I thank Michael W. for his very thoughtful response (ope-l 2780) to me.
The discussion is taking many turns - at once! -- and I'm searching for the
"ground" of it, so that it can be engaged more sharply. I haven't found it.
What I am sensing, though, is that Michael is addressing a few different
questions at once: (1) What was Marx's method of presentation in _Capital_?,
(2) what was his method of investigation?, and (3) what method is adequate to
comprehending the concrete? I sense, though I wouldn't go out on a limb on
this, that (3) might be intruding on (1) and (2). I'll try to keep them as
distinct as possible. I should also mention that my own concern in this
discussion is really only with (1) (although, depending on how successful one
judges _Capital_, the answer to (1) impacts on the answer to (3)).
Again, I'm not convinced by the view that the method of presentation was any
sort of "systematic dialectics," or that the structure is modeled on Hegel's
_Logic_, or by the attempts to reconstruct _Capital_ in light of this view.
Here I think Michael and I differ. I do think the method of presentation in
_Capital_ is dialectical, however.
To the particular points:
Michael: To take as given 'particular conditions of circulation' is, IMO, to
abstract from the effects of changes in them on production.
Andrew: Yes, I understand. I don't think any of the results of the immediate
process of production are affected by changes in conditions of circulation.
Clearly there will be differences in *magnitude*, say the magnitude of
surplus-value, if the wage is less than the value of necessary means of
subsistence, brought about by changes in circulation conditions. But Marx
makes no claims and derives no results that depend on specific conditions of
circulation. If someone were to ask me what is Marx's fully developed,
complete, crossed-t's and dotted-i's theory of where profit comes from and
what determines its magnitude, I'd direct him/her to Parts 3-5 of Vol. I.
Michael: I think 'analysis' is not what is going on in a dialectical
presentation
Andrew: "Analysis" implies separation. I think it has to be a "moment" of a
dialectical presentation, so that the undifferentiated unity is
differentiated. In any case, I used "analysis" to describe *Marx's* account
of the immediate production process (and discussion of the nature of the
commodity). Whether you're right or wrong about analysis "not ... going on in
a dialectical presentation" is separate from whether my description is right
or wrong. (Point (3) vs. point (1).)
Michael: I assume that the purpose of the exercise is to re grasp the
unmediated empirical as the concrete. This is surely a process of
concretization, in which abstract tendencies and
determinants are systematically articulated one with another, to attempt to
establish what demands a modification of the categorical system.
Andrew: I don't think this was the purpose of Marx's presentation. I suppose
it applies more or less to his or anyone's process of investigation. I think
the purpose of his exercise, ultimately, was to lay bare the economic law [NB:
not lawS] of motion of modern society. If I had to describe what this is in
a schematic way, which I don't find all that illuminating, I'd say the
dialectic of the presentation is a self-developing opposition between the
material form and the value form (of the product, of the labor, of the
production process, of reproduction, etc.) (This seems to leave out the
capital/labor antagonism, or to make it less central than it is. But I don't
really think so. As Marx shows in Ch. 5, capital as self-expanding value is
contradictory. Value does not expand on its own, but requires the labor of
living human beings in a material production process. What appears to be
*self-*expansion is expansion through subsuming its "other." (I think
Postone failed to appreciate this.)) I'm not sure exactly how this differs
from Michael's schematic, but they seem somewhat distant from one another.
BTW, my account seems to be compatible with the move from the particular to
the general.
Michael: If you are merely pointing out that what has been established as a
tendency at a high level (would 'degree' be less confusing?) of abstraction
cannot, in a valid systematic
presentation, be negated at a more concrete level.
Andrew: No. But this is a really good point. One reason I'm so wary of talk
of "levels of abstraction" is that so many who use it neglect this point
entirely, and indeed use it to explain away contradictions in their account.
One case I'm very familiar with is the claim that "transformation problem"
solutions' results end up invalidating key conclusions of Vol. I *because*
that Volume is "abstract" and at a more "concrete" level the results are
"modified," i.e., negated. Another is the law of the tendency of the profit
rate to fall. Grossmann and Mattick Sr had a different take on things, but
also employed this method a good deal.
Michael: Given that actual history - including that within bourgeois society
- happens
in chronological order, opposing 'order within modern bourgeois society' to it
is surely a process of abstraction? Concerned, IMO, to establish the
determination of elements of the bourgeois system by their location within the
whole.
