Ethic Theory Moral Prac (2013) 16:699711

DOI 10.1007/s10677-013-9413-8

Three Marxian Approaches to Recognition

Emmanuel Renault

Accepted: 10 January 2013 / Published online: 13 April 2013

# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract If it seems fully legitimate to introduce Marx in the contemporary discussion

about recognition, it is more disputable to attribute to Marx an unified conception of
recognition. There is no doubt that Marx hasnt provided any systematic account of
recognition, but he has tackled the issue of recognition from various points of view. Could
these various points of view be unified in a general conception of recognition? This article
claims that this is not the case since three accounts of recognition should be distinguished
that are hardly compatible one with the other: one Feuerbachian account of recognition of
the species being in the other, one account of recognition related to the dynamics of
disrespect as social experience, and one account of recognition through social roles.

Keywords Hegel . Feuerbach . Marx . Recognition . Disrespect . Social roles

The notion of recognition is not central in Marxs writings. Nevertheless, the issue of
recognition plays a significant role in various texts, in which it is addressed either using
the term recognition itself or other terms (such as humiliation or Charaktermasken).
Hence, it is tempting to reconstruct something like a Marxian theory of recognition, that is, a
theory grounded in Marxs statements about the issue of recognition. And it is also tempting
to consider that such a reconstruction would provide interesting insights into contemporary
debates about actualizing Hegels account of recognition. In what follows, I would like to
elaborate some worries about such endeavours. For it seems that there are not one but three
Marxian accounts of recognition and that they are heterogeneous rather than complementary
because they rely on principles and methodologies that are hardly compatible. It also seems
that some of them, but not all, are quite irreducible to the kind of issue articulated in Hegels
philosophy and in contemporary attempts to develop and apply it. Nevertheless, even when
Marx accounts are at odds with contemporary debates, they are far from being of no interest
for our contemporary discussion. On the contrary, the fact that they sometimes rely on anti-
Hegelian presuppositions (of a Feuerbachian type) and that they are sometimes embedded in

E. Renault (*)
ENS de Lyon, UMR 5037, 15 Parvis Rn Descartes, 69366 Lyon Cedex 07, France
e-mail: emmanuel.renault@ens-lyon.fr
700 E. Renault

the specific project of a critique of capitalist interactions (such as in Capital) could help us to
recast the debate and open new fields of philosophical investigation.
I will proceed in three stages. The first will deal with the texts of 1844 (Economic and
Philosophical Manuscripts and Comments on James Mill). I will try and show that the issue
of recognition is addressed in a social-ontological rather than an action-theoretical perspec-
tive, and articulated in a Feuerbachian (or Hessian) rather than Hegelian way. In a second
stage, I will focus on the issue of humiliation, which is not addressed in terms of recognition
in Marx but nevertheless engages with some of our contemporary neo-Hegelian debates. I
will contend that for Marx, recognition as understood in these debates plays a significant
although limited role in social conflicts. In a final stage, I will try to delineate some
implications of the idea of recognition through Charaktermasken in Marxs Capital. In
each of these stages, I will focus on the specificity of Marxs arguments, but I will also try to
outline the implications of Marxs approach to recognition for our contemporary debates.

1 Society and Species-being in 1844

The whole discussion about recognition in the early Marx has been strongly influenced by
Habermass article Labour and interaction (1975). Habermas charged Marx with reducing
social action to work and instrumental interaction, and failing to take into account social action
as communicative interaction and recognition. In fact there is plenty of textual evidence to
show that when the early Marx emphasises work or production, in the Economic and
Philosophical Manuscripts or in the German Ideology, he also stresses the significance of the
exchanges (Austausch) or intercourse (Verkehr) between human beings, and he highlights the
point that these exchanges entail specific communicative relations of some kind, such as
linguistic relations (GI 43-4/30-1). Given that these communicative relations could be described
in terms of recognition, the question at issue seems to be the following: are the recognitive
relations conceived only as means to the productive activity, as Habermas (followed by
Honneth 1995) contends? Or are they articulated in their specific practical logic and with their
proper normative implications, as Brudney (2010) and Quante (2010) have recently suggested?
In this debate, the presupposition seems to be twofold: first, recognition would be understood
by Marx as a mode of interaction between individuals (as in Hegel); second, recognitive
interactions would play a significant role in practical interactions (again as in Hegel). By
contrast, I shall argue that Marx conceives of recognition in a Feuerbachian sense as a mirroring
relation in which a subject finds the image of its essence in an object (the other); and that he
understands practical interactions in a Hessian way as exchanges of activities.
To clarify the nature of the Feuerbachian context, it could be useful to recall that the crux
of Marxs philosophical position at that time is the theory of species-being (Gattungswesen)
and its implications for the notion of alienation. Marx identifies species-being with a set of
essential forces that have to be activated through essential objects that are the correlates of
essential needs:

