[sublatio_cum_laude]

Max Horkheimer and The Sociology of Class Relations

The value of this text requires some comment. There is of course the intrinsic worth of Horkheimer’s essay, and its relevance to one of the monuments of Western Marxism. What draws this text into the space of nonsite.org’s concerns is the intersection of union organization—what Horkheimer critically elaborates here under a general theory of “rackets”—and Marxism. To say unions and Marxism share a tense history is an understatement. Even a passing glance at Lenin’s What is To Be Done? indicates how centrally trade unions figured as an internal enemy to the Marxist cause. Horkheimer follows in this tradition in some large part. By the time Lenin came to write “Left-wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder in 1920, an essay devoted to the strategic art of compromise, he had altered, or substantially inflected, his view of the trade union movement as well as parliamentary politics. At this moment the Supreme Court is poised to offer yet another in a long series of blows against unionization in the United States. To what extent did and do Leftist thinkers contribute to the current assault on unions? To what extent can and should Marxism resist this tendency?

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