Title of Chapter/Section
Title of Book
Freedom in the Anthropocene: Twentieth-Century Helplessness in the Face of Climate Change
Department
Sociology and Anthropology
Document Type
Book Section/Chapter
Place of Publication
New York
Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan
Year of Publication
2015
Page Range
28-47
Description
This chapter situates Lukács' critique of reification (1923) in relation to the emergence of the Great Acceleration. We develop Lukács' critique through the issue of the increasing rationalization of industrial and administrative work in the early twentieth century. In do so, we show how Lukács is able to relocate the continued relevance of Marx's insights with respect to the deeper structure of capitalist society in his consideration of the differential manner in which proletariat and bourgeois class consciousness approach the problem of social contradictions. We then discuss how, for Lukács, the overcoming of reification (or the failure to do so) has profound implications for how society comes to regard history and the possibility of freedom. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the significance of Lukács' critique for our understanding of the Great Acceleration.
Recommended Citation
Stoner, Alexander M. and Melathopoulos, Andony, "Georg Lukács (1885-1971) and the Critique of Reification: On the Dialectical Genesis of the Great Acceleration" (2015). Book Sections/Chapters. 74.
https://commons.nmu.edu/facwork_bookchapters/74
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