Robert Kurz

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Robert Kurz as a guest speaker at the Attac Capitalism Congress in March 2009

Robert Kurz (born December 24, 1943 in Nuremberg ; † July 18, 2012 ibid) was a German Marxist philosopher , publicist and journalist . He was considered one of the most prominent theorists of value criticism .

Life and teaching

Robert Kurz studied philosophy, history and education in Erlangen in the 1960s .

In the 1970s, Kurz was active in the environment of the Communist Workers' Union Germany (KABD), at times he was Bavarian state instructor of the affiliated Revolutionary Youth Association Germany . With the pamphlet “Vorhut oder Nachtrab” published in January 1978, he broke with the KABD and criticized it as anti-theory.

From the 1980s onwards, Kurz developed a fundamental critique of the basic forms of socialization in the modern world , based on the question of the structural causes of the inefficient Eastern Bloc economy . He turned against the uncritical affirmation of the concept of work by the Marxist labor movement . His 1991 calibration fount publishing house published book The collapse of modernization develops a theory of collapse of the modern world society that assumes that due to rationalization processes the wage labor gradually disappear and the entire system to a "barbaric end" was headed. As in his later works, Kurz offers an outlook on a society that is no longer based on the money-mediated exchange of goods. A “sensual reason” is indispensable for overcoming a crisis, one that is able to see and use things outside of their historically determined commodity character.

Until April 2004, Kurz was co-editor of the magazine Krisis and a member of the group of the same name. Then the EXIT group split up and re-established ! (including the magazine of the same name), of which Robert Kurz has been a member since then. Both sides presented the causes of the rift differently: While the Krisis editorial team, which continued under this name after the split, named 'Kurz' as the cause of the separation, which they found difficult to bear, the latter and Roswitha Scholz accused them of being "putschists" called "residual crisis" to use formal legal means to "take power" in the editorial office. Documentation of the demerger process as well as the structural and personnel background can be found on the Exit! as well as that of Krisis .

In the book Die Antideutsche Ideologie , Robert Kurz deliberately dealt polemically with what he considered to be the " ideology-critical reductionism " of the Berlin magazine Bahamas . In the wake of the inner-left controversy over the Iraq war, the Bahamas had spoken out in favor of US intervention. Kurz then accused the so-called “ anti-Germans ” of militant affirmation of the ideal of the Enlightenment , of “Western values” and bellicism .

Robert Kurz made a name for himself through a radical criticism of the “labor and class struggle fetish” of traditional (workers' movement) Marxism . The critique of values ​​that he was instrumental in conceiving is directed against a sociologically abbreviated understanding of relationships of power, i.e. against deriving relationships of power exclusively from social relationships. Kurz sees a totalitarian tautology in the social role of value (value society ) , which ad infinitum subjects the entire physical and social-symbolic world to a single abstract form principle: the accumulation of “dead labor”. Kurz's critical analysis of the “totalitarian” socialization principles of modernity crystallizes in his concept of commodity fetishism .

Later, the “split-off theorem” developed by the EXIT! Editor and wife of Robert Kurz Roswitha Scholz took up an increasingly broad space in the Kurz theory conception. This synthesis of the early criticism of value and the post-feminist postulate of a structural gender difference is currently known as the “theory of value separation”.

Robert Kurz's best-known publication is the 1999 black book Capitalism . The weekly newspaper Die Zeit published two controversial reviews, one of which the Black Book described as "the most important publication in the last 10 years".

Kurz regularly wrote articles in the column Kurz, Nick, Luft & Hickel in the daily newspaper Neues Deutschland . This was assigned to the economic department. The other authors involved were Harry Nick , Christa Luft and Rudolf Hickel . He also published regularly in the weekly Freitag and the Brazilian daily Folha de S. Paulo . He was a member of the PEN Center Germany .

Kurz died on July 18, 2012 in a Nuremberg clinic during an emergency operation. His widow spoke of a surgical error.

In the theory journal Exit! Nos. 10 and 11 published the abandoned, fragmentary parts of his planned book Crisis and Criticism .

