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André Gorz | |
|---|---|
 Gorz (to the right) and his wife, Dorine | |
| Born | Gerhart Hirsch 9 February 1923 |
| Died | 22 September 2007(2007-09-22) (aged 84) Vosnon, France |
| Other names | Gérard Horst, Michel Bosquet |
| Philosophical work | |
| Era | 20th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Continental philosophy New Left |
| Main interests | Political philosophy |
| Notable ideas | Non-reformist reform |
Gérard Horst (French:[ʒeʁaʁɔʁst];né Gerhart Hirsch,Austrian German:[ˈɡeːɐ̯harthɪrʃ]; 9 February 1923 – 22 September 2007), more commonly known by hispen namesAndré Gorz (French:[ɑ̃dʁeɡɔʁts]) andMichel Bosquet (French:[miʃɛlbɔskɛ]), was an Austrian-Frenchsocial philosopher and journalist andcritic of work.[1][2][3][4] He co-foundedLe Nouvel Observateur weekly in 1964. A supporter ofJean-Paul Sartre'sexistentialist version ofMarxism after theWorld War II, he became in the aftermath of theMay 68 student riots more concerned withpolitical ecology.[5]
In the 1960s and 1970s, he was a main theorist in theNew Left movement and coined the concept ofnon-reformist reform.[5] His central theme waswage labour issues such as liberation from work, the just distribution of work,social alienation, and aguaranteed basic income.[6]
Born inVienna as Gerhart Hirsch, he was the son of aJewish wood-salesman and aCatholic mother, who came from a cultivated background and worked as a secretary. Although his parents did not have any strong sense of national or religious identity, the risinganti-Semitism led his father to convert to Catholicism in 1930. At the outbreak ofWorld War II in 1939, his mother sent him to an institution inSwitzerland to avoid his mobilization into theWehrmacht. Thereafter, Hirsch was astateless person until 12 April 1957,[7] when he becamenaturalized asFrench citizen because ofPierre Mendès-France's support.[8] He graduated from the École polytechnique atUniversity of Lausanne, nowEPFL, inchemical engineering in 1945.
Working at first as atranslator of American short stories published by a Swiss editor, he then published his first articles in aco-operative journal. In 1946, he metJean-Paul Sartre, and they became close. Gorz was then influenced mainly byexistentialism andphenomenology. He contributed to the journalsLes Temps modernes (Paris),New Left Review,Technologie und Politik (Reinbek).[2] In June 1949, he moved toParis, where he worked first at the international secretariat of theMouvement desCitoyens du Monde [fr], then as private secretary of amilitary attaché of the embassy of India. He then enteredParis-Presse as a journalist and took the pseudonym ofMichel Bosquet. There, he met withJean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, who in 1955 recruited him as an economist journalist forL'Express.
Alongside his journalistic activities, Gorz worked closely with Sartre and adopted anexistentialist approach toMarxism, which led Gorz to emphasize the questions ofalienation and ofliberation in the framework of existential experience and an analysis of social systems from the viewpoint of individual experience. That intellectual framework formed the basis of his first books,Le Traître (Le Seuil, 1958, prefaced by Sartre[9]),La Morale de l'histoire (Le Seuil, 1959) and theFondements pour une morale (Galilée, 1977, published fifteen years later), which he signed for the first time as André Gorz, from the German name of the now-Italian city(Görz), where the eyeglasses that were given to his father by the Austrian Army had been made.
Gorz also was a main theorist in theNew Left movement, inspired by theyoung Marx, discussions of humanism andalienation and the liberation of humanity. Gorz was also influenced by theFrankfurt School since he was a friend ofHerbert Marcuse. Other friends of his includedRossana Rossanda, founder ofIl Manifesto newspaper, the photographerWilliam Klein, younger intellectuals such asMarc Kravetz orTiennot Grumbach,[8] andRonald Fraser of theNew Left Review.
He strongly criticisedstructuralism because of its criticisms of the subject and of subjectivity. He called himself a "revolutionary-reformist", ademocratic socialist who wanted to see system-changing reforms. In 1961, he entered the editorial committee ofLes Temps Modernes and introduced to French thought the ItalianGaravini, theneo-Keynesian and communistBruno Trentin and theanarcho-syndicalistVittorio Foa.[10] Imposing himself as the "intellectual leader of the 'Italian' tendency of theNew Left",[11] he influenced activists of theUNEF students' union and theCFDT (in particular,Jean Auger,Michel Rolant andFredo Krumnow) as a theorist ofworkers' self-management, which has been recently embraced by the CFDT.[citation needed] His term "non-reformist reform" refers to proposed programs of change that base their demands on human needs, rather than those of the current economic system.[12]
He directly addressed himself to trade unions inStratégie ouvrière et néocapitalisme (Le Seuil, 1964) in which he criticizedcapitalisteconomic growth and expounded on the various strategies open to trade unions. The same year, he quitL'Express, along with Serge Lafaurie, Jacques-Laurent Bost, K.S. Karol andJean Daniel, to foundLe Nouvel Observateur weekly and used the pseudonym Michel Bosquet.
