Zhang Shuangli: Capitalist Religion and Historical Materialism
Abstract: By examining the relevant ideas of three Western Marxist thinkers—Ernst Bloch, Georg Lukács, and Walter Benjamin—this article provides a concrete analysis of the 20th-century revival of the Marxist critique of fetishism. The article points out that this group of Central European intellectuals, represented by Bloch, transcended Max Weber's ideas on "disenchantment" [1] through their reflections on the "Jewish Question," thereby arriving at an insight into the religious nature of capitalism. It was precisely under this premise that they subsequently turned to Marx’s position on the critique of fetishism. Following their turn toward a Marxist stance, they reconstructed Marx's theory of the critique of fetishism from two dimensions: the critique of capitalism as religion and the path toward the sublation [2] of said religion. Through this reconstruction, they more clearly presented the secret of the religion of capitalism—namely, abstract domination—while simultaneously re-examining the relationship between historical materialism and religion within the context of capitalist fetishism.
Keywords: Religion of capitalism; Fetishism; Historical materialism
Introduction: On the 20th-Century Revival of the Marxist Critique of Fetishism
In the history of Western Marxism, there exists a very unique intellectual phenomenon: a group of European Jewish intellectuals, including Lukács and Ernst Bloch, were all directly influenced by Max Weber’s thought in their early years, yet they ultimately made a clear turn toward the Marxist position. As is well known, a tremendous tension exists between the thoughts of Weber and Marx. Regarding their judgment on the religious nature of capitalist society, their conclusions appear diametrically opposed: Weber took "disenchantment" as the fundamental characteristic of modern society, treating it as the inevitable fate that modern humanity must endure; Marx, however, explicitly pointed out that in the most fundamental sense, people in capitalist society are under the domination of capitalist fetishism. Faced with such a contradiction, how were thinkers like Lukács and Bloch able to fuse the ideas of these two figures? Regarding the fundamental judgment of capitalist society, why did they ultimately turn from Weber to Marx and re-embrace Marx’s critique of capitalist fetishism, thereby bringing about a 20th-century revival of this critique? In this process, what kind of reconstruction did they perform on Marx’s critique of fetishism? All these questions are of great significance for our in-depth understanding of the social critical theory of Western Marxism. From the perspective of intellectual history, these issues do not merely involve the unique intellectual trajectory of a single thinker, but rather relate to a general intellectual shift among an entire generation of European Jewish intellectuals at that time. This group included Lukács and Bloch—both members of Weber’s Heidelberg circle—as well as Benjamin, who was directly influenced by Bloch, and early members of the Frankfurt School [3] such as Horkheimer and Adorno (the latter two being directly influenced by History and Class Consciousness). From the perspective of the content of the ideas themselves, it involves the fundamental judgment on the religious nature of capitalism and a rethinking of the path toward sublating religion.
To answer these questions, this article will focus on discussing the relevant thoughts of three representative figures of early Western Marxism—Bloch, Benjamin, and Lukács—with an emphasis on examining their judgments regarding the religious nature of capitalist society and their reconstruction of Marx’s critique of fetishism. Among these three thinkers, Bloch was at the forefront regarding the judgment of the religious nature of capitalist society; his intellectual orientation represented the general trend among Central European Jewish intellectuals of that era. Under his direct influence, Benjamin and Lukács not only accepted this judgment but also each provided original analyses of the basic characteristics of the religion of capitalist society. To this end, in the first part of this article, we will take Bloch as an example to specifically examine how, under the exigencies of the "Jewish Question," he arrived at the conclusion that capitalism itself had degenerated into a religion by inheriting and transcending Weber’s relevant ideas. On this basis, we will further explore the analysis of the specific nature of the religion of capitalism provided by Bloch, Benjamin, and others.
For this group of European Jewish intellectuals living in the early 20th century, it was precisely due to their profound insight into the religious nature of capitalist society that they eventually turned to the position of Marx’s critique of fetishism. After turning to the Marxist position, they reconstructed Marx’s critique of fetishism from two aspects: the critique of the religion of capitalism and the sublation of the religion of capitalism. Both aspects of this reconstruction have direct significance for our analysis and critique of the contemporary capitalist world today: the former helps us penetrate the secret of "abstract domination" in the modern capitalist world; the latter, against the backdrop of secularization, once again submits the question of the relationship between historical materialism and religion to us. To this end, in the second part of this article, we will take Lukács's History and Class Consciousness as an example to specifically examine his further revelation of the secrets of the religion of capitalism; in the concluding part of the article, we will briefly outline the reflections of Bloch, Lukács, and Benjamin on the fundamental path for sublating the religion of capitalism, particularly highlighting the differences in their understanding of the path of historical materialism.
