Malthus, surplus population, etc.

On reading pages 602-635 of Grundrisse, I found the following points worth emphasizing:

(1) Critique of Malthus' theory of population (which even Ricardo had used): the two main points of Marx's critique being (1) theory of population is not ahistorical as Malthus thinks, every mode of production has its own theory of population, and (2) Malthus' theory implicitly assumes full employment of labour, an assumption that is now ubiquitous in neoclassical economics (here again, the point is to realize that the relationship between the means of subsistence and population is mediated through the relations of production; it is not direct as Malthus assumes). Interesting aside: Malthus's theory is not his own! He borrowed a lot from James Steuart, I think.

(2) Surplus population or the industrial reserve army of labour: the mains idea here, to my mind, which Marx developed more fully in Chapter 25, Vol 1 of Capital, is that capitalism, as a mode of production always needs a substantial body of surplus population of workers (the industrial reserve army of labour) for its stability and continued existence; the process of capital accumulation, in fact, produces this surplus population over and over again through the displacement of labour by machinery. Since the unemployed are only a small part of the reserve army of labour, the study of the latter should replace the more restricted study of unemployment; this is one of the differences, to my mind, between a Keynesian and a Marxian approach to the study of labour underutilization.

(3) Critique of Smith?s theory of "labour as sacrifice": I found this point absolutely fascinating; when one grasps the positive, liberating aspect of labour, as Marx emphasizes, one is immediately able to see the idiocy of all of modern neoclassical macroeconomics that is based on the so-called labour/leisure choice.

(4) There is a nice discussion pertaining to the turnover time of capital (as the sum of production time and circulation time); the example where the annual rate of profit increases because of the increase in the turnover time of capital is illuminating.

(5) Cost of circulation as deductions from surplus value: the important point here is that exchange does not create value and hence the part of total social (labour) time that is devoted to circulation is a cost from the point of view of society, is a deduction from social surplus value. (Important exception: Transportation of goods from one location to another is not to be considered as circulation; it is a part of production and adds value. This has a nice contemporary ring: state contingent commodity markets!)

single-system argument in Marx

Marx seems to be making an argument in line with the so-called 'single system' approach in pages 423-434, where he criticizes Proudhon's explanation of overproduction. Proudhon understands overproduction to occur because capitalist adds interest and profit to the real value of product, i.e. its price is an overcharge on top of its real value, and as a consequence 'the worker cannot buy back his product.'

Marx counter-argues that capitalists' profit does not come from overcharging, and that surplus-value is already included in the value of the product.

There he makes several interesting statements:

"It might be said that necessary labour time (i.e. the wage) ... is .. determined by the prices of [subsistence goods] which already include profit." (p. 424)

"It is clear ... that the wage paid by the [capitalist] to his workmen must be high enough to buy the necessary [subsistence good], regardless of what profit for the capitalist may be included in its price." (425)

These seem to be consistent with the way the value of variable capital is determined not by the value of wage goods but by wage within the New Interpretation by Foley, etc.

Marx makes comments: "The puzzle arises simply because (1) price and value are being mixed up; (2) relations are brought in which are irrelevant to the determination of value of such." (425)

The first part is obvious from the above citations. 'Relations' referred in the second part seem to imply those which make price deviates from value, such as competition, 'fraud, reciprocal chicanery,' etc.

In sum, in these pages I read the single-system argument of Marx's as follows (citing without notice):

1) The determination of prices is founded on the determination of values.

2) But new elements enter in, and the price, not merely being the value expressed in money, but becomes further determined as itself a specific magnitude.

3) "Necessary labour time" i.e. the value of variable capital is determined by the prices of wage goods.

Grundrisse, pp 386-423

Short note – few thoughts (Grundrisse, pp 386-423)

