A critique on capitalist modernity: the contributions of Enrique Dussel and Franz Hinkelammert

Abstract

In the following article, we will analyze Enrique Dussel’s and Franz Hinkelammert’s perspective on capitalist modernity. Firstly, we will present the authors point of view –reprising Michael Löwy’s readings of their work- based on a criticism of eurocentrism which interprets history from the experience of poverty and exclusion. Secondly, we will expose the myth of modernity as a fetishist process that turns the victim into a culprit and the victimizer into an innocent person. This will be done from Dussel’s guidelines. Thirdly, following Hinkelammert’s framework, we will address the objections towards the modern conception of subject that looks upon human life as reduced to the notion of the individual that cements all human relationships. Finally, we will focus on the manner in which these two authors review the marxian theory of fetishism to make it their own. In order to achieve this purpose, we will explain the fundamental aspects of Hinkelamert and Dussel’s philosophies.