1. Capitalism Has Degenerated into a Religion (Bloch)
We begin by taking Bloch as an example to analyze the idea that capitalism itself has degenerated into a religion. Bloch was able to reach this conclusion, on the one hand, due to his unique reflections on the "Jewish Question," and on the other hand, it was directly attributable to the influence of Weber’s thought, especially Weber’s unique exposition of the internal relationship between Protestantism and the historical genesis of capitalism in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
As Central European Jewish intellectuals in the early 20th century, the intellectual development of Bloch and his peers was closely related to the "Jewish Question" [4]. After 1870, accompanied by the implementation of assimilation policies in the German-speaking world, a wealthy Jewish stratum quickly formed in the cities; the fathers of Lukács and Benjamin both belonged to this stratum. At the same time, in public spheres such as the military, state administration, local government, and education, Jews remained excluded. Against this backdrop, with the bankrupted petty bourgeoisie as the main body, an "anti-Semitic" movement began to rise in society after 1870. Thus, the "Jewish Question" became a reality they had to face. Under the pressure of the "Jewish Question," these Jewish intellectuals, on the one hand, severed the internal connection with their fathers' lifestyle, losing their identification with the bourgeois way of life and the liberal position; on the other hand, they could not directly identify with the position of "guardians of culture" held by university philosophers (such as Georg Simmel and Weber). That is to say, they viewed the "Jewish Question" as a problem of the entire bourgeois civilization rather than a problem concerning the survival and interests of the Jews as a specific group. Under this premise, they were deeply moved by Simmel and Weber's critiques of capitalist civilization; however, they could not directly adopt the paths proposed by Simmel and Weber for solving the problem. From the perspective of practical life, this was because the cultural sphere centered on the university took a clear stance of exclusion toward Jews; as Jewish intellectuals, they were effectively unable to be accepted by the university or attain the status of "traditional intellectuals" in society. From the perspective of the ideas themselves, this was because the position of Simmel and others in "guarding culture" was actually a form of anti-capitalist romanticism. Once this anti-capitalist romantic demand was implemented as a right-wing German nationalist position, this group of Jewish intellectuals lost their intellectual territory.
What, then, was the path to solving the problem? Through unique reflections on the "Jewish Question," Bloch began to clearly identify with the traditions of Jewish Messianism and Christian eschatology. In The Spirit of Utopia, particularly in the appendix to the 1918 edition, "The Jews, a Symbol," we can clearly see this intellectual thread. Regarding the "Jewish Question," he opposed the general path of assimilation, for that meant choosing the soulless, non-religious life of the bourgeoisie, whereas in his view, the essence of the Jewish Question was the crisis of bourgeois civilization. Simultaneously, he also opposed the "Zionist" path represented by Martin Buber, for that would mean reducing the unique Jewish cultural tradition to a "nation-state" in Asia. This path lacked the capacity to respond to the universal crisis of bourgeois civilization. Differing from these two paths, the road Bloch ultimately chose was a self-conscious identification with "Jewish identity." Furthermore, it meant insisting on our continuity with the people of the age of "Psalms" and the "Prophets," and upholding the tradition of Jewish Messianism. Only in this way could we penetrate the nihilistic essence of bourgeois civilization and, within history, open a new era by virtue of our hope for the Messiah and our resolute struggle against evil and falsehood. At the same time, he emphasized that an internal connection exists between Judaism and Christianity, and that Christ is the prophet concerning the Messiah. Based on this tradition of Jewish Messianism and Christian eschatology, he explicitly assessed the existing capitalist world as a world controlled by a false god, and stated that our task is to prepare for the approaching final battle.
