File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-01-27.123, message 20


Date: Sat, 25 Jan 1997 21:04:59 -0500 (EST)
From: Andrew Wayne Austin <aaustin-AT-utkux.utcc.utk.edu>
Subject: M-I: The Marxian Dialectic Part 2 of 4


[Sent off part one by mistake earlier. So I am going to send these on
periodically.]

[...Part I continued]

A further clarification of Marx's materialist conception of history. The
following passage is from a letter Marx wrote to P.  V. Annenkov (dated
December 28, 1846). It is presented here because it simplifies the
previous text and provides an example. 

"What is society, whatever its form may be? The product of men's
reciprocal activity. Are men free to choose this or that form of society
for themselves? By no means. Assume a particular state of development in
the productive forces of man and you will get a particular form of
commerce and consumption. Assume particular stages of development in
production, commerce, and consumption and you will have a corresponding
social order, a corresponding organization of the family and of the ranks
and classes, in a word a corresponding civil society. Presuppose a
particular civil society and you will get particular political conditions
which are only the official expression of civil society.... 

"It is superfluous to add that men are not free to choose their productive
forces--which are the basis of all their history--for every productive
force is an acquired force, a product of former activity. 

"The productive forces are therefore the result of practical human energy;
but this energy is itself conditioned by the circumstances in which men
find themselves, by the productive forces already won, by the social form
which exists before they do, which they do not create, which is the
product of the former generation. Because of this simple fact that every
succeeding generation finds itself in possession of the productive forces
won by the previous generation which serve it as the raw material for new
production, a connection arises in human history, a history of humanity
takes shape which has become all the more a history of humanity since the
productive forces of man and therefore his social relations have been
extended. Hence it necessarily follows: the social history of men is never
anything but the history of their individual development, whether they are
conscious of it or not. Their material relations are the basis of all
their relations. These material relations are only the necessary forms in
which their material and individual activity is realized....

[Note how the word "material" is used here. This was primarily why I
provided this passage. Marx was consistent in what he meant by material
relations. Hence when Marx spoke of his materialism contra the larger
materialist conception, it was thus differentiated. More on this later.]

"For example: The institution and privileges of guilds and corporations,
the regulatory regime of the Middle Ages, were social relations
corresponding only to the acquired productive forces and to the social
condition which has previously existed and from which these institutions
had arisen. Under the protection of this regime of corporations ad
regulations capital was accumulated, overseas trade was developed,
colonies were founded. But the fruits of this would themselves have been
forfeited if men had tried to retain the forms under whose shelter these
fruits had ripened. Hence came two thunderclaps--the revolutions of 1640
and 1688 [in England]. All the old economic forms, the social relations
corresponding to them, the political conditions which were the official
expression of the old society, were destroyed in England. Thus the
economic forms in which men produce, consume, exchange, are *transitory*
and *historical*. When new productive forces are won men change their
method of production and with the method of production all the economic
relations which are merely the necessary conditions of this particular
method of production." 

II. The Dialectic in Marx

The following is the "Postface to the Second Edition" to Capital, Volume
I. These passage were written in London, 24 January 1873. This is provided
at the request of Fernando. This is a direct reference to his application
of the dialectic contra Hegel. 

"My dialectical method is, in its foundations, not only different from the
Hegelian, but exactly opposite to it. For Hegel, the process of thinking,
which he even transforms into an independent subject, under the name of
'the idea,' is the creator of the real world, and the real world is only
the external appearance of the idea. With me the reverse is true:  the
ideal is nothing but the material world reflected in the mind of man, and
translated into forms of thought."

Note here that Marx regards the flaw in Hegel that he takes dialectical
logic ("the process of thinking"), and transforms it into an independent
subject, one that becomes "the creator of the real world, and the real
world is only the external appearance of the idea." This is precisely what
dialectical materialism does. This, as Marx indicates, is the reverse of
his argument. In a post this morning it was suggested that there existed a
transcendental subject. It was also admitted that Marx did not believe
this. I agree with Marx. There is no Abolute Idea. What has happened over
time is that Marxists, like some biologists who like the mechanism of
natural selection but wish to retain Lamarck's teleological conception of
evolution, have found Hegel's mysticism more useful for their arguments.
It is a bad habit of any scientist to hold to an eschatological viewpoint.
Marx himself admitted to this tendency, though never, he argued, without
examining the specific laws in operation and predicting where they might
go from this concrete analysis, always recognizing countertendencies.

