Date: Sat, 13 Aug 94 12:26:15 BST From: Chris Bailey <chrisbailey-AT-gn.apc.org> Subject: Marx/Hegel Since this is my first contribution I had better start by introducing myself. I live in Cambridge, England. Although this is one of the most famous university establishments in the world, I am not connected in anyway to the university - I just happen to have been born here! The only connection with the "academic" world I have had is a couple of years studying Engineering before "dropping out" in the late '60s. From that time onwards I have been both a political and trade union activist. I have studied Marxism within this context and not within the formal education system. For 25 years, slightly more than half my life, I was a member of a Trotskyist sect called the WRP led by one Gerry Healy, who some of you may have heard of. In 1986, this sect blew apart into many pieces. I am glad to have played a role in its destruction and am now one of the pieces. I am involved with some other refugees from similar sectarian experiences in trying to develop an open discussion on the problems facing socialism "unfettered by any orthodoxy or 'party line'". The quote is from the Statement of Intent of a small circulation magazine we publish. I had intended observing the discussion for a bit longer before entering it, but Donna Jones gave me the perfect cue. Thanks, Donna! > In my readings, I have found the following to be helpful in understanding > the relationship between Marx and Hegel > Geoffrey Pilling, Marx's Capital (see also his introduction to "Letters on > Capital" published by New Park).(If anyone knows of anything else he has > written, please inform me; I have an early piece on the law of value and > his book on keynesianism, but have not been able to find anything else). Geoff Pilling has written quite a lot. He was a member of the WRP throughout the same period I was and wrote under the name Peter Jeffries. I will save him embarrassment by not naming these "works". Geoff would be the first to admit that his writings were mainly hack material produced under instruction from Healy. The book you refer to, "Marx's Capital", is quite different. Geoff produced this one under the counter, so to speak, in his own name and using an independent publisher (not New Park, which was owned by the WRP). Although the book was broadly in line with WRP positions at the time it wasn't vetted by Healy, who claimed to be the ultimate authority on philosophy and he didn't like the book one bit. Although we parted company sometime ago - he is still in one of the WRPs (there are at least two!)-, I worked closely with Geoff in the period after we expelled Healy and discussed his book with him on several occasions. He openly acknowledged that the immediate inspiration for it had come from reading two works published in English at about that time by E V Ilyenkov, the Russian philosopher. These were the short essay _The Concept of the Ideal_ and the book _Dialectical Logic: Essays on its History and Theory_. At that time, Ilyenkov's earlier work _The Dialectics of the Abstract and the Concrete in Marx's Capital_ had not been published in English. If it had been, Geoff said, he wouldn't have written his own book. He had realised that Ilyenkov's work had considerable implications for a reading of Marx's _Capital_, but hadn't realised that is where Ilyenkov had started in the first place. Basically, Geoff thought Ilyenkov's book on _Capital_ had done a much better job of what he was trying to do than he had managed himself. I mention all this because, although I agree with Donna that Geoff Pilling's book is certainly well worth reading, particularly because it takes on Althusser specifically, it seems to me that a serious discussion on the Marx/Hegel relationship has to include an examination of Ilyenkov's work. I would now like to comment on the argument being put forward by Steve Keen concerning the supposed conflict between the use- value/exchange value dialectic and the labour theory of value. Steve opposes Althusser's insistence that it is possible to remove "Hegelianism" from Marx and still leave Marx's critique of capitalist political economy pretty much intact and he maintains the importance of the many Hegelian notions in Marx's _Capital_. I agree with him, but I am, therefore, somewhat perplexed by a remark he makes in his original exposition of his ideas on the labour theory of value. Here, in dealing with Marx's derivation of the source of surplus-value in labour-power he says: "His finale (after the usual diversions!!) occurs 24 pages later:" What diversions does Steve mean? A reading of these pages reveal that they are in large part concerned with "Hegelian" issues and include statements concerning the relationship between Man and Nature which are clearly part of Marx's attempt "to place Hegel on his feet". Is this what Steve considers to be "the usual diversions"? But these are exactly the parts of _Capital_ that Althusser says should be skipped! Perhaps, despite his apparent disagreement with Althusser, Steve nevertheless also heeded his advice to ignore part one of _Capital_ completely and begin with part two. Could that be why Steve missed the title of the very first section in the book? "Section 1. - The two factors of a commodity: Use-value and value (The Substance of value and the Magnitude of value)." The terms Substance and Magnitude are clearly Hegelian terms which Marx deliberately selected to show the relationship between his analysis of the commodity and Hegel's Logic. By equating use- value with Substance and value (exchange value) with Magnitude he is making absolutely clear that use-value is the purely qualitative aspect of the commodity and exchange value its purely quantative aspect. Steve's contention that under the "specific circumstances of productive consumption" they are quantatively comparable is _logically_ absurd. Despite his opposition to Althusser he has, in fact, ignored the _logic_ of _Capital_. The footnote from Marx he reproduces concerning the importance of use-value does not support his position at all. Certainly, Marx attacked Ricardo for ignoring the importance of use-value, _the purely qualitative factor of the commodity_. He developed this further in the second volume of _Capital_ when he showed that the use-value composition of Departments I and II was a crucial factor in analyzing conditions of both potential equilibrium and breakdown. In the extreme, if all commodities produced were raw materials we would all starve. If they were all consumer goods society would eventually grind to a halt as machinery wore out. But what has this got to do with Steve's contention that use-value can be quantative. Marx is actually stressing, in opposition to Ricardo, the importance of the qualitative aspect of the commodity. For Marx, the use-value of labour power is certainly not expressed in hours worked, a quantity, as Steve claims. It is, in fact, labour in its purely qualitative form. The capitalist requires certain specific tasks to be performed. The worker performs these tasks. In doing so, he loses the use-value of his own labour. He sells it to the capitalist. He carries out labour that is of use to the employer and no use to himself. He is often producing goods that he could never own and has no need for if he could. Only later, after he has been paid the exchange-value of his labour power, can the worker satisfy his own needs. The use-value, the quality, of the worker's labour-power must first be transformed into exchange-value, its quantity, before it can be transformed back into use-values for the worker. There can be no comparison between the use-value of the labour the worker spent working for the capitalist and the use-value of the labour he would have spent producing use-values for himself instead. One is fictitious anyway and even if it wasn't the two would be totally incommensurable - like chalk and cheese, pure qualities devoid of any quantative relation to each other. Chris Bailey.
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