Under this premise, he reinterpreted Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. This book had an extremely important influence on Bloch and his peers, as it very clearly incorporated religious factors into the investigation of capitalist society, laying the intellectual foundation for their further exploration of the relationship between capitalism and religion. Weber emphasized the important role of Calvinism in the formation of capitalism, while simultaneously revealing how the principle of formal rationality became the dominant principle in the capitalist world. In brief, the Protestant Reformation originated from the believers' intense dissatisfaction with the highly formalistic system of Catholicism, but their efforts to oppose that formalistic system ultimately brought about another formal system, one even more enslaving than the former. The reason for this was that once Protestants were liberated from various Catholic formal rituals, they immediately found themselves muddled in deep anxiety. This was because, having removed those formal rituals, they could no longer rely on these mediations to confirm God’s salvation for themselves. Taking the Protestant concept of man as a tool for God to realize His will as a premise, such anxiety was then further sublimated into labor—the manipulation and control of the world through calculation. Thus, the world was no longer directly connected to God; its relationship with God was now mediated by human work.
In other words, the Calvinist work ethic thus replaced Catholic religious ritual. The true meaning of this process is "disenchantment," because only when the world has been "disenchanted" can it become the object and product of human labor. Throughout this entire process, as religious passion gradually recedes, all that remains is formal rationality (or technological rationality). On the one hand, the former transforms the world into an object of our calculation and manipulation; on the other, it allows man to become a "subject" by enabling him to possess this world of objects. Furthermore, it in turn makes man himself an object of calculation.
For Bloch, the elective affinity between Calvinism and capitalism revealed here by Weber precisely demonstrates that capitalism itself has degenerated into a bad religion: "Due to the obligation of abstract work, production is unfolded in a harsh and systematic form, because Calvin attributed poverty solely to consumption, which led to the accumulation and generation of capital. For people, wealth itself was attached to the duty of saving; it was treated at this point as an abstract quantity, becoming an end in itself that demanded constant growth. ... As Weber pointed out, the developing capitalist economy has completely broken free from the restrictions placed upon it by primitive Christianity, and has also thoroughly dissociated itself from the Christian content contained within medieval economic ethics." (Ernst Bloch, Thomas Münzer als Theologe der Revolution, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1962, p. 119.) Here, Bloch first keenly grasps the fundamental opposition between Calvinism and primitive Christianity (as well as medieval Christianity). On this basis, he further reveals the fundamental opposition between capitalism (as accompanied by Calvinism) and primitive Christianity. In capitalist society, it is now capital or wealth—treated purely as an abstract quantity—that occupies the position of God in primitive Christianity. In this sense, we can clearly state that capitalism itself has become a religion; in the religion of capitalism, capital has become the new God.
Under his direct influence, within Weber's academic salon in Heidelberg, Lukács gradually accepted his judgment, viewing the modern world not only as a "world abandoned by God," but as an "Antichrist world." Benjamin was later directly influenced by Bloch’s Thomas Münzer as Theologian of the Revolution (1921); in an unpublished short essay written at the end of 1921, he took "Capitalism as Religion" as his explicit title. (Michael Löwy, "Capitalism as Religion: Walter Benjamin and Max Weber," Historical Materialism, volume 17, issue 1, 2009, p. 61.)
2. Basic Characteristics of the Religion of Capitalism (Bloch and Benjamin)
To further illustrate the fundamental opposition between the religion of capitalism and Christianity, they conducted a specific analysis of the religious nature of capitalism. Broadly speaking, they revealed the uniquely self-contradictory nature of the capitalist religion through three different dimensions.
First, the capitalist religion is an idolatrous religion, yet its object of worship is simultaneously abstract and non-abstract. On the one hand, in capitalist society, what people actually worship are merely visible things created by human hands. To accurately describe the religious nature of capitalism, Bloch specifically chose the two images of "Mammon" [5] and the "golden calf" [6] to define the object of worship in capitalist religion. In the new edition of Thomas Münzer as Theologian of the Revolution, when characterizing the religion of capitalism, he changed the original "Church of Satan" to the "Church of Mammon." Through this change, the idolatrous nature of the capitalist religion was revealed even more clearly. Here, the object of worship is directly money—a creation of human hands. In The Spirit of Utopia, he directly used the term "golden calf" to demonstrate the idolatrous nature of the capitalist religion.
On the other hand, Bloch simultaneously pointed out that the object people worship is actually something abstract and completely devoid of concrete content. In the passage cited above, Bloch clearly indicates that what people now worship is merely wealth treated as an abstract quantity. In The Spirit of Utopia, he explicitly states that people worship only the hide of a golden calf with nothing beneath it: "This is how bad things can—and must—happen to us; of course, I can dance and sing for my supper. But that this is a dance around the golden calf, or rather, only around the hide of a golden calf with nothing beneath it: this still strikes us with surprise. It means we have no concept of socialism. On the contrary, we have degenerated into the most wretched vertebrates; all of us either worship our own bellies or worship the state; everything else has descended to the level of jokes and entertainment." (Ernst Bloch, The Spirit of Utopia, trans. Anthony Nassar, Meridian, 2000, p. 2.) That is to say, whether we worship self-interest or the abstract state, they are fundamentally abstract and hollow.