Andrew: Yes, of course. Analysis breaks up the stream of events by
abstracting parts from the whole. Then there's a "synthetic" re-ordering.
All this is part of the process of investigation, including the *finding of
the essential interconnections* of the parts. It doesn't at all imply that
the method of *presentation* itself (even if the presentation is that
re-ordered whole) is a rise from abstract to concrete. That something is
located through abstraction doesn't make it abstract.
Michael then quotes me:
"And then Andrew:
The discussion of abstract vs. concrete has to do with investigation,
specifically the development of thought:
"the method of rising from the abstract to the concrete is only the way in
which thought appropriates the concrete, reproduces it as the concrete in the
mind" (p. 101).
Michael W:
I'm afraid I read this quote in exactly the opposite way: investigation has
lead
'thought' to a number of abstractions, which then, by systematic presentation,
have to be grounded in their more concrete conditions of existence with a
view,
eventually to appropriating the empirical as the concrete. (Of course, this is
a
stylized account of the method: any contact with the empirical is always
mediated by our (intersubjective) conceptualizations to date; and the
presentation has to be continually redone in response to conceptual and
empirically based critique.)
Andrew:
Marx gets to the very end of the Grundrisse and begins to talk about
"commodity," noting that this section is to be brought forward (p. 881). It
became the starting point of CCPE and _Capital_.
Michael:
Grundrisse are notes, reporting, inter alia, some of Marx's investigation,
leading him to postulate the commodity as the most fundamental abstract
starting
point for the presentation of the bourgeois system in Capital. (Again, Capital
contains many reports of investigation, but generally these are not essential
to
the logic of the systematic presentation.)
And then Andrew:
The discussion of abstract vs.
concrete has to do with investigation, specifically the development of
thought:
"the method of rising from the abstract to the concrete is only the way in
which thought appropriates the concrete, reproduces it as the concrete in the
mind" (p. 101).
Then he replies: Michael W:
I'm afraid I read this quote in exactly the opposite way: investigation has
lead
'thought' to a number of abstractions, which then, by systematic presentation,
have to be grounded in their more concrete conditions of existence with a
view,
eventually to appropriating the empirical as the concrete. (Of course, this is
a
stylized account of the method: any contact with the empirical is always
mediated by our (intersubjective) conceptualizations to date; and the
presentation has to be continually redone in response to conceptual and
empirically based critique.)
Andrew:
Marx gets to the very end of the Grundrisse and begins to talk about
"commodity," noting that this section is to be brought forward (p. 881). It
became the starting point of CCPE and _Capital_.
Michael:
Grundrisse are notes, reporting, inter alia, some of Marx's investigation,
leading him to postulate the commodity as the most fundamental abstract
starting
point for the presentation of the bourgeois system in Capital. (Again, Capital
contains many reports of investigation, but generally these are not essential
to
the logic of the systematic presentation.)
And then Andrew:
The discussion of abstract vs.
concrete has to do with investigation, specifically the development of
thought:
"the method of rising from the abstract to the concrete is only the way in
which thought appropriates the concrete, reproduces it as the concrete in the
mind" (p. 101).
Michael W:
I'm afraid I read this quote in exactly the opposite way: investigation has
lead
'thought' to a number of abstractions, which then, by systematic presentation,
have to be grounded in their more concrete conditions of existence with a
view,
eventually to appropriating the empirical as the concrete.
Andrew: I realize you're bringing the preceding page into this, but I still
don't see it. Marx is alleging that Hegel mistook the rise from abstract to
concrete as the real process of development of the concrete, and not, as Marx
thinks it is, as the process of thought grasping the concrete.
Michael:
Grundrisse are notes, reporting, inter alia, some of Marx's investigation,
leading him to postulate the commodity as the most fundamental abstract
starting
point for the presentation of the bourgeois system in Capital.
Andrew: I don't think he calls it "abstract." Later, in his notes on Wagner,
as I mentioned, he emphasizes that he begins by analyzing a concretum. This
is not an incidental remark. It is part of Marx saying that Wagner
misunderstood what he (Marx) was doing in the opening pages. I think this
point is fundamental to our present discussion. If commodity is the
starting-point, and if it is concrete, then _Capital's_ method of presentation
is not systematic-dialectical. Now it may not be the actual starting-point,
or it may not be concrete. But to argue that it is not concrete, one needs to
explain why Marx himself said it was. And one needs some method and criteria
by which to *test* whether Marx's, or one's own, comprehension of his method
is superior.