Man is directly a natural being. As a natural being and as a living natural being he is
on the one hand endowed with natural forces, vital forceshe is an active natural
being. These forces exist in him as tendencies and abilitiesas drives [Triebe]. On the
other hand, as a natural, corporeal, sensuous objective being he is a suffering,
conditioned and limited creature, like animals and plants. That is to say, the objects
of his drives exist outside him, as objects independent of him; yet these objects are
objects that he needsessential objects, indispensable to the activation [Bettigung]
Three Marxian Approaches to Recognition 701

and confirmation [Besttigung] of his essential forces []. To be objective, natural

and sensuous, and at the same time to have object, nature and sense outside oneself, or
oneself to be object, nature and sense for a third party, is one and the same thing. (EPM
336/578)
Consequently, alienation is not so much the loss of human nature in objects, as in a
Hegelian-Feuerbachian model, but the deprivation of human essential objects that reduce
human being to a non-being (Unwesen), or a mere subject:
A being which does not have its nature outside itself is not a natural being, and plays
no part in the system of nature. A being which has no object outside itself is not an
objective being. () A non-objective being is a non-being. (EPM 337/578)

In other words, alienation means loss of object (Verlust des Gegenstandes) and un-
realisation (Entwirklichung) (EPM 272/512). This argumentation is crucial for the nature
and status of recognition in the texts of 1844 in which the issue of recognition is associated
with the question of the cognitive consequences of a realisation of species forces in
essential objects. Since these cognitive consequences are denoted by the notion of
confirmation (Besttigung) in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts and the
Comments on James Mill, recognition (Anerkennung) is a kind of confirmation
(Besttigung). Recognition means the confirmation of my nature and value as species-
being through the other as essential object. The fact that recognition is understood as
a cognitive consequence doesnt mean that recognition is reduced to cognitive recognition
(as Wiedererkennung rather than as Anerkennung). Rather, recognition is at the same time
cognitive recognition (as Wiedererkennung) of myself in the objects of my essential
forces, and positive evaluation of myself as belonging to the species being. It is worth
noting that Feuerbach sometimes uses the notion of recognition (Anerkennung) in saying
that Man should recognize himself in God (cf. Feuerbach 1950: 181, 182, 187). In order to
spell out the Marxian treatment of the question of recognition, three types of implications
have to be taken into consideration.
The first implication of this approach is that recognition is a cognitive consequence of a
practical achievement, rather than something for which we have a need or a desire. In 1844,
the relation between human beings and their essential objects is conceived of primarily as a
practical one and is recognitive only by consequence. It is only when given social relations
enable individuals to activate (bettigen) their essential forces in practical interactions with
the other and with nature that these essential objects will appear to them as objectifications
of their species being, or as a confirmation of their essence. In other world, it is only when
the conditions and products of their practical activity appear as means of satisfying their
essential needs that individuals will not only identify themselves in these conditions and
products (the cognitive aspect of a bei-sich-sein relation), but also will become aware of their
species-being in them. This argument is intended to make explicit the conditions of a true
self-consciousness: it depends on a non-alienated social situation in which individuals are
able to activate and become aware of their essential forces.
In the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts and the Comments on James Mill, there
is no hint that a need for recognition is conceived of as a single essential need or essential
drive that permeates practical activities. It is true that Marx states that the the first object of
human being is the human being and that poverty is the passive bond which causes the
human being to experience the need of the greatest wealththe other human being (EPM
304/543). But this need relates to practical relations to the other in practical cooperation
understood as the exchange of productive activities, rather than to recognitive relations with
702 E. Renault

