A critical analysis :|labor in Marx, Negri and feminist critiques

Abstract

This thesis aims to examine Marx’s and Negri’s understandings of labor and feminist critiques of them by tracing the different interpretations of Marx’s critique of political economy and his understanding of social reality by Negri and feminist approaches. In this examination, the spatial and temporal grounds of their understandings and their approaches to body are also questioned. Firstly, Marx’s and Negri’s understandings of labor are examined in terms of these aspects. Secondly, the critiques of Negri through Marx are presented, and how Marx’s understanding goes beyond Negri’s approach is demonstrated. Finally, feminist critiques of Negri’s understanding are presented, and feminist critiques and reconsiderations of Marx’s understanding are examined. Based on these, how a feminist reconsideration of Marx’s approach in light of feminist critiques goes beyond Negri’s understanding is demonstrated. Through this critical examination, firstly, this thesis aims to contribute to comprehending the different understandings of labor in the history of social and political thought and to the analysis of the contemporary appearances of labor, spatial-temporal experience and the body in patriarchal capitalism. Secondly, Negri’s search for the displacement of dialectics is examined critically as an appearance of the dominant tendency of searching for ‘alternatives’ to ‘Hegelian Marxism’. Through the critical examination of a particular appearance of this tendency, which can be traced back to the twentieth century and which is still influential in contemporary social and political theory, it is aimed to contribute to understanding this transformation in the history of social and political thought.