Christian Stache | University of Hamburg (original) (raw)
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Papers by Christian Stache
Kapital und Natur. Ein Widerspruch – nicht auflösbar, profitabel gemacht, die Erde zerstörend, 2023
Politics and Animals, 2023
An extensive arsenal of weapons for socialist class struggle for animal liberation on the cultura... more An extensive arsenal of weapons for socialist class struggle for animal liberation on the cultural terrain in capitalist societies today comes to light when the oeuvre of early Soviet and futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930) is reread through the lens of Antonio Gramsci's theory of hegemony. This paper shows that the avant-garde artist's poetry and other writings comprise elements of an animalist Marxism avant la lettre: images and ideas of a political ethic and a mode of living that include animals, criticisms of capitalist society with respect to animal super-exploitation, conceptions of animal agency, and references to utopias in which social relations to nonhuman creatures are peaceful. These features need to be conceived not only as an integral part of Mayakovsky's vigorously advocated third, cultural revolution of the Soviet way of life. Rather, they need to be considered as useful instruments to construct an animalist socialist counterculture that builds on and supplements the socioeconomic and political battle against (animal) capital.
Capital & Class, 2023
Human–animal scholars have repeatedly accused Marx of standing in the tradition of a Cartesian hu... more Human–animal scholars have repeatedly accused Marx of standing in the tradition of a Cartesian human–animal dualism. One central piece of evidence brought forward to substantiate the attack is Marx’s concept of labour. The present article, however, argues that Marx’s conceptualisation of labour is actually non-speciesist and recognises non-waged and other than human forms of labour as well without renouncing qualitative distinctions between them. For Marx, both useful labour and the historically specific capitalist form of social labour cannot be reduced to something peculiar to man. Useful labour encompasses a wide range of ways to transform nature. Due to the bourgeois social relations, capitalist social labour is instead limited to human productive wage labour, excluding numerous types of human labour as well as animal labour. Thus, his concept of labour proves that Marx is not just another ‘speciesist’ scholar in the long Western tradition of philosophy.
Transdisciplinary Impulses towards Socio-Ecological Transformation, 2022
Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 2021
This paper develops programmatically the concept of meat hegemony with recourse to Antonio Gramsc... more This paper develops programmatically the concept of meat hegemony with recourse to Antonio Gramsci’s notions of the integral state and of hegemony. It conceptualizes meat hegemony as a reciprocal interplay between (a) the state monopoly on the use of force (which guarantees private property in animals and the exchange of meat-based commodities), and (b) the manufacturing of consent within the working and middle classes towards the accumulation of meat capital. This is achieved, first, by the politico-ideological and organizational unification of meat capital and, second, by economic concessions to subaltern class fractions, a carnivorous mode of life, and pro-meat ideologies. The meat hegemony is rooted in the capitalist socioeconomic relations between capital and labor (capital relation) and capital and animals (capital-animal relation). They produce a contradiction between capital on the one hand and wage laborers and animals on the other which needs to be regulated politically, culturally, and ideologically in order to guarantee the economic reproduction of meat capital.
Capital & Class
In the last three decades, the interchange between Marxism and critical human–animalism has grati... more In the last three decades, the interchange between Marxism and critical human–animalism has gratifyingly picked up. Scholars use Marxist categories to analyse and criticise the exploitation and oppression of animals in capitalism. But the application of Marx’s original concepts often rests on fragile analogies and judgements. To conceptualise the exploitation of animals accurately and substantiate the common class struggle for humans and animals theoretically, the present article serves to get the terminology straight with respect to four interrelated topics. First, the common charge against Marx’s theory to build on a human–animal dualism is refuted by showing that he understands the relationship between humans and animals as a historical materialist, socio-practical and dialectical differentiation. Second, based on a relational understanding of the capitalist mode of production, I argue that animals are not wage labourers, slaves or super-exploited commodities. Rather, as nature i...
Monthly Review
In this continuation of the exchange on "Marx and Alienated Speciesism" and…
International Critical Thought
Http Edoc Vifapol De Opus Volltexte 2014 4891 Pdf Ausdruck2_2011_07Stache Pdf, 2011
Monthly Review
In human-animal studies and critical animal studies, the most influential treatment of animalist ... more In human-animal studies and critical animal studies, the most influential treatment of animalist Marxism and Marxist animalism has been developed by Ted Benton on the basis of his interpretation of Karl Marx's work. This article focuses minutely on Benton's argument and Marx's Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (or Paris Manuscripts), refuting Benton's contentions point by point and forcefully challenging the idea that Marx's work was speciesist in orientation.