him or her. If to have object, nature and sense outside oneself, or oneself to be object, nature
and sense for a third party, is one and the same thing (EPM 336/578), it is in the sense of
being integrated into the others productive activities, not in the sense of being recognized by
him or her. This point appears clearly when Marx explains that natural objects find their
essential objects in other natural objects, and are objects for each other:
The sun is the object of the plantan indispensable object to it, confirming its life [ihr
besttigender Gegenstand]just as the plant is an object of the sun, being an
externalisation of the life-awakening force of the sun, of the suns objective essential
force. (EPM 336-7/578)
And it could also be recalled that mens essential objects are not only human (or mediated
through human activity) but also and primarily natural (as it clear enough in the Economic
and Philosophical Manuscripts; cf. EPM 304/544). The most that can be said with regard to
a need for recognition is that a true self-consciousness is a necessary condition of a true
social life itself, and maybe a condition of the struggles for a true social life. Now, as part of
a non-alienated practical cooperation with the other (for instance in the struggles for
communism), mutual recognition finally becomes a need:
When communist artisans associate with one another, theory, propaganda, etc., is their
first end. But at the same time, as a result of this association, they acquire a new need
the need for societyand what appears as a means becomes an end. In this practical
process the most splendid results are to be observed whenever French socialist work-
ers are seen together. Such things as smoking, drinking, eating, etc., are no longer
means of contact or means that bring them together. Association, society and conver-
sation, which again has association as its end, are enough for them; the brotherhood of
man is no mere phrase with them, but a fact of life, and the nobility of man shines upon
us from their work-hardened bodies. (EPM 313/553-4)
The second implication of this approach to recognition is that what is recognized in the
other is not the essence of an individual or an essential feature shared by I and You
(such as the freedom shared by two individual self-consciousness in Hegel) that enables
them to participate to the same universality (the Hegelian We of the I that is a We, and the
We that is a I; cf. PhS 110). Instead, what is perceived by I in You is the infinity of
intelligence, will and love in a We (as in Feuerbach). In Marxs own terms, what is
recognized is the communal being (Gemeinwesen) as completion (Ergnzung)1 of our
individual existences. In Feuerbach, the problem is whether or not these species properties
are attributed to a We or to a transcendent being. In Marx, it is whether or not individuals
are involved in productive relationships with each other and with nature that enable them to
find a mirror of their Gemeinwesen in the way the other uses their products. This is the main
point made in well-known passage from the Comments on James Mill, which has already
been quoted.2
Here, recognition presupposes: 1) activation of my species being through objectification,
2) sensitive confirmation of my species being through enjoyment, 3) recognition of my
belonging to the species being through uses by others of the product of my activity, and 4)
recognition of each other as the completion of each other.

1
In a non alienated society, my product is a completion of your own essential nature [eine Ergnzung deines
eignen Wesens] (CJM 228/463) while in an alienated society our complementing each other is likewise a
mere semblance [unsere wechselseitige Ergnzung ist ebenfalls ein blosser Schein (CJM 226/460).
2
Cf. Andrew Chitty, Recognition and Property in Hegel and the Early Marx, in this volume, p.
Three Marxian Approaches to Recognition 703

I have already mentioned the third implication: recognition is not so much understood
through a Hegelian model in which the responsiveness of the other to ones deeds is crucial
but through a model in which the use of my products by the other is crucial. On the one
hand, recognition doesnt relate so much to my actions as to my products. On the other hand,
it doesnt depend on the others behaviour towards me but rather on the others use of my
products. In the Comments on James Mill, the few explicit references to mutual recogni-
tion clearly concern the exchanges of products. In a non-alienated society, exchanges are
the mediating process by which it is confirmed (besttigt) that my product is [for] you,
because it is an objectification of your own nature, your need (CJM 225/459). Conversely,
in an alienated society,
your need, your desire, your will, are powerless as regards my product. It means that
your human nature, which accordingly is bound to stand in intimate relation to my
human production, is not your power over this production, your possession of it, for it
is not the specific character, not the power, of mans nature that is recognised
[anerkannt] in my production.(CJM 225/460)
Therefore, the mutual recognition in exchanges can be nothing more than plunder-
ing (CJM 226/460) and cannot but lead to conflicts about the forces objectified in the
products: Our mutual recognition (wechselseitige Anerkennung) of the respective
powers of our objects, however, is a struggle. (CJM, 226/460) This use of the
Hegelian notion of struggle for recognition is clearly anti-Hegelian in its meaning
if not in its intention. Marx intuition seems to be that in an alienated society,
recognition cannot be but conflicting and that struggles for recognition cannot be
but struggles for false recognition. This intuition will be further elaborated in Capital,
but without the Feuerbachian premises of 1844.
Now, it is possible to go back to the other set of issues raised at the beginning of this
section: what about direct interactions between human beings? In a way, interactions are at
the centre of Marx thought, but they are conceived of along a Hessian model in which
recognition plays no structuring role. In The Essence of Money, Hess defines the species
nature of mankind as intercourses (Verkehr), that is exchange of productive vital activity
(Austausch von productiver Lebensttigkeit) or cooperation (Zusammenwirken).3
Moreover, he defines social alienation not only as a separation between cooperation and
its products but also as an inversion of the means/ends relation between them. On these new
grounds, he proposes to translate the Feuerbachian critique of religious alienation into a
critique of money as social alienation.4 Many theses of the Economic and Philosophical
Manuscripts and the Comments on James Mill come directly from these Hessian premises:
1) since the species dimension of human life is nothing but exchange of individual activities,
the social cannot be reified as something independent of individuals (EPM 299/538-9); 2)
since satisfying essential needs means transforming nature through work, the exchange of
3
Cf. Moses Hess, The Essence of Money, 1: Life is exchange of productive life-activity. () The
atmosphere of the Earth, the inalienable medium of the exchange of earthly productions, is the element of
earthly life; the sphere in which men exchange their social life-activity with each othernamely intercourse in
societyis the inalienable element of social life. () They can as little live if separated from the medium of
their social life than they can live bodily if separated from the medium of their bodily life-activitythan if
their life-air is taken from them. They behave with regard to the whole social body in the same way that the
individual members and organs behave with regard to the body of a single individual. They die if they are
separated from each other. Their real life consists only in collaboration, only in connexion with the whole
social body (quote from Kovesi 1998: 184).
4
About the Bauerian and Hessian elements of Marxs notion of alienation, that are as important as its
Hegelian and Feuerbachian elements, see Wittmann (2008).
704 E. Renault

