One of the ways to understand Marxism is to conceive it as a history of crisis in and of Marxism. With each historical crisis of capitalism (as well as the labour movement, previous century socialism, etc.), Marxism seems to set itself the acrobatic task of providing yet another “theory” on what does it really mean to be a Marxist, rather than in articulating its vision and idea of the situation. This is done through the attempts at re-conceptualisations, re-interpretations, breaks with and from – epistemological or other. Equally interesting are the attempts to revise the Marx’s work. They are interesting because although they acknowledge the element of truth in Marx’s work, they attempt to revise it in order to neutralise it.
But Marxism has not had an adequate response, neither to the situation nor to itself. In this sense, Marxism always lags behind, it is always late, without ever reaching the destination.
The consequences have been far reaching. Socialism has been defeated. This defeat brought about the virtual disappearance of Marxism, both as an ideological force, as well as at the level of organisation. Marxism failed once it was tried. Its actualisation brought about its defeat. This brings us to a very uncomfortable, but nevertheless essential question: is Marxism just another site of site of struggle, that is of resistance, the struggle being its own endgame, instead of a conceptual method for reading the historical conjunctures and consequentially offering its own lasting vision?
The crisis of Marxism is not a result of the socio-political defeats of Marxist movements; its crisis is a direct consequence of the decline, or perhaps disappearance, of its philosophical groundwork, that is dialectical materialism. The left has abandoned all the “big” questions, both philosophical and political. The consequences of such an abandonment have had and continue to have major consequences for the left itself.
Kojin Karatani takes the task of rethinking Marxism after its crushing defeat, namely after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This defeat has been so traumatic (philosophically, politically and organisationally) that Marxism has not been able to recuperate from it yet.
One of the reasons to study Karatani’s work1 is that his rethinking of Marxism opens up the space not only to read Marx differently, but at the same time, his reconstruction of Marxism renders palpable the limits of our contemporary conceptual and philosophical currents. Taken in this sense, his philosophical project is not reduced only to the critique of the logic of capital, but at the same time, it is a critique of history, and politics.
Let us take Karatani’s two major contributions, in philosophy and Marxism. In my view, his major philosophical contribution is developed most consistently in his book Transcritique: On Kant and Marx. Kant’s transcendental approach (as opposed to transcendent) is the attempt to illuminate the unconscious structure that precedes as well as shapes our experience. Prior to writing his Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Kant’s first attempt to outline his concerns with the possibility metaphysics, culminated in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer Illustrated by Dreams of Metaphysics (1766), where Kant’s puts forward his first articulation of the concept of parallax:
“Formerly, I viewed human common sense only from the standpoint of my own; now I put myself into the position of another’s reason outside of myself, and observe my judgments, together with their most secret causes, from the point of view of others. It is true that the comparison of both observations results in pronounced parallax, but it is the only means of preventing the optical delusion, and of putting the concept of the power of knowledge in human nature into its true place.”2
What Kant is not saying here is the articulation of the position that I should not only see things from my own perspective, but also from the standpoint of the others. Kant is saying the opposite, that is to say, if one’s subjective position is that of an optical delusion, then the objective position of others cannot be but an optical illusion. This is crucial in understanding Karatani.
The concept of parallax is at its most elementary, a shift in the perspective of the position. Differently put, the parallax is the displacement of an object, cause by the change in the position of observation, that allows for a new perspective or prospect. The crucial misunderstanding to be avoided, of course, is that the observed shift is not “subjective,” but because the very same object is seen from different stances, or different perspectives. In Hegelian terms, the object and subject are inherently mediated, which differently put means that an epistemological shift in our point of view inherently reflects an ontological shift in the very object itself.
In parallax position, you do not get to structures by privileging one instance or level, but by going between structures, where no mediation is possible. Parallax is the name for the fundamental antinomy that can never be dialectically mediated, or sublated. There is no rapport between the two instances or levels, even though they are closely connected, they exist in the same structure as the Moebius strip.