Publications

Books

  • 1991: The collapse of modernization. From the collapse of barracks socialism to the crisis of the world economy. Eichborn Verlag, Die Other Bibliothek series , ISBN 3-8218-4421-3 .
  • 1991: Honecker's revenge. On the political economy of reunified Germany. Edition Tiamat, ISBN 3-923118-62-7 .
  • 1993: Potemkin's return. Dummy capitalism and the war of distribution in Germany. Edition Tiamat, ISBN 3-923118-28-7 .
  • 1993: The last one turns off the light. On the crisis of democracy and the market economy. Edition Tiamat, ISBN 3-923118-88-0 .
  • 1999: The world as will and design. Postmodernism, lifestyle leftists and the aestheticization of the crisis. Edition Tiamat, ISBN 3-89320-024-X .
  • 1999: Black Book Capitalism . A swan song for the market economy. Eichborn Verlag, ISBN 3-8218-0491-2 .
  • 2000: Read Marx. The most important texts by Karl Marx for the 21st century. Eichborn Verlag, ISBN 3-8218-1644-9 .
  • 2003: World Order War. The end of sovereignty and the changes in imperialism in the age of globalization. Horlemann Verlag, ISBN 3-89502-149-0 .
  • 2003: The anti-German ideology. From anti-fascism to crisis imperialism: Critique of the latest left German sect in its theoretical prophets. Unrast Verlag, ISBN 3-89771-426-4 .
  • 2004: Bloody Reason. Essays on the emancipatory criticism of capitalist modernity and its western values. Horlemann Verlag, ISBN 3-89502-182-2 .
  • 2005: The world capital. Globalization and internal barriers of the modern goods-producing system. Edition Tiamat, ISBN 3-89320-085-1 .
  • 2012: money without value. Outlines for a Transformation of the Critique of Political Economy. Horlemann Verlag, ISBN 978-3-89502-343-9 .
  • 2013: world crisis and ignorance. Capitalism in decline. Selected Writings. Edition Tiamat, ISBN 978-3-89320-173-0
  • 2013: The death of capitalism. Marxian theory, crisis and overcoming capitalism (selected writings), Laika-Verlag, ISBN 978-3-942281-59-1

brochures

  • 1978: advance guard or rear trot. A criticism of the political decadence in the Marxist-Leninist movement using the example of the Communist Workers' Union of Germany (KABD).
  • 1988: In search of the lost socialist goal. Manifesto for the renewal of revolutionary theory. Verlag Marxist Critique, ISBN 3-927444-00-6 .
  • 1999: Manifesto Against Labor (together with other members of the Krisis editorial team)
  • 2003: Sharp sheep. Shorn to anti-German bellicism (together with other employees of the Krisis editorial team)

