, attempting to identify general laws of social motion.
  • The practical outcome of the course’s approach:
    • Build competence in reading Capital closely, connect its concepts to later developments (Durkheim, Weber), and critically reflect on the future of social theory.

Quick Guide for Students (Takeaways)

  • Expect a challenging but rewarding journey through the foundational ideas of capitalist society and social theory.
  • Engage actively with readings, not just lectures: the best understanding comes from reading through the entire excerpts and tracing how concepts interlock.
  • Be prepared to translate historical theories into contemporary contexts and to form your own critical stances about their relevance today.
  • Remember the logistical scaffolding: 10 reflections (20% of the grade), essays uploaded to section pages, two CourseWorks pages to manage, and deadlines framed around Friday midnight style rather than a fixed clock-time during the day.
  • The course is designed to encourage both critical analysis of classical theories and reflection on how those theories illuminate or challenge modern social life, including the role of politics, education, and student movements in shaping scholarly inquiry.