I'm going to quote some of the most relevant passages from these notes (_Texts
on Method_, Terrell Carver, ed., Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1975), though the
nature of Marx's beef with Wagner becomes much clearer when one reads in
context:
Wagner writes that Marx "finds the common social substance of exchange-value";
part of Marx's response: "Also, Herr Wagner forgets that neither 'value',
'nor exchange-value' are my subjects, but _the commodity_." [p. 183]
Wagner quotes Rau, approvingly according to Marx. Rau writes: "it is
necessary to set down what is meant under _value pure and simple [Wert
schlechthin." Marx responds:
"According to Herr Wagner, _use-value_ and _exchange-value_ are to be derived
at once [d'abord] from the _concept of value_, not as with me, from a
_concretum, the commodity_, and it is interesting to pursue this
_scholasticism_ in its latest '_Foundations_'. [189]
I do not start out from 'concepts', hence I do not start out from 'the concept
of value', and do not have 'to divide' these [use-value, exchange-value] in
any way. What I start out from is the simplest social form in which the
labour-product is presented in contemporary society, and this is the
'_commodity_'. I analyse it, and right from the beginning, in the _form in
which it appears_." [198]
(Several other times in this text, Marx also refers to his "analysis" of the
commodity.)
I also think it is rather obvious that "commodity" is concrete. It is a unity
of opposites, use-value and value, which are abstracted from it through
analysis. "There is nothing simple about a commodity. ... the commodity,
from the start of capitalism, is a reflection of the dual character of labor.
It is, from the start, a unity of opposites-which, in embryo, contains _all_
the contradictions of capitalism." Raya Dunayevskaya, _Marxism and Freedom_,
p. 99. ("There is nothing simple about a commodity" was picked up by Jesse
Schwartz as the title of his/her article in the _Subtle Anatomy of
Capitalism_.)
Michael: I am, however, puzzled by the notion that the starting point in the
commodity is
considered to be 'concrete'. It is certainly not an unmediated empirical
concept, but it is, I think, clearly abstract.
Andrew: As to immediacy, see the p. 198 quote. Of course, I emphasize that
Marx *could* be wrong about his own method. But I too read the beginning as
starting from immediate appearances.
Michael: It is worth noting that my partner (who is German) tells me that
the English opening sentence in my (L&W, 1970) version, which reads:
'The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production
prevails, presents itself as "an immense accumulation of commodities," its
UNIT being a single commodity.'
Should, according to her German edition read:
' ..., its ELEMENTARY FORM being a single commodity.'
This puts things in a slightly different light:' elementary form', fundamental
abstraction, basic primitive - what's in a name. (see your remarks below)
Andrew: Quite clearly; the German is "elementarform." Fowkes translates it
as "elementary form." In general, he reinstates a lot of the philosophical
terms that Moore/Aveling altered. Elementary form can just as easily
designate "fundamental concretum" as "fundamental abstraction." E.g., the
atom.
Michael" I should make it clear that my own project (with Geert) is
explicitly a
reconstruction of Marx's argument, in the attempt to overcome the opposition
in
it between the Hegelian and the 'English political economy' influences. Of
course what Marx has to say on method is important, but one may speculate that
in trying to distance himself from Hegelian idealism he may sometimes have
tended to throw out the baby with the bath water?
Andrew: Maybe there is this opposition, maybe not (are you referring to
"abstract" and "embodied" labor?) . In any case, this doesn't account for his
calling commodity a concretum. English (and Scottish) PE was thoroughly
empiricist, and accordingly didn't concern itself with grounding its concepts,
the starting-point, etc. I really don't think Marx was distancing himself
from Hegelian idealism as much as from Hegel's mystification of the dialectic.
Marx saw in the dialectic, specifically the negation of the negation, the
movement of history, which Hegel mystified and expressed abstractly as the
development of the thinking head *alone*. BTW, I'm only arguing that
_Capital_ isn't patterned on the _Logic_, not that Marx wasn't a Hegelian.
Michael: Incidently, I have written a critical review of paper ( and the
other
contributions) in the Fred (ed)'s book (unfortunately, no one wanted to
publish
the long version, so a much curtailed version will be coming out in ROPE,
idc.)
Andrew: Geert's paper? I'll be interested in seeing your review essay. Or
maybe you could send the long version. I have a very short review of the book
coming out, or out, in _Rethinking Marxism_. I focus mostly on the
"systematic dialectics" issue, but even that gets short shrift due to space
constraints.
