Critique du capitalisme et différend salarial : Lyotard lecteur kantien de Marx

Abstract

The present study aims at providing an analysis of Jean-François Lyotard’s criticism of Marx theory of the wage-capital conflict, as it is presented in The Differend: Phrases in Dispute (1983). We uphold that Lyotard’s analysis is important and original in many respects. First, it introduces into philosophical criticisms of Marx some considerations on the theory of language. Second, it deals with the wage-capital conflict as a Kantian Idea, made of some irreducible part—“an intractable wrong” done by one party (the Capital) to another (the Workers—, which cannot be expressed within a common language. The article reflects on the nature and consequences of Lyotard’s criticism for Marxist studies.

Keywords

• Lyotard (Jean-François)
• differend
• post-modernism
• language
• wage labor
• capitalism