Ch6 Materialist Dialetic[1]

7/24/2019 Ch6 Materialist Dialetic[1]

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Guide to Marxist Philosophy, Social Theory and Economics

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Chapter 6: The

materialist dialectic

BY SIMON

We can begin as we did with Hegel, onthe general approach or method whichprovided the underpinnings of Marxand Engels method. Marx explained inthe preface to Capital: Volume 1,published several decades later, thathe had not discarded the Hegeliandialectic but transformed it, Mydialectic method is not only differentfrom the Hegelian, but is its directopposite. To Hegel, the life process ofthe human brain, i.e., the process ofthinking, which, under the name ofthe Idea, he even transforms into anindependent subject, is the demiurgosof the real world, and the real world isonl the external, henomenal form of

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the Idea. With me, on the contrary,the ideal is nothing else than the

material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into formsof thought. 1

Kant had reintroduced the method of dialectical analysis into westernphilosophy, Hegel had developed it and brought it to its most perfectform within the boundaries of German idealism, and now Marx andEngels were able to turn it right side up again and discover therational kernel within the mystical shell. In short, although Hegel haddeveloped a philosophy which saw categories of thought as beingderived from an idealist construct of the World Spirit, at the same timehe provided a method whereby motion and the interconnected natureof things could be demonstrated. This rational form of the dialecticwas and remains an essential component of scientific socialism, and isthe cornerstone of the Marxist method because it identifies theimmanent contradiction in the heart of the social order itself, it is thisthat has revolutionary consequences for every existing social relationand institution.

Again in Capitals Afterword Marx explains the importance of thedialectical method in his work on political economy [i]n its mystifiedform, dialectic became the fashion in Germany, because it seemed totransfigure and glorify the existing state of things. In its rational form itis a scandal and abomination to bourgeoisdom and its doctrinaireprofessors, because it includes in its comprehension and affirmativerecognition of the existing state of things, at the same time also, therecognition of the negation of that state, of its inevitable breaking up;because it regards every historically developed social form as in fluid

movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature noless than its momentary existence; because it lets nothing imposeupon it, and is in its essence critical and revolutionary. 2

In his book on Feuerbach, Engelsadumbrates the importance ofdialectical method in thought:The great basic thought thatthe world is not to be

APTER

Introduction: What is being discussed?

Chapter 1: The Enlightenment

Chapter 2: The breakthrough in philosophy

Chapter 3: Hegel and the completion of

German idealist philosophy

Chapter 4: The early utopian socialists

Chapter 5: The beginnings of scientific

socialism

Chapter 7: Historical Materialism

Chapter 8: The method of abstraction

Chapter 9: Alienation

Chapter 10: Social Oppression

Chapter 11: Surplus value, the working class

and ideology

Chapter 12: Boom and bust and the limits of

capitalism

Chapter 13: Revolutionary crises under

capitalism

Methodology I: Scientific Socialism as aWorld-view

Methodology II: Marxism and determinism

Chapter 14: The capitalist state, workers

state, socialism and communism (the riddle

of history solved)

Chapter 15: The Second International

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comprehended as a complex ofready-made things, but as acomplex of processes, in whichthe things apparently stable noless than their mind images inour heads, the concepts, gothrough an uninterrupted changeof coming into being and passingaway, in which, in spite of allseeming accidentally and of alltemporary retrogression, aprogressive development assertsitself in the end this greatfundamental thought has,especially since the time ofHegel, so thoroughly permeated

ordinary consciousness that in this generality it is now scarcely evercontradicted. But to acknowledge this fundamental thought in wordsand to apply it in reality in detail to each domain of investigation aretwo different things. 3

The materialist dialectic posits an organic relationship in whicheverything is part of the whole and the whole organises anddominates the parts that is to say the totality exists both in itscomponents and as an entity in-itself. However, the totality is notfixed, it is moving, composed of numerous contradictions which are influid motion with each other. Everything must be comprehended as apart of the whole both as it is and how it is moving, in other wordswhat it is becoming. There can be no artificial distinction between the

parts, it is wrong to separate economy from politics, just as much as itis to isolate art and culture from the totality. Of course individualsparts can be analysed abstractly, but not in such a way that dissolvesthe living connections and bonds that it has to the totality. Marxdevelops a way of analysing distinct levels or components of socialformations and the correlatory ideas called abstraction, which we willexamine later.