Secondly, the capitalist religion is a practical religion, yet it simultaneously contains two opposite poles: on the one hand, it is purely practical, devoid of any theology or dogma; on the other hand, it simultaneously breeds all kinds of religious pursuits. Benjamin provided a direct depiction of this characteristic in his essay "Capitalism as Religion": "...a religion of pure cult, perhaps the most extreme cultic religion that has ever existed. In it, anything that does not relate directly to the cult is meaningless; it has no specific dogma or theology. From this perspective, utilitarianism acquires a religious coloration within it." (Walter Benjamin, Selected Writings, ed. Marcus Bullock and Michael Jennings, Cambridge and London, 1999, vol. 4, p. 288–291.) Here, we can clearly see that the capitalist religion is exactly the opposite of abstract religion. For believers of abstract religions, being conscious of their relationship with God is a prerequisite for their faith. But for people in capitalist society, they are merely practicing acts of worship while remaining utterly unaware that these are cultic or religious acts. In this regard, the capitalist religion is extremely similar to ancient paganism; it possesses no theology or dogma. That is, there is no mediation between people and the "God" they worship; there is only a direct identification between the people and the object of their worship. They recognize the latter as the sole meaning of their lives, and for this very reason, this act of worship necessarily covers every place and every time. In fact, it has now indeed developed into a universal system, reaching every corner of the world.
Seemingly contradictory to this, and linked to the practical nature of the capitalist religion, capitalist society simultaneously breeds many efforts to escape this universal cult. In Benjamin’s view, the most important phenomenon in this regard is the proliferation of various sectarian faiths within the capitalist world. He keenly observed that in the modern capitalist world, there exists not only the worship of money and commodities that has enveloped the entire globe, but also the simultaneous existence of various religious sects. In the essay "Experience and Poverty" written in the 1930s, he specifically elaborated on this phenomenon. He emphasized that precisely because people in the capitalist world are fundamentally unconscious of the religious nature of their daily actions, when they attempt to escape from this "disenchanted" world toward the opposite pole—namely, seeking a home in various religions—they are actually still under the control of the capitalist religion. These poles that seem to stand in direct opposition to the entire capitalist world are, in fact, poles internal to the capitalist religion.
Thirdly, the capitalist religion is fundamentally a non-redemptive religion, yet it simultaneously manifests as infinite progress. Starting with Bloch, they opposed the religion of capitalism to the religion of God, treating the former as a religion of a false God. As a religion of a false God, it can only lead to the eternal enslavement of man and can never bring true salvation. In "Capitalism as Religion," Benjamin explicitly pointed out—through a detailed interpretation of the triple meaning of the word Schuld—that the capitalist religion only leads to the eternal increase of the blame we carry, making it so we can never be redeemed. Schuld holds a central significance in the Protestant ethic, but according to Benjamin's interpretation, besides meaning "duty" [responsibility], it simultaneously means "guilt" and "debt." Accordingly, the capitalist religion actually traps us in a process of infinite deterioration from which there is no redemption. At the same time, they also saw clearly that for those living in capitalist society, the meaning presented by the capitalist religion is the myth of progress. It can be said that all their theoretical reflections on capitalist religion were fundamentally intended to shatter this myth of progress.
II. Re-evaluating the Secret of Capitalist Fetishism (Lukács)
Why does the capitalist religion possess the aforementioned self-contradictory determinations? What exactly is its internal secret? After turning to Marxism, Lukács found the clues to solving these problems through a reconstruction of Marx's critique of commodity fetishism.