1. The necessary of the working day will shorten by a rise in the productivity of labour, only if the latter touches the means of reproduction of the labour-force. A rise in the productivity in the industry of jewelry would have no affection at all in the necessary part of the working day. Of course, Marx refers here to a general rise in the productivity, which includes the means of reproduction of the labour-force.
2. A rise in the productivity of labour is meaningful for the capitalists only if it is accompanied by a change in the rate of exploitation, that is, if it lowers the ratio of necessary labour to surplus-labour (rising thus relative surplus-value). If the rate of exploitation rests the same after a rise in the productivity, then surplus-value produced will be less (both in mass and in %), profit will lower as well. Therefore, capitalists do not raise the productivity of labour unconditionally, braking the evolution of the means of production, if needed. That is a good reasoning for the limitation of capitalism in improving the means of production indefinitely – many cases can be drawn as examples; lately I was told the case of aircraft construction.
3. Alternatively, a rise in the productivity can be meaningful without a change in the % of expl. in the framework of competition but again, if capitals advanced with the new production relations are much bigger, producing thus bigger mass of surplus value. Take the case 60+40 (+40) and the next one: 700+300 (+300). The % expl. is the same (100%), the % profit is lower but 300 is much better than 40. Note that the Organic Composition of Capital (OCC) has changed (it has been raised) and that this is actually the argument for the falling tendency of the rate of profit. After all “relative surplus value rises much more slowly than the force of production, and moreover this proportion grows ever smaller as the magnitude reached by the productive forces is greater.”
4. Very insightful (I need to think further on the implications of this point concerning the emergence of financialisation, italics in the original, bold is mine): “The creation by capital of absolute surplus value -- more objectified labour -- is conditional upon an expansion, specifically a constant expansion, of the sphere of circulation. The surplus value created at one point requires the creation of surplus value at another point, for which it may be exchanged; if only, initially, the production of more gold and silver, more money, so that, if surplus value cannot directly become capital again, it may exist in the form of money as the possibility of new capital. A precondition of production based on capital is therefore the production of a constantly widening sphere of circulation, whether the sphere itself is directly expanded or whether more points within it are created as points of production. While circulation appeared at first as a constant magnitude, it here appears as a moving magnitude, being expanded by production itself. Accordingly, it already appears as a moment of production itself. Hence, just as capital has the tendency on one side to create ever more surplus labour, so it has the complementary tendency to create more points of exchange; i.e., here, seen from the standpoint of absolute surplus value or surplus labour, to summon up more surplus labour as complement to itself; i.e. at bottom, to propagate production based on capital, or the mode of production corresponding to it. The tendency to create the world market is directly given in the concept of capital itself. Every limit appears as a barrier to be overcome. Initially, to subjugate every moment of production itself to exchange and to suspend the production of direct use values not entering into exchange, i.e. precisely to posit production based on capital in place of earlier modes of production, which appear primitive [naturwüchsig] from its standpoint. Commerce no longer appears here as a function taking place between independent productions for the exchange of their excess, but rather as an essentially all-embracing presupposition and moment of production itself.”
5. “It is equally a tendency of capital to make human labour (relatively) superfluous, so as to drive it, as human labour, towards infinity.” It came to mind the attempt in Greece to expand the limits of people getting their pension from 65 to 69 or even 71, while unemployment is rising significantly.

Marx's use of the term "civil society."

Oct 26, 2009. Just to restate a point we ran across in reading his early writings, that I at least did not fully appreciate until I read those again this past summer – “civil society” for him (here used p 85) means something quite different from how we use the term – it means (as one sees here again) exactly society of each against all, of the individual apparently detached from how the individual used to be considered a component of the social whole, with each carrying out what God or whoever had assigned to him in the interests of the functioning of society. So what Marx means when he use the term “civil society” is the growth of bourgeois ideology and practice for the role of the worker in society. He goes on how this concept had only been around for about 200 years, that is, since the rise of pre-capitalism. As he says, they came out of the dissolution of the feudal forms of society. Again, he uses terms as they were used in the discussion then – the “Natural Individual,” which he says is just their “notion of human nature” (which again, is basically Robinson Crusoe – or as Marx says here p 84, “the isolated individual” Note while he specifically ridicules the idea of Robinson Crusoe isolated production (saying p 84 it could on occasion happen if a socially created individual got thrown into isolation, but its absurd as a general concept), his concern here is actually much broader than just production, but to the essence of humans, to human nature, to our species-nature being collective and so that pertains to everything we do). Note he associates this as an 18th century development above all (1700s). SO WHAT I REALLY WANT TO STRESS IS how differently other people are using this term “civil society” today than Marx used it then, and how we need be careful therefore not to misread Marx. Today, civil society is generally held as a positive thing involved in transcending capitalism – the state is a bourgeois state, and the idea is to increase direct democracy by transforming power from the state to civil society (lots of problems with that concept in my opinion, but I am just trying to indicate how it is often thought or today, often as a background idea that the user of the term just has built into the concept without being really aware of it). For Marx, to the contrary, civil society was largely a false ideological construct of bourgeois ideology, a misrepresentation of human nature and human interaction, one of the pillars of capitalist denial of the essential species-nature of humans. Marx was FOR humans promoting a transcendence of capitalism by using a STATE that they democratically controlled, because such a state was nothing else than an expression concerning political activity of their collective nature, their species-nature. Of course, by the time the process of transition beyond capitalism reached the phase of socialism, the state as an organ of power (to impose the will of one group on another, which under the transition would be to impose the will of the majority on the minority who wanted to restore their previous privileges) would wither away (but would still exist as an accounting mechanism, for coordinating and executing the democratically decided on decisions of society, now no longer to suppress opposition but just to administratively make happen what society decided it wanted to happen)

