Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 11:41:06 +0100
From: Hugh Rodwell <m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se>
Subject: M-TH: Re: Marx's method & Justin S's lack of it


In his dispute with Dave B, Justin S is thrashing about in quite a tizzy.
Two points among the many that could be raised.

1. The commodity in Capital

Justin writes:

> Incidentally the temporal language about first historical abstraction, then
> only later suprahistorical abstraction is utter foolishness.  It does not
> reflect Marx's own practice. In Capital, he starts from the commodity in
> general and only later gets to capitalism. Nor in the context of surplus
> does the advice make any logical sense. You have to start by noticing that
> despite the appearance of equal exchange in capiotalism there is something
> there going on that's like the expropropriation of physical surplus in
> feyudalism and slavery, which requires a general notion of a surplus. Of
> course one needs an account of how the surplus in capitalism is tied to
> capitalist production relations also. Both are essential.

Putting historical abstraction first is not "temporal" language, but a
method at work. The "intuitive", common sense thing to do is always to
interpret local, historically limited phenomena as universal phenomena, as
Justin shows us time and again in his views on justice as such. Unmasking
this and forcing the universalists (from Hegel to Proudhon) down to earth
was a difficult, heroic and distinctive contribution that Marx made.

The *presentation* of Capital starts with the commodity as the basic cell
of the organism of capitalism, and moves through capitalist production and
distribution as such, in the abstract, to capitalist production and
distribution in their concrete, competitive reality.

Commodity production is present in modes of production preceding
capitalism, but it is not their determining characteristic as it is in
capitalism. In this sense, Marx starts with capitalism, investigates its
determining characteristics, discovers the key role of the commodity (with
its dual nature of use value and exchange value) in the metabolism of
capitalism, discovers further that labour as the production of value is
quite different from labour-power as the capacity to produce value, and
that only the latter is a commodity, discovers that labour-power is in fact
exchanged at its value, while it produces more value than it costs,
establishes that this is a form of exploitation that takes place
continuously under capitalist relations of production completely
independent of relations of distribution, and then proceeds to
*reconstruct* scientifically the mechanisms at work in capitalist society,
ultimately providing an explanation for its most enigmatic mysteries and
most inverted appearances.

The work done by Marx to pin down the commodity as the key element of
capitalist society is his real scientific practice, and that is concrete
and historical in its method. Marx didn't pick the commodity in general out
of his nose as Justin implies, and then wheedle it into assuming the
dimensions and aspect of fully-fledged capitalism. That is the method of a
snake-charmer and illusionist (beloved of all our petty-bourgeois
idealists). He got hte answers he needed about the laws of motion of
capitalist production and distribution by investigating what was
historically specific about the commodity in capitalism.

As for the general notion of a surplus, I've mentioned before that this is
dealt with in the introductory pages of the Grundrisse, and it's not as
obscure as Justin has claimed.

What's going on in capitalism, however, is a kind of exploitation that is
*not* like that in feudalism and slavery. That's the whole point. It's
*not* the physical (ie forcible) expropriation of a surplus (which is not
the same as the expropriation of a physical surplus) in the same way at
all. Justin should reflect about what he himself writes: "Despite the
appearance of equal exchange in capitalism". But he doesn't say whether
this is characteristic of capitalist exchange relations as a whole, as Marx
does. He fudges on this, leaving a slippery loophole for exchange relations
that are non-equal and thus determining for the origin of the surplus that
is expropriated. Marx dismisses this as inessential to the functioning of
capitalist exploitation. His analysis proceeds from the reality of
capitalism -- exchange relations may be as clean as a whistle, with
functioning equality before the law and the dollar etc, and still the
working class gets ripped off.

Justin writes: "Of course one needs an account of how the surplus in
capitalism is tied to
 capitalist production relations also. Both are essential." Which is very
generous of him. "Also". "Of course". But where is the account of how the
surplus is tied to capitalist exchange relations??? Given the dismissive
way Justin speaks of surplus and production relations, you'd think that the
fundamental problem was surplus and exchange relations, and that it had
already been solved.

But if you look at the reality of all this, you find that the fundamental
investigations of exchange inequalities etc that Justin puts in the centre
of his view of capitalism (production relations being an extraneous "also",
"of course"), are those of the bourgeois economists and Proudhon, and Marx
devoted his life's work (both theoretical and practical) to refuting them.

Justin says "both are essential". Marx said "exploitation on the basis of
exchange relations is inessential, and even if it happens (capitalists
being the crooks they are) it doesn't explain how the surplus value is
produced that the capitalists take such delight in redistributing between
themselves by all sorts of circulational skullduggery", or words to this
effect. The fact that Marx insisted that only the exploitation taking place
in the sphere of production was essential to capitalism is in fact a very
distinctive part of his ideas and his method. Having established that
capitalism could function very well in generating profits even if
everything in the sphere of circulation was honest and above board, he
ruthlessly dismissed all further attempts to use explanations from the
sphere of circulation and exchange to explain the origin of surplus value,
hence profit.

Hence the following at the end of Part II of Capital I, in the chapter on
the transformation of money into capital:

	Accompanied by Mr. Moneybags and by the possessor of labour-power,

	we therefore take leave for a time of this noisy sphere, where
everything
	takes place on the surface and in view of all men, and follow them
both
	into the hidden abode of production, on whose threshold there
stares us in
	the face "No admittance except on business." Here we shall see, not
only
	how capital produces, but how capital is produced. We shall at last
force
	the secret of profit making.

(No secrets of profit-making, as far as Marx is concerned, in the sphere of
exchange!)