1. Why is the religion of capitalism both non-abstract and abstract?
At the very beginning of the essay "Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat," Lukács explicitly states that the core ideas of the text are derived directly from Marx, especially Marx’s revelation of the "riddle of the commodity structure." "The essence of the commodity structure has been pointed out many times. Its basis is that the relationship between persons acquires the character of a thing and thus a 'phantom objectivity,' an objectivity that conceals every trace of its fundamental nature—the relationship between people—by its strict, seemingly perfect and rational autonomy." (Lukács, History and Class Consciousness, trans. Du Zhangzhi et al., Commercial Press, 1992, p. 144.) That is to say, within the capitalist commodity structure, the relationship between people becomes a thing. This thing not only appears independent and autonomous but also somewhat uncanny; it is as elusive as a phantom, yet it in turn dictates the existence of human beings. In this concise summary, Lukács has actually touched upon the most important characteristic of capitalist commodity fetishism: namely, that it is both non-abstract (it is a fetishism, not an abstract religion) and abstract.
Why, then, is it non-abstract? Lukács believes this simultaneously involves both the object and the subject. From the perspective of the object, it is because the objects people worship at this time are things—the creations of human hands. From the perspective of the subject, it is because people in capitalist society have no idea that their relationship with this world is one of religious worship. Due to these two aspects, it is a form of fetishism completely different from abstract religion. Regarding the object of worship in the religion of capitalism, Marx pointed out from various angles in his works that it is a "thing" [物], a creation of human hands. As early as the conclusion of On the Jewish Question, in order to demonstrate the religious character of civil society, Marx noted that secular Judaism is the spirit of civil society. "Judaism" here does not refer to the monotheism of the Israelites based on the Old Testament, but rather to money fetishism. The most direct characteristic of money fetishism is that people worship a creation of human hands—money. This idea was further developed in Capital into the theory of commodity fetishism. In Volume I, Part I, Chapter 1 of Capital, Marx points out that in a capitalist society where the commodity is the cell-form, once the products of human labor become commodities, they immediately take on a fetishistic character—becoming a "sensuous thing which is at the same time suprasensible or social," [7] abounding in "metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties." The actual situation then is that the commodity, as a creation of human hands, "appears as a self-subsistent entity endowed with a life of its own, entering into relations both with other self-subsistent entities and with the human race" (Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Ch. 1, Sec. 4). It becomes an object of worship.
Lukács elaborated further on this basis, emphasizing that our object of worship is actually that "autonomized, law-governed process of things" [物的自动的合规律的过程] whose content is the commodity. That is to say, although this world is, in the final analysis, entirely man-made, people—existing as commodities within this process—are also produced; they are immediate products, merely mechanical cogs in this process of things, utterly unable to comprehend that this "process of things" is man-made. "The commodity is produced; the worker as a commodity, as an immediate product, can at most be a mechanical cog in this machine" (Lukács, History and Class Consciousness). Consequently, this man-made "process of things" miraculously becomes an object of worship. Regarding the subject of worship, Lukács emphasized that people in capitalist society are not only trapped in the worship of this "process of things," but are also completely unaware that their relationship with this society is one of religious worship. In capitalist society, due to the process of rationalization, people adopt a purely contemplative [直观] attitude toward the world. In this contemplative relationship, the human (the bourgeois), as a pure spectator of this world, mistakenly identifies himself as the subject of this world. Although it is difficult for workers to imagine themselves as great subjects, they are likewise unable to break through this myth of the cognitive subject. Thus, the entire modern world is perceived as a thoroughly disenchanted world, and the relationship between man and the world is perceived as a relationship of rational cognition.
On this basis, Lukács further points out that this fetishism is also abstract, and its secret lies in the so-called "rule of the abstract" [抽象的统治]. Marx explicitly stated in Capital that although a commodity is a "thing," its character as a commodity is entirely unrelated to the physical properties of the product of labor; therefore, a commodity is a commodity due to something exceeding those physical properties. Furthermore, it originates from the abstract, universal relations between people. "The commodity-form, and the value-relation of the products of labor within which it appears, have absolutely no connection with the physical nature of the commodity and the material relations arising out of this. It is nothing but the definite social relation between men themselves which assumes here, for them, the fantastic form of a relation between things" (Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Ch. 1, Sec. 4). Building on this, Lukács, in his theory of reification, further emphasizes that "abstract labor" is the sole social category in capitalist society, determining all forms of objectivity and subjectivity therein. "The universality of the commodity-form conditions the abstraction of human labor objectified in the commodity, both subjectively and objectively" (Lukács, History and Class Consciousness). Regarding the object, it means that qualitatively different objects are reduced to the identical commodity-form; regarding the subject, it means that human labor has actually become abstract labor. "On the subjective side, this formal identity of abstract human labor is not only the common factor to which various different objects in the commodity relation are reduced, but it becomes the real principle governing the actual production process of commodities." Therefore, the reason the world of commodities possesses such magical power over man, holding him completely under its control, is the rule of abstract labor over him. The significant contribution of Lukács’s theory of reification lies in its concrete disclosure of the secret of the rule of abstract labor through the critique of "rationalization" and reified consciousness.