I had written: "I think Marx [in Preface to CCPE] is signalling that his
method is the very opposite to that of ascending from abstract to concrete.
Michael replied:
Your first sentence is a puzzle:
1) I am not sure what you mean: are you saying that Marx method is the
OPPOSITE
OF ascending from abstract to concrete? In which case this conflicts with your
quote above from Grundrisse.
2) His 'method' surely encompasses both the process of inquiry and the
process
of presentation?
Andrew: Sorry. I meant the method *of presentation* is the opposite of
ascending from abstract to concrete. How does he end up with the "abstract"?
In this sense: we have the general, capitalism. Again, however, I think we
agree that "abstract" and "concrete" are fluid.
Michael: We agree that he starts with the commodity, conceived as the
'elementary form'
of capitalist wealth. But I read 'elementary' as the most abstract,
fundamental
'acorn' containing within it the whole of the capitalist economy. Then the
process you describe, and the location of the fundamental contradictions
emerge
from the concretization of this most abstract form. In this sense, the most
abstract is that which is most fundamental to understanding the system - the
process of concretization, including the eventual re grasping of the empirical
as the concrete is the argument that the postulated 'elementary form' does
indeed 'contain the whole' within it.
Andrew: Are you *defining* abstract as "most fundamental to understanding"?
If so, why?
Michael: (As you may know, Geert and I argue in our
1989 that the value-form is more fundamental and most abstract than the
commodity form - but that is another story.)
Andrew: Marx (notes on Wagner, above) seems to agree that value and
exchange-value, as concepts separated from the commodity, are abstract.
Michael quotes me:
Andrew:
Since Marx is
talking about what the reader must do to follow his *presentation*, since the
reader certainly cannot share Marx's process of inquiry, I think advance from
particular to general refers to the method of presentation.
And replies:
While the quote from the Preface to the CCPE is puzzling, your argument here
is
not cogent. Much of science does indeed invite the reader to follow a REPORT
OF
the process of inquiry, analysis and abstraction from the unmediated
empirical.
Andrew: True, but that doesn't reduce the cogency of my argument, precisely
because you added "report of." A report is not a replica of the process of
investigation. More importantly, we know that _Capital_ is in no way
structured according to Marx's process of investigation, and the aim of its
structure is far more ambitious than simply to report methods of investigation
(which seem hardly to be mentioned) and results. For that one really needs no
structure, much less a dialectical one. Even more importantly, Marx himself
tells us precisely what the method of presentation is meant to do:
"Only after this work [of inquiry] has been done can the *real movement* be
appropriately presented. If this is done successfully, if the *life of the
subject-matter* is now reflected back in the ideas ...." (Postface, 2d German
ed, Capital I, my emphases).
Note the references to ideas "reflecting" the historical development.
Michael: I think, however, we do disagree about the notion of a historical
dialectic. The
essential nature of capitalism is, IMO, to be grasped in terms of its
processes
of reproduction, not its history. More generally I have some difficulty with
any
notion of an historical dialectic: dialectical processes are conceptual. None
of
this undermines the importance of historical knowledge in grasping the nature
of
the present; but what is dialectically necessary to that system are the
conditions of its reproduction. The process of discovering those conditions
does
seem to me to involve transcending the insufficiencies of the more abstract
categories. Again , I can only offer R&W (1989) as a feeble example of this
process.
Andrew: I think reproduction and history are not opposites here.
Reproduction and origins are. History becomes inextricable from theory in
_Capital_ because theory alone comes up against a profound indeterminacy that
it can't solve on its own: the determination of the mass and rate of
surplus-value, and mass and rate of profit. As Marx puts it, the working day
is capable of being determined, but is *in and for itself* indeterminate.
This is decided in and through real, historical, class struggle, the results
of which are open, and this shapes the reproduction of the system. This is
why, even though mechanization chronologically precedes the shortening of the
workday, Marx places the production of relative surplus-value subsequent to
it. In other words, mechanization is *essentially* a (continuing) response to
workingclass struggle that limits capital's self-expansion.
I agree that dialectic is conceptual. But it is equally the nature of the
fact. The two together are the conceptual reconstruction of reality in a way
that discloses its movement and development (or lack thereof, or
retrogression). What I think is misguided is a reduction of dialectic to
logic. For instance, Hegel's _Phenomenology_ doesn't seem to me to be based
on an ascending sequence of categories. The forward motion comes from the
struggle to know, not from categorial insufficiency.
Andrew