Articles in anthologies and theory journals

  • 1984: Socialist goal and new labor movement. On the criticism of the Soviet mode of production. In: Joint supplement. November 30, 1984, pp. 7–9, ( online version )
  • 1986: The crisis of exchange value. Productive force science, productive labor and capitalist reproduction. In: Marxist Critique. No. 1, Verlag Marxist Critique
  • 1986: The rule of dead things, part 1. Critical comments on the new productive force criticism and the ideology of de-society. In: Marxist Critique. No. 2, Verlag Marxist Critique
  • 1987: The rule of dead things, part 2. Critical comments on the new productive force criticism and the ideology of de-society. In: Marxist Critique. No. 3, Verlag Marxist Critique
  • 1987: Abstract work and socialism. On Marx's theory of value and its history. In: Marxist Critique. No. 4, Verlag Marxist Critique
  • 1988: The glory and misery of anti-authoritarianism. Highlights of the history of the ideas and effects of the 'New Left'. In: Marxist Critique. No. 5, Verlag Marxist Critique
  • 1989: Everything under control on the sinking ship. Over-accumulation, debt crisis and 'politics'. In: Marxist Critique. No. 6, Verlag Marxist Critique
  • 1989: The class struggle fetish. Theses to demythologize Marxism. (together with Ernst Lohoff ) In: Marxist criticism. No. 7, Verlag Marxist Critique
  • 1990: Germany agreed a mistake. The reunification trap and the crisis of the world system that produces goods. In: Krisis. No. 8/9, Krisis Verlag
  • 1990: Ash Wednesday of Marxism. The swan song of the left and the criticism of political economy. In: Krisis. No. 8/9, Krisis Verlag
  • 1991: The lost honor of work. Producer socialism as a logical impossibility. In: Krisis. No. 10, Krisis Verlag
  • 1991: The crisis that came from the east. Against the illusion of the "victory" of the West and its market economy. In: Helmut Thielen (ed.): The war of the heads. From the Gulf War to the New World Order , Horlemann Verlag, ISBN 3-927905-42-9 .
  • 1991: loss of history. The Gulf War and the decline of Marxist thought. In: Krisis. No. 11, Krisis Verlag
  • 1992: The Abolition of Form (Interview). In: Wilhelm Beermann, Michael Dreyer, Karl Hoffmann: Five interviews on the change in the social Merz Academy Stuttgart, ISBN 3-925860-37-1 .
  • 1992: gender fetishism. Note on the logic of femininity and masculinity. In: Krisis. No. 12, Horlemann Verlag, ISBN 3-927905-62-3 .
  • 1993: Democracy eats its children. Comments on the new right-wing radicalism. In: Rosemary's Babies. Democracy and its right-wing radicals , Horlemann Verlag, ISBN 3-927905-84-4 .
  • 1993: Subjectless rule. To repeal a condensed social criticism. In: Krisis. No. 13, Horlemann Verlag, ISBN 3-927905-85-2 .
  • 1994: The end of politics. Theses on the crisis of the goods-based regulation system. In: Krisis. No. 14, Horlemann Verlag, ISBN 3-89502-013-3 .
  • 1995: Full steam ahead into the collapse. In: IG-Rote Fabrik / Zurich (Ed.): Crisis? What crisis? , Edition ID archive, ISBN 3-89408-045-0 .
  • 1995: Post-Marxism and work fetish. On the historical contradiction in Marx's theory. In: Krisis. No. 15, Horlemann Verlag, ISBN 3-89502-027-3 .
  • 1995: The Ascension of Money. Structural Barriers to Capital Exploitation, Casino Capitalism and the Global Financial Crisis. In: Krisis. No. 16/17, Horlemann Verlag, ISBN 3-89502-030-3 .
  • 1996: The final battles. An essay on May in Paris, December in Paris and the Alliance for Work. In: Krisis. No. 18, Horlemann Verlag, ISBN 3-89502-045-1 .
  • 1997: Anti-Economy and Anti-Politics. To reformulate social emancipation after the end of 'Marxism'. In: Krisis. No. 19, Horlemann Verlag, ISBN 3-89502-054-0 .
  • 1998: Wine connoisseurs of all countries, unite! Postmodernism, the lifestyle left and the aestheticization of the crisis. In: Krisis. No. 20, Horlemann Verlag, ISBN 3-89502-081-8 .
  • 1999: The dictatorship of abstract time. Work as a behavioral disorder of modernity. In: Robert Kurz, Ernst Lohoff, Norbert Trenkle (eds.): After work! Eleven attacks against work , Konkret Literatur Verlag, ISBN 3-89458-182-4 .
  • 2002: Bloody Reason. 20 theses against the so-called Enlightenment and Western values. In: Krisis. No. 25, Horlemann Verlag, ISBN 3-89502-155-5 .