In Lukács’s view, the process by which abstract labor gradually achieves universal rule over man is precisely the "process of rationalization" in the Weberian sense: "For us, the most important thing is the principle at work here: the principle of regulation based on calculation, that is, calculability" (Lukács, History and Class Consciousness). The most hidden secret inherent in this process is reified consciousness. This means that the development of the capitalist division of labor has not only resulted in "the subordination of man to the machine," but has also caused people to adopt a contemplative attitude toward this rationalized capitalist production process before them. People perceive it as an automatic, law-governed system unaffected by human activity. Relative to this system, the human is merely a partial element extracted and added into it. Within this contemplative attitude, the most basic categories that determine our most immediate stance toward the world have changed: "The contemplative attitude also changes the basic categories of man’s immediate attitude toward the world: this attitude views space and time as common things, reducing time to the level of space" (Lukács, History and Class Consciousness). This is the "spatialization of time" [时间的空间化]; more specifically, it means the organic connection between time and each individual worker is thoroughly severed, becoming "abstract, accurately measurable time, converted into physical space." Applied to the workers, this manifests as a double abstraction: on the one hand, a self-fragmentation occurs within the worker, as his labor power (manifesting as mechanical/fragmented labor) is separated from his entire personality; on the other hand, this partitioned labor is reduced to pure quantity within the production process.
Lukács’s analysis of reified consciousness shows that the rule of abstract labor over man is actually realized through the self-conscious awareness of each individual (our reduction of ourselves in consciousness to commodities possessing only quantitative determinations). As mentioned earlier, for the bourgeoisie, the situation appears to be the exact opposite: when facing this process of rationalization, they perceive themselves as the rational subjects of the world. Lukács perceptively points out that they are subjects only in appearance; fundamentally, they are equally the objects of this process: "Consciously, the single individual as a cognitive subject faces the immense objective necessity of social events, of which he can understand only some minor details, while in reality, it is precisely the conscious action of the individual that resides on the objective side of the process, whereas the subject of the process (the class) cannot attain conscious awareness; the conscious action of the individual must always transcend the consciousness of the (apparent) subject, i.e., the individual" (Lukács, History and Class Consciousness). Lukács emphasizes here that individuals in capitalist society are actually only objects of this "process of things," utterly powerless to grasp the true totality. For this reason, Lukács further points out that a direct, reciprocal relationship exists between this fetishism and abstract religion (Calvinism). "It was the same revolutionary Calvinism that combined the ethical proof of one’s own piety (inner-worldly asceticism) with the total transcendence of the objective powers that move the world and determine man’s fate (the doctrine of predestination); this combination meant mythologizing and refining the thing-in-itself structure of bourgeois reified consciousness" (Lukács, History and Class Consciousness). That is to say, our spectatorship toward that "autonomized, law-governed process of things" in the capitalist world and our belief in the doctrine of predestination in Calvinist religion are essentially the same thing; the essence of both is the "rule of the abstract."
2. Why is the religion of capitalism a destructive religion?
By revealing the abstract nature of this world of "things" composed of commodities, Lukács further discloses two important pairs of contradictions inherent within: the contradiction between form and content, and the contradiction between the part and the totality. By further revealing the internal connection between these two pairs of contradictions, he explicitly points out that commodity fetishism possesses absolutely no redemptive character.
First, from the perspective of the relationship between form and content, because this world of commodities is abstract, although it possesses the appearance of "things," it is fundamentally unable to truly encompass actual content. Specifically, not only is the unique "thing-like" quality of the object of labor unable to be encompassed within the commodity-form, but the unique "human" quality of the laborer is also excluded from the commodity-form. Within the commodity-form, what actually occurs is a rupture in the relationship between man and the object of labor, a rupture in the relationship between man and himself, and a rupture in the relationship between man and others. As a result of this triple rupture, the commodity-form becomes a pure form devoid of content.