individual activities is work as cooperation with others5; 3) since human cooperative activity
is nothing but the development of natural activity, the complete activation of the species
forces of human beings is also a resurrection of nature (EPM 298/538). It is under these
Hessian premises that Marx identifies the activation of species forces with work and work
with interaction, but also thinks of interaction independently of recognition. I have already
pointed out that the interactions between men and nature are conceived of as an activation
through exchanges of productive activities, comparable to the exchange of activity between
the sun and the plant (EPM 336-7/578), and with no reference to recognitive relations.
Conversely, since recognition is mediated by the products of our exchanges of activities, the
form of recognition depends on the forms of cooperation. In Marx, work is no more a mere
means of transformation of nature in order to satisfy my needs, but also a means of activation
of my species forces and of completion of my communal nature. Consequently, it is only
in a situation of non-alienated cooperation that a true mutual recognition could take place.
At first glance, the implications of the discussion of this approach to recognition could
appear as merely philological, for it is at odds with the Hegelian connotations of recogni-
tion on which the contemporary debate draws. Nevertheless, from a contemporary perspec-
tive, two points deserve consideration, at least as possible correctives to some problematic
(Hegelian) assumptions in these debates.
A first problematic assumption relates to the lack of specification of recognition as a
component of interaction. Recognition is usually identified with a relation between I and
You that is a component of all interactions. And, following Hegel, the normative potential of
recognitive relations is assumed to depend on the fact that ones self-consciousness depends
on the recognition by the other. Indeed, it is possible to differentiate types of recognitive
expectations and types of subjective effects, as in Honneths model. After having stated that
a positive relation to oneself depends on recognition by the other in general, Honneth
specifies three spheres of recognition that are associated with three types of practical self-
consciousness (self-confidence, self-respect and self-esteem) (Honneth 1995: ch 5). But still,
the various forms of recognition are addressed using the same model, in which the IYou
relation, and the others responsiveness to ones deed are the main elements to take into
account. Now, it seems quite clear that ones deeds are not always associated with strong
expectations of recognition, and that some cooperative interactions, such as work, are
usually associated with stronger recognitive expectations than ordinary interactions.
Moreover the recognition linked with work seem to have a more profound impact on
identity, as Dejours shows (Dejours 2006; Dejours and Deranty 2010) than other types of
recognitive interactions. According to Dejours, this deeper role of recognition in working
activity is precisely due to the fact the work is not only a single IYou relation of
responsiveness to deeds, but also a) a relation between one individual and a specific social
group (the colleagues), b) a social experience under strong social (hierarchical) and material
(technical) constraints, and c) a situation where the responsiveness to one deeds is mediated
by products supposed to meet economic standards (as exchange value), and social needs (as
use value). One of the main points made by Dejours is that recognition is a crucial dimension

5
See also the still Hessian formulations of The German Ideology: The production of life, both of ones own
in labour and of fresh life in procreation, now appears as a double relationship: on the one hand as a natural, on
the other as a social relationship. By social we understand the cooperation of several individuals, no matter
under what conditions, in what manner and to what end; and The social power, i.e., the multiplied
productive force, which arises through the co-operation of different individuals as it is determined by the
division of labour, appears to these individuals, since their co-operation is not voluntary but has come about
naturally, not as their own united power, but as an alien force existing outside them (GI, 43 and 48/29-30 and
34).
Three Marxian Approaches to Recognition 705