Marx on individuality

I am not sure what version of the "Grundrisse" everyone is using - if one is using the stuff in the Marx and Engles Collected Works, or if everyone has what has long been the standard version in English, the version put out by Pelican (an imprinture of Penguin) in 1973. Anyway, I will assume people are using this, unless people indicate otherwise.
I am not sure if the groups began their 30 pages with the beginning of the text, say page 81 (or a sort of table of contents page 69), or with the introduction by Martin Nicolaus. So I will assume people began with page 81 for the first reading.
I want to respond a little to some of the points others posted to this site, but like everyone I am way behind on time - we will see. But I will make 5 or 10 points on the reading over the course of the fall, just things that interest me.
The first is right on page 81. It is a good statement, I think, of one aspect of Marx's view of the relation individual-society (which was central to his whole theory and goal), the nature of individuality (which he was for allowing to develop, as the goal of social change, capitalism prevented the development of authentic individuality), and thereby his view on human nature. He had a thoroughly social view of humanity (our "species nature") Among other things, since production is thoroughly social, and even beyond that our individual nature is socially conditioned (not entirely socially created), the concept of paying people according to their marginal contribution, at the heart of neoclassical economics (at least their theory, not really their practice) is totally meaningless.
Here are some comments on p 81
Note the phrase in the second sentence – “Individuals producing
in society – hence socially determined individual production.” On the
one hand, this reflects why the idea of being paid according to “your”
marginal contribution to output is stupid – besides the fact that one
cannot calculate the contribution associated with a particular
individual in a process of production that is integrated (as all are to
some extent), in addition it is “socially determined” individual
production. That is, what it is specified that you will do is partially
socially determined (though there is room in that for individual choice
on how hard one will work, and individual variation on how well one is
capable of working), and further, even a significant part of your
abilities are also socially determined – the fact that you can talk, the
basic education that enabled you to learn modern job skills, part of
your attitude toward work, and on and on. We see here the focus on
thinking of production as a thoroughly social process that Marx had from
his earliest writings until his death, a central aspect of his political
economy, and of his vision of transcending capitalism.
The rest of this section talks on exactly what the title of the
sub section indicates – the idea of “independent individuals.” It
particularly takes on the Robinson Crusoe idea, counterpoising to it the
social individual (the individual who develops their individuality in
the frame of a given society, and whose individuality can only be
understood as existing in that frame – note Marx clearly states this p
84 – “The human being is …. an animal which can individuate itself only
in the midst of society” – this is very clearly stated and well put, and
(note to myself) I should use this as a quote when making this point to
others about the nature of Marx’s thought in the future). He talks
briefly of Rousseau, Smith, Ricardo, Bastiat, Carey Proudhon (and a
person hardly remembered today, Steuart, who he says partly rejected
this “radical individualistic” (my term) capitalist concept because he
was coming from an aristocratic partial resistance to the rising
bourgeoisie and therefore its ideology).

Marxian Methodology: Theory must be developed dialectically

Clarification for Last week's Conversation.