Second, from the perspective of the relationship between the totality and the part, since people completely exclude content in their grasp of the commodity-form, they are fundamentally unable to reach the totality, because a true totality can only be reached through content. In this sense, the entire capitalist world is irrational; the rationality of that contentless form can only ever be achieved within some partial systems, while the relationship between these systems can only be one of pure contingency. Therefore, the existential process of capitalism is necessarily a process of encountering one disaster after another; in these disasters, the connection between various partial systems is suddenly interrupted, and the logic of capitalism’s continuous formalization cannot proceed. What the worship of commodities brings about is precisely people’s endless pursuit of the abstract power inherent in the commodity-form; thus, commodity fetishism is the powerful driver pushing capitalism from one disaster to the next. On this road of no return, the only fate that commodity fetishism brings to humanity is destruction.
Conclusion: Re-evaluating the Relationship between Historical Materialism and Religion (Lukács, Bloch, and Benjamin)
Viewing the critiques of capitalist fetishism by Ernst Bloch, Georg Lukács, and Walter Benjamin in their entirety, one could say they reconstructed Marx's theory of fetishism from two directions: the concrete critique of the religious nature of capitalism and the active exploration of paths to resolve the problem. Regarding the concrete elucidation of capitalism's religious nature, they used Max Weber’s insights to vividly reveal the essence of commodity fetishism—namely, the rule of abstraction. Simultaneously, nourished by Jewish tradition, they clearly perceived the fatal flaws of the principle of formal rationality, revealing its commonality with the principle of irrationality. Concerning the practical path for resolution, they chose two different routes in response to the religious nature of capitalism: a non-religious historical materialism (Lukács) and an alliance between historical materialism and religion (Bloch and Benjamin). For contemporary readers, the significance of these two paths lies in the fact that, in this modern world that appears to be thoroughly secularized, they remind us once again that achieving a positive sublation [12] of religion remains a task set before us.
Faced with commodity fetishism under capitalist conditions, the path Lukács chose was to continue the trajectory, established since Hegel, of using philosophy to sublate religion. Since religion here had already been manifested as the "rule of abstraction" occurring within the sphere of production, philosophy was correspondingly manifested as the class consciousness of the proletariat. Such a philosophy is capable of undertaking the task of sublating commodity fetishism because it is simultaneously the practice of transforming the entire social structure. Standing on the position of the proletariat, Lukács not only thoroughly purged the religious colors of his own early thought, but in History and Class Consciousness, he specifically criticized Bloch, opposing the alliance of Marxism and religion. He emphasized that we must follow the path of a thorough historical materialism. "When Ernst Bloch believes that a way to deepen 'purely economic' historical materialism can be found in this combination of religion and socio-economic revolution, he overlooks the fact that this deepening precisely neglects the truly profound aspect of historical materialism." (Georg Lukács, History and Class Consciousness, trans. Rodney Livingstone, The MIT Press, 1971, p. 193.) That is to say, historical materialism (or proletarian consciousness) is by no means so-called economic materialism, but a philosophy that has reached the height of sublating religion. Such a philosophy requires no assistance whatsoever from traditional religion; on its own, it can achieve the dual sublation of both traditional religion and capitalist fetishism.
In contrast to Lukács, Bloch and Benjamin insisted on the path of an alliance between Marxism and religion. Taking Benjamin as our example here, in his late work Theses on the Philosophy of History, he explicitly proposed the idea of an alliance between "historical materialism" and theology. In the first thesis, Benjamin presents his famous metaphor: theology is likened to a dwarf hidden under a chessboard, while "historical materialism" is likened to a puppet, with the dwarf holding the strings that manipulate it. Sitting opposite the puppet is its powerful opponent, but under the dwarf's manipulation, the puppet will win the match against this opponent (Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn, Schocken Books, 2007, p. 253). [This suggests that] something imposed from the outside through the power of colonialism and imperialism will not spontaneously emerge and develop within a society that possesses such a [non-Western] cultural background.
Finally, within this context, I am simultaneously reminded of the relationship between Mao Zedong and Marxism. In the initial process of capitalist formation, Western Europe, capitalism, and Christianity were quickly intertwined, and from this, new forms of Christianity were produced to satisfy the needs of capital. If we consider Marxism to be a critique of capital, while simultaneously recognizing that in many important respects Marx’s thought was made possible only through Christianity, then we arrive at some very interesting ideas: proceeding from the premise that the various forms of Chinese society (feudal, socialist, and capitalist) did not develop in relation to Christianity, we can see that Mao Zedong’s thought was likewise not generated within a Christian context. We might even say that Mao Zedong’s thought is the first "non-Christian Marxism."