  • 2003: Negative ontology. The dark men of the Enlightenment and the historical metaphysics of the modern age. In: Krisis. No. 26, Horlemann Verlag, ISBN 3-89502-161-X .
  • 2003: Tabula Rasa. How far should, must or may the criticism of the Enlightenment go? In: Krisis. No. 27, Horlemann Verlag, ISBN 3-89502-173-3 .
  • 2004: The Substance of Capital. Abstract work as social real metaphysics and the absolute inner limit of utilization. First part. In: Exit! 1. Horlemann, ISBN 3-89502-183-0 .
  • 2005: The Substance of Capital. Abstract work as social real metaphysics and the absolute inner limit of utilization. Second part. In: Exit! 2. Horlemann, ISBN 3-89502-196-2 .
  • 2005: The ontological break. Another world history. In: Robert Kurz, Roswitha Scholz , Jörg Ulrich (Eds.): The nightmare of freedom. Perspectives on radical social criticism. Verlag Ulmer Manuskripte, ISBN 3-934869-38-6 .
  • 2005: The Nightmare of Freedom. The basics of 'western values' and the helplessness of criticism. In: Robert Kurz, Roswitha Scholz, Jörg Ulrich (Eds.): The nightmare of freedom. Perspectives on radical social criticism. Verlag Ulmer Manuskripte, ISBN 3-934869-38-6 .
  • 2005: The last stage of the middle class. From the classic petty bourgeoisie to universal human capital. In: Robert Kurz, Roswitha Scholz, Jörg Ulrich (Eds.): The nightmare of freedom. Perspectives on radical social criticism. Verlag Ulmer Manuskripte, ISBN 3-934869-38-6 .
  • 2005: Secondary illiteracy. The education crisis in the western industrialized countries. In: Robert Kurz, Roswitha Scholz, Jörg Ulrich (Eds.): The nightmare of freedom. Perspectives on radical social criticism. Verlag Ulmer Manuskripte, ISBN 3-934869-38-6 .
  • 2005: The little left asshole. A contribution to the typology of the fan without a guide. In: Robert Kurz, Roswitha Scholz, Jörg Ulrich (Eds.): The nightmare of freedom. Perspectives on radical social criticism. Verlag Ulmer Manuskripte, ISBN 3-934869-38-6 .
  • 2006/2007: history as aporia. Preliminary theses on the discussion about the historicity of fetish relationships. theory in progress @ www.exit-online.org
  • 2007: Gray is life's golden tree and green is the theory. The practical problem as an evergreen of abbreviated social criticism and the history of the left. In: Exit! 4. Horlemann, ISBN 978-3-89502-230-2 .
  • 2008: The worthlessness of ignorance. Abbreviated “critique of value” as a legitimation ideology of a digital neo-petty bourgeoisie. In: Exit! 5. Horlemann, ISBN 978-3-89502-266-1 .
  • 2009: The child killers of Gaza. An operation “cast lead” for the sensitive heart. In: Exit! 6. Horlemann, ISBN 978-3-89502-289-0 .
  • 2010: Soul seller. How the criticism of the commodity society itself becomes a commodity. Online contribution at www.exit-online.org
  • 2010: No Leviathan will save you - theses on a critical theory of the state. First part. In: Exit! 7. Horlemann, ISBN 978-3-89502-310-1 .
  • 2011: No Leviathan will save you - theses on a critical theory of the state. Second part. In: Exit! 8. Horlemann, ISBN 978-3-89502-322-4 .
  • 2012: Culture Industry in the 21st Century. In: Exit! 9. Horlemann, ISBN 978-3-89502-333-0 .
  • 2012: Debate "No way out?" on capitalism in crisis with Thomas Ebermann , Michael Heinrich , Robert Kurz and Joseph Vogl in: No way out? 14 attempts to understand the current financial and economic crisis. KVV concrete, ISBN 978-3-930786-63-3 .
  • 2012: crisis and criticism. The inner limit of capital and the degrees of decline of Marxism. Part 1 (postponed fragment) In: Exit! 10. Horlemann, ISBN 978-3-89502-346-0 .

literature

Web links

Texts
criticism
Obituaries

Individual evidence

  1. ^ History of the MLPD , Part II, 2nd half volume, ISBN 3-88021-151-5 , p. 405.
  2. ↑ https://www.woz.ch/1327/robert-kurz/das-schwarze-loch-wird-immer-groesser
  3. ↑ Editorial Exit! 10 . In: EXIT! . November 2012
personal data
SURNAME In short, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist and political essayist
DATE OF BIRTH December 24, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Nuremberg
DATE OF DEATH July 18, 2012
Place of death Nuremberg