Z. Zeitschrift Marxistische Erneuerung, 2021
The Capitalist Commodification of Animals, 2020
It is widely accepted among critical human–animal scholars that an absolute ontological distincti... more It is widely accepted among critical human–animal scholars that an absolute ontological distinction between humans and animals, the human–animal dualism, is an ideological construction. However, even some of the most radical animalists make use of a softer version of it when they explain animal exploitation and domination in capitalism. By criticizing the reintroduction of the human–animal dualism through the back door, I reopen the terrain for a historical–materialist explanation of bourgeois animal exploitation and domination that does not conceptualize them as a matter of species in the first place. Rather, with reference and in analogy to ecosocialist arguments on the greenhouse effect, it is demonstrated that a specific faction of capital – animal capital – which uses animals and animal products as means of production, is the root cause, key agent, and main profiteer of animal exploitation and domination in the current mode of production. Thus, the reworked concept of animal capital presented here differs from the original, postoperaist notion introduced by Nicole Shukin since it is based on a classic sociorelational and value theoretical understanding of capitalism. According to this approach, animals are integrated socioeconomically into the capitalist class society via a relation of superexploitation to capital, which can be called the capital–animal relation.
Z. Zeitschrift Marxistische Erneuerung, 2019
Zeitschrift für kritische Tierstudien, 2019
Zeitschrift für kritische Tierstudien, 2018
Z. Zeitschrift Marxistische Erneuerung, 2018
Z. Zeitschrift Marxistische Erneuerung, 2019
Kapital und Natur. Ein Widerspruch – nicht auflösbar, profitabel gemacht, die Erde zerstörend, 2023
Politics and Animals, 2023
An extensive arsenal of weapons for socialist class struggle for animal liberation on the cultura... more An extensive arsenal of weapons for socialist class struggle for animal liberation on the cultural terrain in capitalist societies today comes to light when the oeuvre of early Soviet and futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930) is reread through the lens of Antonio Gramsci's theory of hegemony. This paper shows that the avant-garde artist's poetry and other writings comprise elements of an animalist Marxism avant la lettre: images and ideas of a political ethic and a mode of living that include animals, criticisms of capitalist society with respect to animal super-exploitation, conceptions of animal agency, and references to utopias in which social relations to nonhuman creatures are peaceful. These features need to be conceived not only as an integral part of Mayakovsky's vigorously advocated third, cultural revolution of the Soviet way of life. Rather, they need to be considered as useful instruments to construct an animalist socialist counterculture that builds on and supplements the socioeconomic and political battle against (animal) capital.
Capital & Class, 2023
Human–animal scholars have repeatedly accused Marx of standing in the tradition of a Cartesian hu... more Human–animal scholars have repeatedly accused Marx of standing in the tradition of a Cartesian human–animal dualism. One central piece of evidence brought forward to substantiate the attack is Marx’s concept of labour. The present article, however, argues that Marx’s conceptualisation of labour is actually non-speciesist and recognises non-waged and other than human forms of labour as well without renouncing qualitative distinctions between them. For Marx, both useful labour and the historically specific capitalist form of social labour cannot be reduced to something peculiar to man. Useful labour encompasses a wide range of ways to transform nature. Due to the bourgeois social relations, capitalist social labour is instead limited to human productive wage labour, excluding numerous types of human labour as well as animal labour. Thus, his concept of labour proves that Marx is not just another ‘speciesist’ scholar in the long Western tradition of philosophy.
Transdisciplinary Impulses towards Socio-Ecological Transformation, 2022
Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 2021
This paper develops programmatically the concept of meat hegemony with recourse to Antonio Gramsc... more This paper develops programmatically the concept of meat hegemony with recourse to Antonio Gramsci’s notions of the integral state and of hegemony. It conceptualizes meat hegemony as a reciprocal interplay between (a) the state monopoly on the use of force (which guarantees private property in animals and the exchange of meat-based commodities), and (b) the manufacturing of consent within the working and middle classes towards the accumulation of meat capital. This is achieved, first, by the politico-ideological and organizational unification of meat capital and, second, by economic concessions to subaltern class fractions, a carnivorous mode of life, and pro-meat ideologies. The meat hegemony is rooted in the capitalist socioeconomic relations between capital and labor (capital relation) and capital and animals (capital-animal relation). They produce a contradiction between capital on the one hand and wage laborers and animals on the other which needs to be regulated politically, culturally, and ideologically in order to guarantee the economic reproduction of meat capital.