of the working activity, but that the recognition at work has a profound and positive impact
on identity only as a by-product. As soon as one works in order to be recognized, the quality
of work as well as of the recognition will be put in jeopardy. It suggests that positive
recognition should not be conceived of as satisfaction of a desire for recognition but rather as
a cognitive consequence of the achievement of a social activity where recognition is at stake.
Due the Habermasian opposition between work and recognition, the contemporary discus-
sion has not taken seriously into account the possibility that work could be the place where
the normative stakes of recognition are the most significant. Neither has it considered the
relation between work and recognition as paradigmatic. If it had done so, it would probably
have devoted more attention to Marx approach to recognition as a cognitive consequence of
social cooperation through work.
This latter approach could also could help to put in question another problematic
assumption in our contemporary debates, that of a narrowly intersubjectivistic conception
of interaction. Within the Habermasian and Honnethian framework, as already noticed,
recognition is spelled out as a I-YouDeedsReponsiveness relation without paying due
attention to the situational dimension of recognitive relations. Hence, Deranty has contended
that the Honnethian model should be revised in order to capture the role played by the
institutional and material (the body as well as external material things) in the relation of
recognition. According to him, the recognitive relationship between I and You should be
related to the whole set of interactions with the social environment where it takes places and
to the various dimensions of this social environment (Deranty 2009). There is no doubt that
in such an attempt to give a more materialistic account of recognition, Marx and Feuerbach
insistence on the relation between species forces and essential objects could be read more
sympathetically (Deranty 2005).

2 Humiliation and Social Conflicts

Another important issue at stake in the reference to Marx in the contemporary debates on
recognition is that of the motivations of social conflicts. In his Struggle for Recognition,
Honneth proposed a distinction between utilitarian and recognitive motivations of social
conflicts and contended that the later Marx substituted the utilitarian model of class struggles
for his former model of a struggle for recognition. According to him, Marx then elaborated
an ambivalent synthesis of utilitarian and recognitive motivations for social struggles
(Honneth 1995: ch 78). But in the more recent discussions several authors have tried to
oppose more sharply Marx on the one hand, and the recognition-oriented approaches to
social struggles on the other hand. According to Fraser, one should distinguish between the
struggles for distribution of the workers movement one the one hand, and the struggles for
recognition of the new social movements on the other hand. There could be no doubt, in
Frasers view, that Marx couldnt have made the mistake of confusing the one with the other
(Fraser and Honneth 2003). Conversely, according to Caill, Marx would be one of the
purest illustrations of the utilitarian bias that is predominant in the social sciences, and
recognition theories would precisely have to develop an anti-utilitarian approach against him
and others (Caill and Lazzeri 2006). In these debates, many issues are intricated: that of the
relations between the early and the late Marx, that of the relation between the motivations
and the overt aims of the social struggles, that of the relation between utilitarian and
symbolic incentives, and that of the normative premises of Marxs social critique.
In order to clarify the discussion, it might be useful to recall that feelings of shame,
disrespect and humiliation play an important role in Marx writings. They are articulated in
706 E. Renault

their structural social origin (that of the capitalist society) and highlighted in their conten-
tious dimensions. In On the Jewish Question, Marx writes that the real point of view, the
real virtue of the Money-Man is the contempt of the human being as an end in itself (JQ
172/375). In the Comments on James Mill, he explains that in capitalist society, the worker is
not only suffering from material deprivation (poverty), but also from humiliation:
Within the credit system, its nature, estranged from man, under the appearance of an
extreme economic appreciation of man, operates in a double way: 1) The antithesis
between capitalist and worker, between big and small capitalists, becomes still greater
since credit is given only to him who already has, and is a new opportunity of
accumulation for the rich man, or since the poor man finds that the arbitrary discretion
of the rich man and the latters judgment over him confirm or deny his entire existence
and that his existence is wholly dependent on this contingency. 2) Mutual dissimula-
tion, hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness are carried to extreme lengths, so that on the
man without credit is pronounced not only the simple judgment that he is poor, but in
addition a pejorative moral judgment that he possesses no trust, no recognition [keine
Anerkennung besitzt], and therefore is a social pariah, a bad man, and in addition to his
privation, the poor man undergoes this humiliation and the humiliating necessity of
having to ask the rich man for credit. (CJM 215-6/450)
A few pages later, Marx adds that language and the human condition are so alienated in
this society that a real human language would be felt as a humiliation, or a violation of
human dignity:
The only intelligible language in which we converse with one another consists of our
objects in their relation to each other. We would not understand a human language and
it would remain without effect. By one side it would be recognised and felt as being a
request, an entreaty, and therefore a humiliation, and consequently uttered with a
feeling of shame, of degradation. By the other side it would be regarded as impudence
or lunacy and rejected as such. We are to such an extent estranged from mans essential
nature that the direct language of this essential nature seems to us a violation of human
dignity, whereas the estranged language of material values seems to be the well-
justified assertion of human dignity that is self-confident and conscious of itself.
(CJM 227/461)
As noted, there is no hint that in 1844, the struggle for recognition could escape to false
recognition. The Feuerbachian-Hessian framework of 1844 could have been responsible for
a focus on the structures of alienated societies where the role of the refusal of humiliation
and disrespect in revolutionary action found no room less. But before as well as later, this
latter issue has been addressed in different ways. In A Contribution to the Critique of Hegels
Philosophy of Right. Introduction, the contentious dimension of these feelings of humiliation
and disrespect as well as their political powers were highlighted . Feelings of shame
appeared as motivations as well as a justifications of revolutionary action:
The criticism of religion ends with the teaching that man is the highest essence for man
hence, with the categoric imperative to overthrow all relations in which man is a
debased, enslaved, abandoned, despicable essence, relations which cannot be better
described than by the cry of a Frenchman when it was planned to introduce a tax on
dogs: Poor dogs! They want to treat you as human beings! (CH-I 182/385)
Moreover, Marx stated that social critique should try to make feelings of shame more
intense, and the consciousness of the unbearable more obvious:
Three Marxian Approaches to Recognition 707

