Michael Löwy and Daniel Bensaïd

Marxism and the critique of modernity

Abstract

In acceptance of the initial premise of the ideological concept of modernity, the present article attempts to anticipate specific aspects of the notion, common to Daniel Bensaïd and Michael Löwy, that Marxism should be regarded as a modern critique on modernity. This article seeks to emphasize the theoretical and political implications of this position, within a context of an emergent post-modern cultural logic (JAMESON, 1996), which has sparked debate on certain fundamentals of the philosophical discourse on modernity. It can be observed that the forms in which Bensaïd and Löwy articulate their critique (from their specific appropriations of the work of Walter Benjamin) of the historical “progress” of modernity, with special emphasis on the importance that they give to the ecological struggle, they are regarding it as an essential moment in anti-capitalist criticism against the destructive logic of the productive and social modern paradigm. A critique that, in being differentiated from the simple “post- modern” refusal of modernity, maintains (rearticulating it) some emancipated conquests and potentialities inherent in the modern world.