Capital & Class
In the last three decades, the interchange between Marxism and critical human–animalism has grati... more In the last three decades, the interchange between Marxism and critical human–animalism has gratifyingly picked up. Scholars use Marxist categories to analyse and criticise the exploitation and oppression of animals in capitalism. But the application of Marx’s original concepts often rests on fragile analogies and judgements. To conceptualise the exploitation of animals accurately and substantiate the common class struggle for humans and animals theoretically, the present article serves to get the terminology straight with respect to four interrelated topics. First, the common charge against Marx’s theory to build on a human–animal dualism is refuted by showing that he understands the relationship between humans and animals as a historical materialist, socio-practical and dialectical differentiation. Second, based on a relational understanding of the capitalist mode of production, I argue that animals are not wage labourers, slaves or super-exploited commodities. Rather, as nature i...
Monthly Review
In this continuation of the exchange on "Marx and Alienated Speciesism" and…
International Critical Thought
Http Edoc Vifapol De Opus Volltexte 2014 4891 Pdf Ausdruck2_2011_07Stache Pdf, 2011
Monthly Review
In human-animal studies and critical animal studies, the most influential treatment of animalist ... more In human-animal studies and critical animal studies, the most influential treatment of animalist Marxism and Marxist animalism has been developed by Ted Benton on the basis of his interpretation of Karl Marx's work. This article focuses minutely on Benton's argument and Marx's Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (or Paris Manuscripts), refuting Benton's contentions point by point and forcefully challenging the idea that Marx's work was speciesist in orientation.
Z. Zeitschrift Marxistische Erneuerung, 2021
The Capitalist Commodification of Animals, 2020
It is widely accepted among critical human–animal scholars that an absolute ontological distincti... more It is widely accepted among critical human–animal scholars that an absolute ontological distinction between humans and animals, the human–animal dualism, is an ideological construction. However, even some of the most radical animalists make use of a softer version of it when they explain animal exploitation and domination in capitalism. By criticizing the reintroduction of the human–animal dualism through the back door, I reopen the terrain for a historical–materialist explanation of bourgeois animal exploitation and domination that does not conceptualize them as a matter of species in the first place. Rather, with reference and in analogy to ecosocialist arguments on the greenhouse effect, it is demonstrated that a specific faction of capital – animal capital – which uses animals and animal products as means of production, is the root cause, key agent, and main profiteer of animal exploitation and domination in the current mode of production. Thus, the reworked concept of animal capital presented here differs from the original, postoperaist notion introduced by Nicole Shukin since it is based on a classic sociorelational and value theoretical understanding of capitalism. According to this approach, animals are integrated socioeconomically into the capitalist class society via a relation of superexploitation to capital, which can be called the capital–animal relation.
Z. Zeitschrift Marxistische Erneuerung, 2019
Zeitschrift für kritische Tierstudien, 2019
Zeitschrift für kritische Tierstudien, 2018
Z. Zeitschrift Marxistische Erneuerung, 2018
Z. Zeitschrift Marxistische Erneuerung, 2019
Z. Zeitschrift Marxistische Erneuerung, 2022
Z. Zeitschrift Marxistische Erneuerung, 2022
Z. Zeitschrift Marxistische Erneuerung, 2021
International Critical Thought, 2019
Victor Wallis’s Red-Green Revolution is about ecosocialism as politics. He discusses the possible... more Victor Wallis’s Red-Green Revolution is about ecosocialism as politics. He discusses the possible indispensable short-term ecosocialist reforms, particularly regarding technologies, within the necessary long-term challenge to revolutionize the capitalist mode of production. He outlines a political line of a potential ecosocialist organization within a movement as class-based, differentiating it from hyper-constructivist, anti-catastrophist and intersectional positions. Despite its indisputable merits, the argument needs some further socioeconomic theorization.