It was not ust He el that rovided the bedrock for the earl formation

Chapter 16: The debates over historical

materialism

Chapter 17: Fabianism in Britain

Chapter 18: Revisionist controversy in

Germany

Chapter 19: Reform or revolution 1914-1919

Part Four The struggle for the soul ofMarxism

Chapter 20: Ultra leftism and the Third

International

Chapter 21: Hegelian Marxism, Lukcs and

Korsch

Chapter 22: Antonio Gramsci theories of

hegemony, civil society and revolution

Chapter 23: Soviet philosophy

Chapter 24: Leon Trotsky and the fight for

the International

Part Five The post war world

Chapter 25: The Frankfurt School and critical

theory

Chapter 26: Maoism in East and West

Chapter 27: The New Left

Chapter 28: Existentialism: a philosophy of

reality

Chapter 30: Structuralist Marxism

Chapter 31: Poulantzas and Eurocommunism

NEW BOOK OUT NOW!

Diagram of the materialist dialectic, courtesey of

David Harvey and online at Larval Subjects

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of scientific socialism. We have already looked at the ideas of theutopian socialists which were somewhat influential in the youngworkers movement at the time. It is important to mention two othersources which influenced Marx. The first, which often goesunmentioned, is Aristotle. Of course Marx rejects Aristotles sociallyconservative and outright reactionary views on women, slaves and soon, but there is a lot of ideas and theories which point to a continuitydirectly from Aristotle to Marx and also from Aristotle to Marx viaHegel. Marx openly compliments Aristotles political economy, which,whilst primitive in many respects, offers up profound insights oncommodities and the distinction between how useful something wasand what its exchange value was. 4There is also some considerablecommonality with Aristotles views on eudamonia, the good life, andMarxs desire to see our labour become unalienated. The descriptionsof life under communism which he gives seems to be influenced bythis idea of living the good life as a social good, not merely as selfimprovement. More generally speaking, Marx and Engels werecertainly in accord with Aristotles view of humanity as political,creative, self-aware and active, the question that haunted them waswhat were the social conditions which frustrated our social being fromachieving its full potential.

Importantly, it is arguable that Marx was advocating a teleologicalconcept, borrowed from Hegel, which Aristotle had originallyarticulated. Scientific socialism posits the inevitability of socialismdeveloping after capitalism, as the conditions for this society areimmanent within the social order of capitalism itself. There is a causalrelationship, based on material factors which leads to the emergencyof socialism through the conscious action of the central component of

capitalism the working class. Of course it is possible that thisdevelopment could not happen because of an accident, such asenvironmental destruction or nuclear war, but otherwise it has tooccur sooner or later. If this is teleological, then it strives for amaterialist basis and not an idealist one because it does not require afictitious prime mover or God-figure working mysteriously to make ithappen. It is also not the case that a socialist future is somehowacting back on the capitalist past to cause its own creation. SinceMarx was a doctor of Philosophy and had specialised in ancient Greek

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thought, so he was not unfamiliar with these notions and wasundoubtedly influenced by the Atomists school of thought which heresearched for his doctorate.

The second important influence on Marx was the British politicaleconomists. Smith and Ricardo provided valuable insights and theoriesthat made significant contributions to Marxism, primarily Smithslabour theory of value and his work on the division of labour. Smithwas investigating where the value of commodities came from, not justin the agricultural community but in industry. He concluded that thevalue is in a sense embedded in the commodity when it is created,not when it is sold for instance when he explains; labour be the realmeasure of the exchangeable value of all commodities. FurthermoreSmith also had a conception of where profit came from which wasvery influential on Marx, the value which the workmen add to thematerials, therefore, resolves itself in this case into two parts, of whichone pays their wages, the other the profits of their employer.However, his conclusion was that there was a law of value inpremodern socieities and conditions of small scale production, but notunder capitalism. It was Ricardos critique of this position that createda greater synthesis of knowledge of political economy as he placedthe law of value at the centre of his analysis. Writing in 1821, heagreed with Smith that labour was the foundation of all value, andthe relative quantity of labour as almost exclusively determining therelative value of commodities.

Marx saw in the theory of surplus value a way of understanding wherethe most important dynamic in capitalist society came from, and howit could have implications for its revolutionary transformation. If the

value of a commodity comes from the amount of labour that was putinto it that puts the entire nexus of capitalist property relations andthe source of their profit not in the market place but at the point ofproduction. Suddenly the working class moves from being onecomponent in a process of profit making, alongside the owners ofcapital and the merchants, to become the central part of it.

But Marx did not just import these ideas uncritically. Even as early asthe Povert of Philoso h (1847) he o ens fire on the fundamental

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flaw in the method of the political economists, that they tended to seethe capitalist system as eternal, and in some way commensurate withthe laws of nature itself (that we live in a permanent state ofcompetition, aggregation of surplus is natural in primitive societies,etc.).

