Knowledge Socialism Purged of Marx: The Return of Organized Capitalism

Abstract

‘Knowledge socialism’ is a fine idea that needs to finally bury its Marxist heritage and re-engage with the spectrum of ‘utopian socialism’ from Saint-Simon to Proudhon that has been historically disparaged by Marxists. Luckily Philip Mirowski has done more to aid this cause unofficially than he has in his official cause of burying neoliberalism, which in turn provides my point of departure. Mirowski rightly observes that Marxists do not seem to understand that capitalism taken to its logical conclusion—which neoliberalism does—deconstructs the ontological status of ‘knowledge’ in the same way as it deconstructs ‘labour’. In both cases, they are just forms of capital in what neoliberals imagine to be a dynamic market environment. Interestingly, the pre-Marxist forms of socialism called ‘utopian’ by Marxists accepted this foundational feature of capitalism but differed over the relevant sense of ‘organization’ of capital’s mobility should come from above (Saint-Simon) or below (Proudhon). I explore what is worth reviving in these suppressed strands of socialism’s history. I conclude with a reassessment of the much misunderstood Popperian tradition in the philosophy of science, which can also be seen as exploring the same intellectual bandwidth as utopian socialism. In this context, the significance of the ‘Gestalt switch’ is highlighted.