For Marx the scientifically correct method arises from the movement from simple abstract determinations i.e. in modern society, the commodity, value, waged labor- to their relation to the whole, the real concrete i.e. capital. As he states: ‘the method of rising from the abstract to the concrete is the only way in which thought appropriates the concrete, reproduces it as the concrete in the mind’. Only through this method that we move from a ‘reality of few determinations and relations’ (political economy and bourgeoisie science End Result) unable to grasp the concrete whole, to a reality that is a ‘rich totality of many determinations and relations….unity of the whole’. The latter is the internalization of a totality of determinations in thought, appropriation of the real concrete, ‘the working up of observation and conception into concepts’. This totality is a totality of a thinking mind, ‘which appropriates the world in the only way it can a way different from the artistic, religious, practical and mental appropriation of the world’. This method, movement from the abstract to the concrete, is the only way that we are able to understand what the social forms of production and organization historically. In modern society we see in Capital, Marx moves from the simplest abstract categories i.e. commodity, Value etc. to their relation with the developed concrete whole, this being Capital which for Marx ‘is not a thing but rather a definite social production relation, belonging to a definite historical formation of society, which is manifested in a thing and lends itself a specific social character’. Capitalist social relations in this sense, is a developed/developing concrete whole in that epoch (at least for the most part in England or the U.S. at the time). This developed concrete whole can only be realized through the most general abstractions, thus they are the point of departure. These abstractions arise as a result of history and function differently through history, sometimes dominant, sometimes subordinate to a developed or ill-developed concrete whole. The dilemma of the Bourgeoisie science takes history as a point of departure and not as a historic result, developing dialectically. Bourgeoisie science always begins with the living whole, according to Marx, and arrives at a linear ahistorical argument of the development of society along with history. The abstract determinations arrived at in bourgeoisie science and the relation of these determinations to the social forms of organization and order are a chaotic conception of the concrete. The historic specificity, order and place (subordinate or dominant) of these abstract determinations and relations to the whole are chaotic and one sided.
Please, any corrections and comments welcome.

What problem?

Passages contained in "The Chapter on Money"
such as
"Because price is not equal to value, therefore the value-determining element - labor time - cannot be the element in which prices are expressed, because labor time would have to express itself simultaneously as the determining and the non-determining element..."
brings me to question, what was (is) at stake in all the time and effort spent on the "transformation problem"?

For me this was never a point of big concern as prices and values are two separate things that do not exclusively determine each other. Value is in use or exchange (which can differ) and is loosely related to a starting point of examining price, but no mathematical correspondence seemed needed or possible.

Why then all the time spent? Is it a response to the neo-classical marginal products of capital and labor argument, or something beyond this. This would certainly add importance to the issue but I still do not understand the necessity of showing that one constitutes the other.

I do not argue that commodification, and the exchange value relationship as well as commodity (or non-com) money become very important from producers of commodities, but I what I am reaching for is what is at stake saying that price and exchange value are not the same thing, and there is no reason that price can not deviate based on factors outside of the direct exchange relationship.

I ask out of my own ignorance, because I know this has been a very important thread within certain currents of Marxism, and I have not taken the time to understand it up to this point.

Some comments on the first meeting of Grundrisse

Due to my poor understanding and memory, I don't think I'm able to summarize the first meeting. Instead, I'll just write what I said (or intended to say) to the questions raised in the discussion. Sorry for this, but please understand....


Q1: Does Marx prioritize production over distribution, circulaiton, and consumption? If so, why?

My answer to the first part is, yes. But I don't think he attempts to prove it or explain why. Rather, he seems to take it for granted without question as he did for the value concept (and labour as its substance) in relation to his theory of value in ch.1 Capital Vol.1. In his letter to Ludwig Kugelmman (11 July 1868, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1868/letters/68_07_11.htm), Marx addresses the critique widely raised after the first publicaiton of Capital Vol.1 that he failed to prove the existence of value and labour substance of value. In this letter, Marx writes to the effect that those are so 'self-evident' facts, and thus require no proof.

In the similar vein, I think that Marx is taking for granted the priority of production which is the site of labour expansion; and that the detail explanations on the dialectical relations among production, distribution, circulation, and consumption are not to be read as proofs for the priority of produciton, but as premised upon the latter.


Q2: How should we understand Marx's method described with dichotomous sets of 'complex/simple' and 'concrete/abstract'?

I think we have to understand Marx's two-way categorial development in light of Hegel's Logic. In Science of Logic, Hegel distinguishes two methods of logic; i) analytical method ("Its activity therefore consists in analysing the given concrete, isolating its differences, and giving them the form of abstract generality.") ii) synthetical method ("It starting-point is given by the general, from which we proceed by particularizing to the individual [i.e. concrete].")