He argued: Economists express the relations of bourgeois production,the division of labour, credit, money, etc. as fixed immutable, eternalcategories. Economists explain how production takes place in theabove mentioned relations, but what they do not explain is how theserelations themselves are produced, that is the historical movementthat gave them birth. 5

Bourgeois economics obscuresthe reality of social relationsby attributing apparentlyinnate characteristics tohumans hard working,competitive, greedy and so on

and then deducing economicrelations from these. So themarket economy appears as anatural outgrowth of humanbehaviour rather than a socio-economic system which existsas a result of a particular classstructure. This fundamentallyobscures reality, and forms thebasis for the conservative

argument that socialismcannot work because peopleare greedy. For a LeftHegelian like Marx brought upon the idea of civil society and the sight of the young proletariatworking in a spirit of co-operation and community, the idea thateveryone was selfish was simply a bourgeois fantasy, only a partialmoment of truth for anyone and certainly not a description of realityfor all humans all the time. The notion that all revious societies were

Its no good Marx, youll have to explain it again

I just dont get the act of destroying whilst

preserving the essence part

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some how a distorted version of the true market economy, that thearrival of capitalism saw humanity reach the zenith of its socialevolution as the natural order was asserted into the economic spherewas therefore wrong. Thus, the most important ideological struggle towage was to refute the claim that thus, there has been history butthere no longer is any. 6

Starting with The German Ideologywe can see the emergence of thematerialist, revolutionary outlook on history and Marx and Engels workout their ideas in combat with the Young Hegelians that they had untilrecently been members of. The method is fully materialist since ittakes as its starting point matter and the actual existing conditions ofthe world itself. Thought is a product of matter and energy, nothingelse which is the crucial cleavage with idealist forms of thoughtwhich believe that there is something else in the universe which alsoproduces ideas and thought. Once we come crashing down from theheavens to Earth, dust ourselves off and look around us with clear andfresh eyes, free from religious convictions or spiritual concepts likefate and destiny, we can begin to see human history and our own lives

for what they really are and then begin to figure out how to changethem.

Did you like this? Share it:

Notes:

1. Marx K, Capital volume 12. Afterword to Capital volume 1

3. Engels F, Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of Classical German philosophy

4. Aristotle said that a sandal could be used two ways, it could be worn or it could be

exchanged, in otherwords it had both use value and an exchange value.

5. Poverty of philosophy

6. Poverty of Philosophy chapter 2. Worth bearing in mind when considering the End of History

thesis of Francis Fukuyama

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Comments

POSTED INTH E MATERIA LIST DIALECTIC| TAGGED DIALECTICS, HEGEL, PHILOSOPHY|

1 COMMENT|

2 Comments

Miguel Detonacciones

I have become aware of a recent fundamental breakthrough, in

that may be of interest to you.

Through the discovery of a new algebra, a contra-Boolean alg

able to formulate a single dialectical equation which models, cat

particles [the bosons, quarks, and leptons].

This dialectical equation-model would be a ... See moreLike Reply 10 June 2014 10:00

Akanimo SamuelChairman at Samakan concepts

fantastic

Like Reply 18 June 2014 16:33

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Add a comment...

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One thought on Chapter 6: The materialist dialectic

CarlosCarlossays:says: February 4, 2013 at 9:45 pmFebruary 4, 2013 at 9:45 pm

(except that Ive seen him argue against non-market priincg, which is delightful in any(except that Ive seen him argue against non-market priincg, which is delightful in anycase), but as a philosopher there may very wel l be something to him.Recently, I foundcase), but as a philosopher there may very wel l be something to him.Recently, I found

thisthis on Marx error of class-distribution.Marx argues (as is commonly known) that there is aon Marx error of class-distribution.Marx argues (as is commonly known) that there is a

struggle for dominance between the workers and the capitalists. The Fofoa -writer argues thatstruggle for dominance between the workers and the capitalists. The Fofoa -writer argues that

the two classes are savers and spenders, and that the mechanisms under which power changesthe two classes are savers and spenders, and that the mechanisms under which power changes

are fairly known.The spenders spend until they go broke (this is where we are today), where theare fairly known.The spenders spend until they go broke (this is where we are today), where the

savers effectively end up in power. When the spenders later get bored with having to live withinsavers effectively end up in power. When the spenders later get bored with having to live within

their means, they overthrow the rule of the savers, and start spending restarting the cycle.Itstheir means, they overthrow the rule of the savers, and start spending restarting the cycle.Its

an interesting piece ,-)-San interesting piece ,-)-S

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Chapter 5: The beginnings of scientific

socialism

Chapter 7: Historical Materialism

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Ch6 Materialist Dialetic[1]