	This sphere that we are deserting, within whose boundaries the sale
and
	purchase of labour-power goes on, is in fact a very Eden of the innate
	rights of man. There alone rule Freedom, Equality, Property and
Bentham.
	Freedom, because both buyer and seller of a commodity, say of
	labour-power, are constrained only by their own free will. They
contract
	as free agents, and the agreement they come to, is but the form in
which
	they give legal expression to their common will. Equality, because
each
	enters into relation with the other, as with a simple owner of
	commodities, and they exchange equivalent for equivalent. Property,
	because each disposes only of what is his own. And Bentham, because
	each looks only to himself. The only force that brings them
together and
	puts them in relation with each other, is the selfishness, the gain
and the
	private interests of each. Each looks to himself only, and no one
troubles
	himself about the rest, and just because they do so, do they all, in
	accordance with the pre-established harmony of things, or under the
	auspices of an all-shrewd providence, work together to their mutual
	advantage, for the common weal and in the interest of all.

	On leaving this sphere of simple circulation or of exchange of
commodities,
	which furnishes the "Free-trader Vulgaris" with his views and
ideas, and
	with the standard by which he judges a society based on capital and
	wages, we think we can perceive a change in the physiognomy of our
	dramatis personae. He, who before was the money-owner, now strides in
	front as capitalist; the possessor of labour-power follows as his
labourer.
	The one with an air of importance, smirking, intent on business;
the other,
	timid and holding back, like one who is bringing his own hide to
	market and has nothing to expect but -- a hiding.

I wonder how much more clearly Marx would have to put it to overcome the
resistance of those who, like Justin. see only issues of surface relations
and dogmatically reject anything beneath the surface of bourgeois legal,
political and cultural relations, or beyond the historical bounds of the
capitalist mode of production?


2. "Conscious revolutionaries".

This point of Justin's is a very cheap one, but needs refuting. He writes:

> But even if the theory of value were
> true, which it is not, it is a particularly ugly sort of condescending toy
> Bolshevism to insist on a view that practically speaking denies most
> workers the honor of being "conscious": revolutionaries. Apparently this
> is the province of the elite of philosopher kings in the party who move in
> the sun while the people who do the fighting writhe in the cave.

The confusion here is so complete it's hard to know where to start. Being
"conscious" is some kind of social honour. Justin talks of "most" workers
being denied the honour of being conscious revolutionaries. Does he
seriously think that most workers today are revolutionaries?? Let alone
conscious revolutionaries. Again the surface is everything. A potential for
development is behaviouristically denied. It's a black box, an unknowable,
a Kantian no-no thing-in-itself.

All workers have the potential to be revolutionaries. All workers have the
potential to be conscious revolutionaries. Many bourgeois and
petty-bourgeois have the  potential to be both, as well. Perhaps all human
beings do, that's not the point.

As capitalist society rots on, more and more people are forced into
fighting for their most elementary rights and material necessities. They
become revolutionaries if their struggle implies or leads to the overturn
of the regime. They become objective socialist revolutionaries if their
struggle leads to the overturn of the bourgeois state and the institution
of a proto-socialist workers' state, a dictatorship of the proletariat.
Characterizing such workers and poor people as revolutionaries is not an
honour, it's a plain description.

Some people organize in various ways to fight oppression. If their goals
call for the overthrow of the regime or the state, they are
revolutionaries, even if there is no revolutionary mobilization in progress
while they are organizing.

Some people understand the mechanisms in society that make things work the
way they do, they know the weaknesses of capitalism and the potential
strength of the working class and its allies, they know the best policies
to combat the bourgeoisie and take the struggle from local wage &
conditions disputes to national and international confrontations involving
the life or death of capitalism as a mode of production. To the extent that
these people understand more or less of the economic, political and
organizational dynamics of their world, they may be characterized as more
or less conscious revolutionaries.

Justin seems to want it all, now, with everybody being granted the honour
of the badge "conscious revolutionary", just as everybody in a kindergarten
class might get to be Queen of the May or Captain of the Team. Gold star
pedagogics.

Outside the toddlers' classroom it doesn't work that way. Much of the
discussion on these lists of ours centres on questions relating to levels
and degrees of consciousness, usually quite unconsciously. But the fact
that the discussion is often conducted by people with a certain kind of
educational background (not always thank Christ) doesn't necessarily mean
that it's purely of interest to "philosopher-kings" -- although such a slur
would be much more appropriate here than when it's used against Dave! No.
In a revolutionary organization of the kind argued for by Dave, Bob M and
myself, there is constant contact between non-theoretical members and
theoretical members, and fighting and discussions and the development of
analyses and policies for action are activities of the whole party. If the
whole party consciously fights to school all its militants in the best way
possible for understanding the national and international struggle in all
its aspects, then it may be characterized as a consciously revolutionary
organization. If the organizational aspect is ignored, then a huge element
of Marxist, socialist revolutionary reality is missing, and the degree of
consciousness is that much the less, regardless of any fire in the spirit
or class hatred. But enthusiasm doesn't equal consciousness.

For some reason, too, Justin uses the expression "toy Bolshevism", as if
Lenin did not have very strict criteria of the same kind as Dave uses for
considering anybody a conscious revolutionary. This just sounds like the
myth-making indulged in by Louis Proyect, inventing a virtuous virtual
Bolshevik party removed from time and space whose main use is to throw mud
at anything resembling actual Bolshevik-Leninist practice.

Perhaps Justin could enlighten us as to what he means by non-toy
Bolshevism, genuine Bolshevism?? And what's good about it, compared with
our own shortcomings.

Stalin proclaimed deserving cases "honorary proletarians". Perhaps Justin
would like to institute some similar kind of award here -- for "honorary
Bolshevism" or "honorary consciousness"!

Cheers,

Hugh











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