The actual pressure must be made more pressing by adding to it consciousness of

pressure, the shame must be made more shameful by publicizing it. Every sphere of
German society must be shown as the partie honteuse of German society: these
petrified relations must be forced to dance by singing their own tune to them! (CH-I
178/381)
In the later Marx, references to moral feelings are surely less frequent but there are many
evidences that the workers degradation under capitalism is still conceived of as a material
but also as a moral degradation,6 and criticized as such.
The issue of humiliation and moral degradation also plays a role in the theory of social
conflicts. For the early as well as for the later Marx, interests rather than moral consciousness
make history. According to the early Marx, interests are expression of essential needs, and
the needs of the nations are in themselves the ultimate reason for their satisfaction. (CH-I
178/381) The urge to satisfy these needs motivates revolutionary action, but through a
negative processor through what could be termed negative needs. In fact, the aim of
revolutionary action is to suppress the social situation that hinders the satisfaction of these
needs. What is at stake is the refusal of what was called at that time the physical and moral
misery, the revolt against degradation:
The class of the proletariat feels annihilated in estrangement; it sees in it its own
powerlessness and the reality of an inhuman existence. It is, to use an expression of
Hegel, in its abasement the indignation at that abasement, an indignation to which it is
necessarily driven by the contradiction between its human nature and its condition of
life, which is the outright, resolute and comprehensive negation of that nature. (HF 36/
37)
In Value, Price and Profit, twenty years later, the workers social struggles are still
interpreted in the same way:
In their attempts at reducing the working day to its former rational dimensions, or,
where they cannot enforce a legal fixation of a normal working day, at checking
overwork by a rise of wages, a rise not only in proportion to the surplus time exacted,
but in a greater proportion, working men fulfil only a duty to themselves and their
race. They only set limits to the tyrannical usurpations of capital. Time is the room of
human development. A man who has no free time to dispose of, whose whole lifetime,
apart from the mere physical interruptions by sleep, meals, and so forth, is absorbed by
his labour for the capitalist, is less than a beast of burden. He is a mere machine for
producing Foreign Wealth, broken in body and brutalized in mind. Yet the whole
history of modern industry shows that capital, if not checked, will recklessly and
ruthlessly work to cast down the whole working class to this utmost state of degrada-
tion (). In checking this tendency of capital, by struggling for a rise of wages
corresponding to the rising intensity of labour, the working man only resists the
depreciation of his labour and the deterioration of his race. (CW 20: 142-3/MEW
16: 1445)
This passage plainly shows the importance of moral motivations, as well as the fact that
they operate negatively, through experiences of the unbearable and the duty to refuse it.
According to Marx, workers class struggles should certainly not be driven by positive

6
Here, I am using moral in the wide sense of anything having to do with peoples sense of pride, honour,
shame, humiliation, whether or not a formal moral code is involved.
708 E. Renault