Deeply affected byMay 68, Gorz saw in the events a confirmation of his existential Marxist posture, which joined the students' criticisms towards institutional and state organisations: state, school, family, firm etc.Ivan Illich's ideas on education, medicine and the abolition ofwage labour then became the focus of his attention. Gorz published one of Illich's speeches inLes Temps Modernes in 1961 and met him in 1971 inLe Nouvel Observateur at the publishing ofDeschooling Society (Une Société sans école). Gorz later published a summary of Illich'sTools for Conviviality (1973) under the titleLibérer l'avenir (Free Future). His links with Illich was strengthened after a trip toCalifornia in 1974, and he wrote several articles forLe Nouvel Observateur to discuss Illich's thesis.[13]
Gorz's evolution and political and philosophical stances led to some tensions with his colleagues onLes Temps Modernes for which he had assumed the chief editorial responsibilities in 1969. In April 1970, his articleDestroy the University (Détruire l'Université) provoked the resignations ofJean-Bertrand Pontalis andBernard Pingaud. Gorz also criticised aMaoist tendency that had been in the journal since 1971 and supported by Sartre. In 1974, Gorz finally resigned as editor after a disagreement on an article about the Italianautonomist groupLotta Continua. He was also forced to the periphery ofLe Nouvel Observateur since he was replaced by more classically oriented economists, and he supported a campaign against nuclear industry to whichEDF, the state electricity firm, replied by withdrawing advertisements from the weekly. After it refused to let him publish a special issue on the nuclear issue, he published it in theQue Choisir? consumers' magazine.
Gorz was becoming a leading figure ofpolitical ecology, with his ideas being popularised particularly by the ecologist monthlyLe Sauvage, which had been founded byAlain Hervé, the founder of the French section of theFriends of the Earth. In 1975, Gorz publishedEcologie et politique (Galilée, 1975), which included the essayEcologie et liberté, "one of the foundational texts of the ecologic problematic".[14]
Gorz was also influenced byLouis Dumont in considering Marxism andliberalism to be two versions of economist thought. Gorz then opposedhedonistindividualism andutilitarianism and materialist and productivistcollectivism. He supported a humanist version of ecology similar tosocial ecology that opposesdeep ecology. Gorz's ecologism, however, remained linked to a critique of capitalism, as he called for an "ecological, social and cultural revolution that abolishes the constraints of capitalism".[15]
A year before theelection of the left's candidate,François Mitterrand, to the French presidency in 1981, Gorz publishedAdieux au prolétariat (Galilée, 1980 – "Farewell to the Proletariat") in which he criticized the cult of theproletarian class inMarxism. He argued that changes in science and technology had made it impossible for the working class to be the sole or even the main revolutionary agent. Although the book was not well received among theFrench left, it received attention from younger readers.
Soon after Sartre's death that year, Gorz left the editorial board ofLes Temps Modernes. InLes Chemins du paradis (Galilée, 1983) Gorz remained critical of the Marxist orthodoxy of the time, and he used Marx's own analysis in theGrundrisse to argue for the need of the political left to embrace the liberatory potential that the increasing automation of factories and services offered as a central part of the socialist project. In 1983, he fell out withpacifist movements by refusing to oppose the deployment ofPershing II missiles by theUnited States inWest Germany. The same year, he resigned fromLe Nouvel Observateur.
In the 1990s and the 2000s, the journalsMultitudes andEcoRev published his last article in French,La fin du capitalisme a déjà commencé ("The End of Capitalism Has Already Begun"),[16]andEntropia published his articles.
Gorz also opposed thepost-structuralism and thepostmodernism of thinkers likeAntonio Negri. Gorz's point of view was rooted in the thought of earlyMarxist humanism. Liberation fromwage slavery andsocial alienation remained some of his goals, even in his later works.[17]
He never became an abstract theorist since his reasoning usually concluded with proposals for how to act to make changes. InMétamorphoses du travail (Galilée, 1988 – "Metamorphosis of Labour"), Gorz argued that capitalism used personal investments from the worker that were not paid back. As such, he became an advocate of aguaranteed basic income independent from work. He made such a proposal in his book,Critique of Economic Reason in 1989 and argued:
"From the point where it takes only 1,000 hours per year or 20,000 to 30,000 hours per lifetime to create an amount of wealth equal to or greater than the amount we create at the present time in 1,600 hours per year or 40,000 to 50,000 hours in a working life, we must all be able to obtain a real income equal to or higher than our current salaries in exchange for a greatly reduced quantity of work. In practice, this means that in the future we must receive our full monthly income every month even if we work full-time only one month in every two or six months in a year or even two years out of four, so as to complete a personal, family or community project, or experiment with different lifestyles, just as we now receive our full salaries during paid holidays, training courses, possibly during periods of sabbatical leave, and so forth...".[18]
He pointed out that in
"contrast to the guaranteed social minimum granted by the state to those unable to find regular paid work, our regular monthly income will be the normal remuneration we have earned by performing the normal amount of labour the economy requires each individual to supply. The fact that the amount of labour required is so low that work can become intermittent and constitute an activity amongst a number of others, should not be an obstacle to its being remunerated by a full monthly income throughout one's life. This income corresponds to the portion of socially produced wealth to which each individual is entitled by virtue to their participation in the social process of production. It is, however, no longer a true salary, since it is not dependent on the amount of labour supplied (in the month or year) and is not intended to remunerate individuals as workers".[19]
Gorz and his wife, Dorine, committed suicide bylethal injection together in their home inVosnon,Aube. His wife had been diagnosed with a terminal illness, and they had already said that neither wanted to survive the other's death.[5] Their bodies were found on 24 September 2007 by a friend.[9][20]
His bookLettre à D. Histoire d'un amour (Galilée, 2006) was dedicated to his wife and was in fact a way for him to tell of his love for her.[5]
