Time’s carcass

Marx and Lukács on abstract time and the capitalist order of appearance

Abstract

This paper examines Marx’s and Lukács’s concept of time in relation to the capitalist order of appearances. It argues that Marx as well as Lukács weaponized a certain understanding of abstract time for the critique of capitalism, that can be traced back to Kant’s transcendental aesthetics. It argues that time as inner sense (Kant) under capitalism becomes the inner sense of capital, understood as “automatic subject”.