normative principles (such as justice7) but by the very interests of the proletariat. They are
nevertheless led by negative moral experiences and by the normative demands they generate.
As he plainly explains in Value, Price and Profit and in Capital, struggles for better
wages or shorter working hours are motivated by the refusal of the various effects of the
logic of exploitation, a logic that produces not only poverty and physical degradation, but
also moral degradation. A need for recognition is surely not an essential need, according to
the late Marx, but the need to resist to moral degradation is one of the main incentives of
social struggle, and there is no reason to deny that in his own view, social disrespect and
humiliating working conditions could be part of this moral degradation. On the contrary, the
way he describes the struggles for better wages in Value, Price and Profit and in Capital, as
well as his use of Public health reports on working and housing conditions in Capital,
illustrate his constant endeavour to bridge the gap between the scientific discourse of the
critique of political economy, and the political demands of the workers (Rancire 1976: 377
384). Now, dignity and respect are among the main demands of the workers of the 19th
century (Rancire and Faur 1976; Renault 2010) (and also after). The class struggles of
the proletariat are surely not reducible to struggles for recognition (understood as struggles
aiming at positive recognition) but in some of their aspects, they can be conceived of as
agonistic struggles of recognition, that is as struggles against various forms of denial of
recognition (Renault 2009). From a Marxian point of view, the claim for positive recognition
shouldnt play a role in the aims of communist struggles, but the refusal of negative
recognition provides a legitimate motivation
In the framework of contemporary debates, the consequences of these brief remarks are
the following: (1) the refusal of the denial of recognition is surely not the only motivation of
workers class struggles, but according to Marxs point of view, there is no reason to
counterpose utilitarian and moral motivations. Rather, they arise from the various aspects
of the same social experience of the unbearable. (2) Marxs theory of social conflicts is
neither grounded in a theory of the primacy of moral motivations, nor in a theory of
normative principles, but it implies that class struggles are burdened by some normative
expectations that could be partially articulated by a theory of recognition. (3) It could be
added that the contrast between redistribution and recognition as political aims couldnt play
any significant role from Marxs perspective, for distribution only expresses relations of
production. The response to poverty, as well as to physical and moral degradation is neither
redistribution nor recognition but transformation of the relations of production.
As one can see, Marx approach to recognition is hardly compatible with the contempo-
rary alternatives sketched at the beginning of this section. On the one hand, it seems to
confirm the fact, highlighted by Honneth, that already in the labour movement, and not only
in the new social movements, recognition plays a role. Indeed, on the other hand, Frasers
worries about a possible overestimation of recognition as a political demand seem to be more
compatible with Marxs materialistic account of the social struggles than Honneths ap-
proach. But his materialistic account of social struggle is at odds with Frasers opposition
between justice as recognition and justice as redistribution, and more generally, with
Honneths and Frasers exclusivist focus on justice. Maybe Marxs account of humiliation
and social conflicts could help us to overcome the alternatives of the Honneth/Fraser debate
and to set up a more differentiated and complex understanding of the possible roles of
recognition in social conflicts. For that very reason also, it might be fruitful to introduce the
Marxian point of view in our debates on recognition, with all the philological caution that is
required by its specific aims and contexts.

7
See for instance his Critique of the Gothas Programme.
Three Marxian Approaches to Recognition 709

3 Institutions and Social Roles

The third implicit approach to recognition relates to the issue of Charaktermasken in

Capital. With this notion, Marx clearly analyses the function of recognition through social
roles in market interactions:

Here, the persons exist for one another merely as representatives and hence owners of,
commodities. As we proceed to develop our investigation we shall find, in general,
that the characters who appear on the economic stage [die konomischen Charakter-
masken der Personen] are merely personifications of the economic relations; it is as
bearers of these economic relations that they come into contact with each other
(C 178-9/ 99-100)
The fact that market interactions are interactions through Charaktermasken is intro-
duced in the discussion of the role played by the law in market exchanges. Marx explains
that commodities can be exchanged only because of individual wills, and only if individuals
recognize each other as owners of private property (C 178/99). There is no real originality
in the idea that market exchanges presuppose given legal juridical qualities in the exchang-
ers, and notably mutual recognition of individuals as persons (this point is clearly made for
instance in Hegels Principles of the Philosophy of Right). But Marx rather puts weight on
the two following points: (1) these legal qualities are nothing but personifications of
economical social relations, and (2) recognition through these legal qualities is nothing
but a recognition through Charaktermasken. This latter notion deserves special consider-
ation. As Adorno has explained from a retrospective point of view, it entails an implicit
critique of the sociological role theory. Instead of considering social roles as resources
mobilized by individuals to control interactions with others and to achieve their individual
goals, as for instance in Goffman (1982), Marx highlights their coercive dimension and their
falsehood: in the capitalist society, men have to dissimulate themselves under masks in
order to enter in social interactions that are relations of dominations. The fact that all
interactions are structured by social roles would prove the falsehood of the social life
(Adorno 1997 and 2008: 1501). The gist of this argument against role theory is that it is
only in a society structured by relations of domination that following a social rule also means
dissimulating oneself and deceiving the other.
Interpreted in this way, this passage of Capital reformulates some of the old intuition of
the early Marx. While this intuition was articulated with reference to alienation, it is now
reformulated with reference to the fact that the wage labour entails a double relation of
domination: a domination in the working place, and a domination in market interactions
since the worker has to sell his or her work force in order to survive. This shift from
alienation to domination has several implications.
In the Comments on James Mill, Marx had explained that in capitalist society mutual
dissimulation, hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness are carried to extreme lengths, since
owing to this completely nominal existence of money, counterfeiting cannot be undertaken
by man in any other material than his own person, he has to make himself into counterfeit
coin, obtain credit by stealth, by lying, etc. (CJM 216/450) The credit system leads on the
one hand to mutual plundering, that is, to false recognition, and on the other hand, to
struggles in order to impose to other ones own standards of recognition:
The intention of plundering, of deception, is necessarily present in the background, for
since our exchange is a selfish one, on your side as on mine, and since the selfishness
of each seeks to get the better of that of the other, we necessarily seek to deceive each
710 E. Renault