Marx continues: "The mystification which the dialectic suffers in Hegel's
hands by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general
form of motion in a comprehensive and conscious manner.  With him it is
standing on its head. It must be inverted, in order to discover the
rational kernal within the mystical shell." Marx here asserts that he
hasn't much of a porblem with the Hegelian method, which he adopts, but
does have a problem with the direction of causality. Marx locates the
genesis of material reality in the production of human beings.

"In its mystified form, the dialectic became the fashion in Germany,
because it seemed to transfigure and glorify what exists. In its rational
form it is a scandal and an abomination to the bourgeoisie and its
doctrinaire spokesman, because it includes in its positivie understanding
of what exists a simultaenous recognition of its negation, its inevitable
destruction; because it regards every historically developed form as being
in a fluid state, in motion, and therefore grasps its transient aspect as
well; and because it does not let itself be impressed by anything, being
in every essence critical and revolutionary." [I put this in here because
I love the way Marx goes after idealism.]

Earlier in the "Postface," Marx quotes one of his critics (I. Kaufman, a
professor of political ecoomy at the University of St. Petersburg) who
nails Marx's position. Marx delights at how the critic graps his argument
so clearly and then denies the dialectical method in it! Just a piece of
Marx quoting Kaufman: 

"It will be said...that the general laws of economic life are one and the
same, no matter whether they are applied to the present of the past. But
this is exactly what Marx denies. According to him, such abstract laws do
not exist.... On the contrary, in his opinion, every historical period
possesses its own laws.... The old economists misunderstood the nature of
economic laws when they likened them to the laws of physics and
chemistry." (Note here that the critic understands Marx to find fault with
the conceptualization of the social world as operating in the same
nomothetic manner as the natural world. An observation that I share with
Kaufman and which Marx with affirm in the next passage.) 

To this Marx remarks, significantly: "Here the reviewer pictures what he
takes to be my own actual method, in a striking way and, as far as
concerns my own application of it, generous way. But what else is he
depicting but the dialectical method?" So Marx understands the dialectic,
as he employs it, as incommensurable with the notion of a law-driven
natural world. In fact, Marx points out that Kaufman observation that "The
old economists misunderstood the nature of economic laws when they likened
them to the laws of physics and chemistry," as being a statement of the
distinction of the Marxian dialectic. 

Let me summarize to this point and reiterate the position that triggered
this debate. My argument only addresses the problematic of locating the
dialectic outside the social system. I only seek to dismiss the
naturalization of dialectics as the work of Marx and generally, not the
method of dialectics as an analytical tool nor the dialectical process
embedded in the forces and relations of production. I agree with the
tenets historical materialism; it is the deep structures of social reality
which are the engine for historical transformation and give rise to the
ideological superstructure and consciousness, which, following Marx, I see
as surface structures. Historical materialism keeps these processes and
structures within the social system. Dialectical materialism naturalizes
them, locating them in nature, thus producing what I consider a absolute/
cosmic idealism which is wholly untenable. 

While it is true that the subjective (and intersubjective) is a product of
the deep structures of social forces and relations, it is just as true
that these deep structures are only accessible through the subject. This
is because one must use the symbolic systems of the culture in order to
"deconstruct," if you will, the social processes that both construct and
mystify social reality. This is why I also object to the rendering of a
subjectless history (such as Althusser's overdeterminism). For one thing,
it is impossible to stand outside of knowledge and behold reality apart
>from social constructions of it (dialectical materialism actually violates
this tautology). For another, it locates tranformational power outside the
social system (which gets back to my initial argument). Remember,
according to Marx, consciousness is either (a) a reflection of deep
social structures manifest in thought and/or (b) an ideological product
constructed by the ruling elite and distributed through the hegemonic
institutions they control. The latter is a distortion, mystifying the true
forces and relations possible in the former. Marx's interpretative method
tears down the mystification to reveal the social world as it really is,
and his interpretation stays at this level. 

Note that even if the dialectic we hold subjectively is a reflection of an
objective dialectic inherent in nature, we would still behold this
dialectic subjectively. Thus an attack against Dumain, one I will address
a little later, is ill-founded, and reveals the vulgar positivism of the
attacker. The difference between Marx and dialectical materialists is that
Marx resisted engaging in speculation regarding the objectivity of logic,
in fact it was a point of contention with Hegel, who in fact did.
Dialectical materialists miss the very essence of Marx's method, which was
a reflexive movement, one some have called retroductive. 

[Continued...]




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