Walter Benjamin and the Critique of Political Economy: A New Historical Materialism

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Exploring the connections between Walter Benjamins philosophy of history and a Marxian Critique of Political Economy, Duy Lap Nguyen analyses Benjamins early writings and their development into a distinct understanding of historical materialism. Benjamins historically materialist conception of history is shown to be characterised by a focus on the religion of capitalism, the mythology of the state, and messianic time. Revealing these factors, Nguyen joins up Benjamins philosophical critique of the Kantian conception of history, alongside the historical trajectory of capitalism he subscribed to. Influenced by the theory of fascism outlined by German Marxist theorist Karl Korsch, we see how Benjamins own theory of revolution and redemption in capitalist society developed into a sophisticated critique. Essential to Benjamins materialist critique was a recognition of the fallibility of the Enlightenment notion of progress, as well as the need to overturn the political and economic catastrophes which enable capitalism and fascism to thrive. In mapping the exact course of Benjamins critical historical materialism, Nguyen fully explicates the unique contribution he made to western Marxism.

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In Water Benjamin and the Critique of Political Economy, Duy Lap Nguyen shows how Benjamin in his later work appropriates a Marx unsuspected by orthodox Marxists, one whose conception of historical time is no less messianic than dialectical. Through wide-ranging and detailed analyses, he demonstrates the fundamental consistency of this new, allegorically framed historical materialism in Benjamin with the earlier metaphysical anarchism that is understood to culminate in the 1928 Trauerspiel book. * Howard Eiland, Lecturer in Literature (retired), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA [preferred by-line: Howard Eiland, co-author of Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life] *
In a challenge to the dualism, sustained by many scholars and intellectual historians, opposing an earlier, pre-Marxist and Neo-Kantian Benjamin to the later, militantly anti-fascist but unorthodox historical materialist, Duy Lap Nguyen here argues the case for an ultimate, authorial will to synthesis, albeit one decisively mediated by Benjamins often startlingly contemporary understanding of Capital and Marxs mature critique of political economy. In this way he comes as close as anyone has to presenting us with a Benjaminian opus adequate to the contemporary, acute crisis of capitalism. Along the way, Nguyen likewise educates both new and veteran students of Benjamin with careful and often novel interpretations of most of the major and many of the authors lesser-known works and, for example, recapitulates for explanatory as well as critical purposes the nineteenth century neo-Kantianism of now often forgotten philosophical and political sources of influence and authority (e.g., the Marburg School) over the revisionist European Social Democracy against which not only Benjamin but contemporaries such as Lukcs and Ernst Bloch were at pains to redefine themselves, thereby helping to inaugurate modern western Marxism in the process. This is a work of careful and often exhaustive scholarship. * Neil Larsen, Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature, University of California Davis, USA *

Author Bio

Duy Lap Nguyen is Assistant Professor in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages at the University of Houston, Texas, USA.