other. It is true though, that the power which I attribute to my object over yours
requires your recognition in order to become a real power. Our mutual recognition of
the respective powers of our objects, however, is a struggle, and in a struggle the victor
is the one who has more energy, force, insight, or adroitness. (CJM 226/460)
As in Bourdieu, social recognition is apparently linked here to a kind of structural
misrecognition and to social struggles about legitimate standards of recognition, that is, to
symbolic violence (2000: ch 5).
In Capital, the falsehood of the social life is interpreted in a quite different way. Whereas
the mutual deception was reduced to credit relations, the Charaktermasken are involved
in all social market interactions.. In these latter interactions, the Charaktermasken are
conceived of as personifications of the social relation of production between work and
capital. It means that the social roles are no longer explained as consequences of individual
or social strategies intended to cope with social domination (or with alienation), as a
deception one seeks to produce in order to protect oneself or to obtain a better social
position. Rather, they are interpreted as the set of practical and normative commitments that
are associated to a given position in a social relation of domination; a set of commitment that
is most of the time internalized (it is usually taken for granted by workers that workers have
to behave like workers) so that individuals can be considered as creatures of these social
relations8; a set of commitments that individuals have to endorse even when they are
reluctant to do so. Hence, the falsehood of social roles is twofold: firstly, it relates to the
contradiction between the social interests of the workers and the commitments they have to
endorse, secondly, it refers to the contradiction between the content of these commitments
and the legal appearance that the worker is a free person engaging him- or herself freely in
a contract relation based on equality. So, it is not surprising that the notion of
Charaktermasken reappears when this second aspect of the falsehood of the wage-
contract comes to the fore:
When we leave this sphere of simple circulation or the exchange of commodities,
which furnishes the free-trader vulgaris with his views, his concepts and the
standard by which he judges the society of capital and wage-labour, a certain change
takes place, or so it appears, in the physiognomy of our dramatis personae. He who
was previously the money-owner now strides in front as capitalist; the possessor of
labour-power follows as his labourer. The one smirks self-importantly and is intent on
business; the other is timid and holds back, like one who has brought his own hide to
market and now has nothing to expect buta tanning. (C 280/190-1)
With these ironic remarks, Marx suggests that the institutional realm of market relations
on the one hand, and that of working interactions on the other hand, entail heterogeneous
logics of recognition: as a matter of fact, the same worker is recognized in conflicting ways
in the circulation sphere and in the production sphere. The falsehood of Charaktermasken
also refers to a conflict between forms of social recognition: the positive recognition
promised by the law and associated (at least as appearance) with given social interactions
(on the market)is structurally refuted by a denial of recognition in what remains the main
part of my social life, that is, my interactions at work.

8
C 92/16: individuals are dealt with here only in so far as they are the personifications of economic
categories, the bearers of particular class-relations and interests. My standpoint from which the development
of the economic formation of society is viewed as a process of natural history, can less then any other make the
individual responsible for relations whose creature he remains, socially speaking, however much he may
subjectively raise himself above them
Three Marxian Approaches to Recognition 711

Many consequences could be drawn from these few passages. Firstly, Marxs notion of
Charaktermasken sketches a critical account of social recognition as misrecognition (not
only as depreciating or negative recognition, but as positive recognition through problematic
standards). Secondly, the distinction between recognition through market interactions and
through production interactions suggests that each institutional realm can function as a
specific sphere of recognition and that these spheres not only coexist but can conflict with
each other. Hence, Marxs notion of Charaktermasken paves the way to a critique of the
conflicts between forms of social recognition. Thirdly, it raises the issue of recognition at
work (or recognition of work as activity) as distinct from recognition in the market (or
recognition of work as employment). And it suggests that this very distinction is crucial for a
critique of work in the capitalist age.
It might be fruitful to take these consequences into consideration in contemporary
attempts to bridge the gap between the neo-Hegelian account of recognition proposed by
Honneth on the one hand, and various accounts coming from the social sciences on the other
hand, such as interactionist and institutionalist accounts of recognition, or accounts of the
psychodynamics of work, among others.

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