One example would be that of the mirror: when we look in the mirror, we see ourselves plus something we cannot see without the reflective surface: we see the world with us in it. Another way of putting it is that we see the world “without our absence” – that is, without that blind spot which marks our indelible immersion in it. The famous figure of “the double”, once popular in fantastic literature, and which Freud and Lacan later associated with the anguishing experience of the uncanny, concerns precisely this “missing absence”: what if the reflected image were suddenly to start moving while I remained in the same position?
In science, in quantum physics, the parallax is the duality between waves and particles; in politics, the parallax is the name of the social antagonism, which does not have a common ground for the antagonistic agents (what used to be called class struggle), and all the way to the philosophical parallax, with the ontological difference, that is the antagonism between the ontic and transcendental-ontological horizons, that are irreducible to one another.
Thus, Transcritique is an impressive endeavour to assert the parallax between Kant and Marx. Fredric Jameson was fully justified when commenting on the book, he once said that “new relations between Kant and Marx are established as well as a new kind of synthesis between Marxism and anarchism.”
In his seminal The Structure of World History, Karatani shows that capitalism is not merely the existence of production, but the world economy based on four modes of exchange: A) reciprocity of the gift, B) plunder and protection, C) commodity exchange and D) the mode which transcends the other three. In our capitalist societies, however, the mode of exchange C is dominant. The whole point is to overcome the mode of commodity exchange (C), that is to say, inventing a new mode of exchange that resolves the contradictions of the mode C. For Karatani, this means the return to the mode A: “the mode of exchange D, as the restoration of A in a higher dimension, is in fact only possible with the negation of A.” We should note that for Karatani the ‘return to the mode A’ is done in a Kantian form. His major contribution is the shift from the modes of production, to the modes of exchange. This led to some accusing him of prioritising the modes of exchange over the modes of production.
Karatani is well aware that there is no such a thing as eradication of commodity exchange. One can eradicate capitalism and capital-based form of life, but not the form of exchange itself. His solution goes as following: there is no particular solution to the problems of the capital, nation and the state without privileging one of the three. According to Karatani, what he calls “the UN system” can be the “federation of nations as a world system.”
According to his systematic development of this position, the nation-form offers a logic of exchange for dealing with intra-communitarian problems, based on the logic of the gift. The State-form is rather a form to stop the cycle of reciprocal action (both gifts and revenge, wars et cetera) and organise the relation between the communities through a non-reciprocal form, the law. Finally, capital is the third form of exchange that deals with the relations between states, in the interstices of the law form. In his understanding, the triad constituting the capital-nation-state is inseparable as such and it has to be revolutionalized completely, “knotted” by a different form of exchange and a different form of institution. These are the three institutions that Karatani associated with the “trinity” which organizes global capitalism. He proposes to simultaneously create a dual power movement, through alternative common currencies and markets, and to take over the state/capital. In Karatani’s view, the triad of capital-nation-state is inseparable and as such they ought to be revolutionized together. Does this not, at least in one instance, resembles Hegel’s system, especially in his Philosophy of Right?
Karatani’s philosophical project undoubtedly is one of the most original, systematic and profound rethinking of Marx after socialism. Karatani’s reconstruction of Marx made him an indispensable philosopher for everyone who reads Marx.
Nadir Lahiji’s The Unconscious Spirit of Communism: Kojin Karatani’s Reconstruction of Marx is a remarkable study of Karatani’s work. It sheds a new light in Karatani as a philosopher, literally critic and Marxist. It renders visible the singularity of Karatani’s philosophical project. Lahiji’s book is the first work that reconstructs Karatani’s remarkable philosophical work in the English-speaking world. It is not only an exegesis, but philosophical reconceptualization of Karatani’s thinking. It takes us throughout the intellectual trajectory of the thinker, allowing for a systematic reconstruction of his thinking.
Lahiji’s book is indispensable for anyone reading or studying Karatani.
Agon Hamza, October 2025
It should be noted that Kojin Karatani’s intellectual trajectory is highly interesting. He studied economy in the University of Tokyo. In his country, he is one of the most important literally critics, being one of those very rare intellectuals who lives off the selling of his books. He came into philosophy later.
Immanuel Kant, Dreams of a Spirit-Seer Illustrated by Dreams of Metaphysics (New York: The MacMillan co., 1900), pp. 85–86.