Book review: Dialectical method

[James Lawler <PHIJIML@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Marx's Method in Capital:  A Reexamination, edited by Fred Moseley. New
Jersey:  Humanities Press, 1993.  233 pages.

                                          --James Lawler
                                            Philosophy Department
                                            SUNY at Buffalo
                                            phijiml@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
                                            phijiml@xxxxxxxxxxxx

      As he was preparing his first manuscript leading to Capital,
published as the Grundrisse, Marx (1983, 249) wrote to Engels that he
had just "completely demolished the theory of profit as hitherto
propounded.  What was of great use to me as regards method of treatment
was Hegel's Logic ..."  Unfortunately Marx did not adequately spell out
the nature of this dialectical method, which he said Hegel both created
and mystified at the same time.  To help rectify this inadequacy, the
authors of this volume exchanged views on the nature of the dialectical
method during a conference in June 1991.  Papers given then have since
been revised in the light of that discussion, with cross references to
each others' positions interspersed in the text.  Fred Moseley's
introduction outlines the main points of agreement and disagreement on
topics such as the nature of Marx's method and the extent to which it
coincides with Hegel's, the significance of Marx's starting with the
analysis of the commodity, the validity of Marx's early argument in
Chapter one for the labor theory of value, the relation between value
and money, the relation between the first and third volume of Capital,
with special application to the "transformation problem".  There are
also criticisms of alternative economic theories, primarily the neo-
Ricardian theory of Sraffa and Marxist followers such as Sweezy,
criticized extensively by Fred Moseley ("Marx's Logical Method and the
`Transformation Problem'") and Guglielmo Carchedi ("Marx's Logic of
Inquiry and Price Formation") in chapters seven and eight.  In the
preceding chapter, Martha Campbell ("Marx's Concept of Economic
Relations and the Method of Capital") closely examines Marx's criticisms
of the classical economics of J.S. Mill and the neo-classical theory of
Adolph Wagner.  While the first five chapters offer a more concentrated
focus on the nature of Marx's methodology, these final "applied"
chapters also develop their arguments from the high level of general
methodology.
      To consider here only the most fundamental question posed by this
volume, what exactly is dialectical method?  Tony Smith ("Marx's Capital
and Hegelian Dialectical Logic") argues that it is neither more nor less
than Hegel's own method as seen in the social scientific context of his
Philosophy of Right.  In partial disagreement with Marx, Smith doesn't
see much need to demystify Hegel, at least on the plane of methodology.
Hegel does not construct logical castles in the air, but bases his
investigation on the appropriation of empirical material.  The
transition from one category to another, as in the passage from
"property" to "contract", is the intellectual representation of a
definite social process.  Logical development is not the result of a
mysterious power inherent in the concepts, but the mental recapitulation
of the social practice in which individuals who possess property will
tend to engage in contractual relations with one another.  As a form of
social life, property relations involve a "necessary structural
tendency" for social agents to engage in the logically subsequent social
form of contractual relations.  But this is precisely how Marx
understands the transition from, say, the elementary form of commodity
exchange to its expanded and general forms, and from there to money.
E.g., from the standpoint of the exchange of commodities at a relatively
simple or abstract level, social agents who operate within such
conditions will necessarily tend to single out one commodity to serve as
a general measure of value.
      Smith distinguishes his position from that of Christopher Arthur
("Hegel's Logic and Marx's Capital") who thinks that Hegel does indeed
have an idealistic conception of the evolution of concepts as
superhuman, automatically developing forms.  But it is this very fact
that makes Hegelian dialectics suitable for understanding the logic of
Capital.  For capitalism is an alienated social power that unfolds its
moments or categories in the "self-moving" way that is mirrored in
Hegelian logic.  The exchange of commodities involves a "material
abstraction" in which the concrete particularities of use-values become
mere bearers of exchange values.  The forms of value unfold in
capitalism in the same unearthly way that categories evolve in Hegel's
Logic.  The impulse to move from the starting point, the most elementary
form, to more concrete forms is, Arthur adds, the insufficiency of the
simple form to express the complex conditions of its existence.  The
starting point is an element in a totality, rather than an axiom or an
empirical given on which all else depends.  Unlike Smith, who sees the
motivation for development to come from within the given form, Arthur
sees the development to come from outside the particular element
underconsideration, because of its conditioned character.  Only the
totality is unconditioned self-movement.
      Patrick Murray ("The Necessity of Money:  How Hegel Helped Marx
Surpass Ricardo's Theory of Value") also links Marx's appreciation of
Hegel with alienation, as expressed in Hegel's "logic of essence" (the
second part of Hegel's Logic) according to which one thing must express
itself in something else.  Following the traditional conception of
essence, however, Ricardo merely reduces exchange values to the
underlying essence, labor.  He does not explain how that essence
dialectically expresses itself in something else, in forms that are
seemingly in contradiction to that essence.  Repeating an idea
elaborated by Smith, Murray argues that Marx exploits the potentialities
of Hegel's "logic of the concept" (the third part of Hegel's Logic) to
provide a socialist alternative to the alienation, as expressed in the
logic of essence, inherent in capitalist relations.
      Geert Reuten ("The Difficult Labor of a Theory of Social Value:
Metaphors and Systematic Dialectics at the Beginning of Marx's Capital")
believes that Marx sometimes deviates from a systematic development of
categories, as in his derivation of labor as the "substance" of exchange
value through analysis rather than through dialectical development.
Perhaps for this reason, Arthur attempts a dialectical account that
avoids this part of Marx's work altogether, introducing the category of
labor dialectically only as the solution to the problem of the origin of
capitalist profit.  Paul Mattick, Jr. ("Marx's Dialectic") outlines
Marx's double method of analysis and synthesis of empirical data, which
he holds to differ significantly from Hegel's a priori or idealistic
logic of concepts.  Mattick interestingly develops the critique of
Ricardo advanced by Murray to argue that Marx begins Capital with the
starting point of classical political economy, not with some independent
"social form".  Marx then critically replaces this starting point with
one that is adequate to the analysis of capitalism.  Thus, the Ricardian
derivation of labor as the essence of value is taken to be part of a
critique of political economy, rather than an authentic starting point
for the understanding of capitalism.  Mattick converges here with the
arguments of Murray and Arthur, as well as Reuten, who sharply
criticizes the Ricardian "labor embodied" theory of value.  But for
Mattick, Marx's dialectical method is a critique of ideology, rather
than a method of theory construction (Smith) or an expression of
capitalistic alienation (Arthur).
      Major specialists here come to grips with each other while
inspiring the reader to turn to their larger works.  Unlike many
collections only loosely connected by a general theme, there is here a
serious effort, not just by the editor, but by the authors themselves,
to focus their discussion and to confront their differences and
similarities so as to offer the reader a truly collective effort.
                                REFERENCE
Marx, Karl and Engels, Frederick.  Collected Works, Vol. 40.  New
      York:  International Publishers, 1983, 249.