Lukacs (First Half of Reading)

Lukacs wants to base his theory on Marx's economic points and use them to talk about fetishism related to commodities in subjective and objective forms. He thinks this is the only way we can see the issues within capitalism. Lukacs disagrees with Marx about the effect commodities have on a society in that he thinks that they are not the basis for the structure of society. Instead he believes that commodities have a negative effect on the structure, but do not control everything about it. Lukacs believes commodities are only a concern when their effects reach a universal scale. He thinks that once commodities effects become concrete within the development of society, then they become something that needs to be focused on. Lukacs said "it [(rationalism in perdicting results of broken down complexes and laws of protection)] must declare war on the traditional amalgam of empirical experiences of work: rationalisation is unthinkable without specialisation" (88). He explains that there can only be beliefs through reason if there is expertise in those areas.

Lukacs later defines time as space when referring to society for he feels the laborer is a machine and when thinking about him in performance, he merely takes up space. This statement lacks sense, does Lukacs feel that the reified version of time is space and therefore the reification of society converts time into space? He also sees alienation in mechanical societies and believes that the worker becomes separated.

Lukacs views the capitalism as the producer of its own harmony throughout the state and its laws, but how can it bring harmony to the state if the state is supported by its society that is alienated because of its work?Lukacs agrees that there are indeed faults to the system of laws; "can be flexible and irrational in character" (97). He knows to some extent that the older judicial system was faulty in reason but was also versatile, whereas the current and more modern system is more fixed.

Lukacs believes that competition could be eliminated from globalism about trade. The way he sees this happening is through a better reasoned calculation that functions beginning with the commodity owner. He makes clear, "if a rational calculation is to be possible the commodity owner must be in possession of the laws regulating every detail of his production" (102). This is basically suggesting a system in which the vendor of the people's resources controls the laws, but what would this mean to the laborers?

Science is a distant concept to Lukacs in relation to individuals ability. He sees that it is not problem of the individuals that they cannot understand every aspect but that it is solely the essence of science. He says, "It must be identified that this inability to penetrate to the real material substratum of science is not the fault of individuals. It is rather something that becomes all the more apparent the more science has advanced and the more consistently it functions--from the point of view of its own premises" (107). He finds progress as the only responsibility of the individual in science. This relates to what we discussed on Monday, the constructiveness of science is a never-ending objective and within the science of human societies Lukacs seems to also believe that society is constantly changing.