How I understand Hegel's Logic, very briefly: First of all, Hegel's Logic is the science of Idea, and has totality as its object. First facing with empirical facts of totality, Idea has very shallow understanding of totality; so moves to the abstract/simple stage through abstraction. (analytical method) Through the categorial development from the abstract/simple to the concrete/complex Idea reaches the full conception (or notion, begriff) of totality. (synthetical method)

Since capitalism (an object of Marx's theory) too is totality which cannot be immediately grasped, Marx thought Hegel's Logic a useful method in having a full notion of his totality object. (In this sense, I think Marx did not mindlessly take Hegel's method so as to apply it to his object of analysis, but critically appropriate it.) So I think there is a strong parallel; the first journey 'the chaotic concrete -> the abstract' and the second 'the abstract -> the concrete with many determinations' corresponding to analytical method and synthetical method, respectively. Returning back to where it started, i.e. sensically observed capitalism, but this time with a full grasp of it in its totality.

I think Marx applied this method in presenting his labour theory of value in ch.1 of Capital. He starts with commodity and exchange value as empirically observed, and abstracts to value and labour. (analytical method) From there he traces back to where he started. (synthetical method) But this time we have knowledge that commodity doubles into commodity and money, and exchange value as a form of appearance of value has different forms, i.e. money form and capital form.


Q3: Is Marx's method (of categorial development) purely logical, or do its categorial stages correspond to actual history?

As for this famous 'logical-historical vs. capital's logic' controversy, I side with the latter. As said, Marx's method starts with the observed reality in capitalism, and from there it conducts the categorial development in order to grasp the inner logic of capital. I think Marx's method is historical-material in two senses: i) It starts from nowhere but concrete historical facts in capitalist society, and problematizes them. ii) It's final aim is to acquire a full conception of those concrete historical facts in their totality. It doesn't seme to me that the historical-material aspect of it requires every categorial stage to correspond to a certain historical stage. Since the object of Marx's analysis is capitalism, his method deals with inner logical stages of capitalism not actual stages of the developmental history of capitalism. Marx's logic seems to be synchronic rather than diachronic.

1st meeting for Grundrisse

Hi all,
As some of you know I cannot make it tonight, so I am writing to ask that if anyone has the time please post a short summary of the main topics discussed tonight. It is not a huge deal, but would be appreciated in terms of informing my reading for next week.
Thanks

Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844: Alienated Labor

The chapter on alienated labor clarifies the moral case against capitalism, at least as Marx saw it at this time. This has been touched on in a couple of earlier posts here but I wanted to highlight one piece of the argument.

Marx's point here is that alienation is prior to private property and to such quantitative expressions of private property as exploitation, wage inequality, etc. “The alienation of the product of labour merely summarizes the alienation in the work activity itself.” In other words, how much of the product of alienated labor is available to the worker to consume is a secondary, and ultimately unimportant, issue compared with the fact of alienation itself. A couple pages later he makes this point even more emphatically: “An enforced increase in wages … would be nothing more than a better remuneration of slaves, and would not restore, either to the worker or to the work, their human significance and worth.” The claim that the level of wages is politically and morally irrelevant is very different from mainstream and even many Marxist approaches that see questions of wellbeing in terms of consumption and justice in terms of distribution of income, and don't consider the qualitative character of work at all.

Marx characterizes alienation of labor in various ways:

- “the work is external to the worker”;
- “he does no fulfill himself in his work”;
- the worker “has a feeling of misery rather than wellbeing”;
- the worker “does not develop freely his mental and physical energies”;
- “the worker feels at home only during his leisure time, at work he feels homeless”;
- “work is not voluntary, but imposed, forced labour”;
- work “is not the satisfaction of a need, but a means for satisfying other needs”;
- the worker “does not belong to himself but to another person.”

To me, this is clear and compelling, but it does raise some questions. Does the concept of alienated labor assume an absolute human nature that finds fulfillment in creative, productive work, rather than analyzing human beings historically? What are the specific characteristics of labor under capitalism that cause it to be more or less alienated? And the question Joao raised – is it really possible that society could function on the basis of unalienated labor, or can (some? most? all?) productive activity only be undertaken to satisfy some other need? Is the best we can hope for from work intrinsically meaningless tasks imposed on us from the outside, but for shorter hours and better pay?

At the risk of being reductive, we can think of unalienated labor in something like the following terms. 1. Absence of direct external coercion, i.e. the pace and content of the work are under our own control. 2. Direct relation to the product of the the work – we understand the place of our work in the larger production process and feel an active connection with that process. 3. Development of physical and mental capacities – the work requires active engagement, develops a distinct skill, etc. 4. The work is worth doing on its own, we would choose to do it even without any compensation or other external inducement.

One might then say that there will always be alienated labor because these conditions can't always be met. Isn't some alienation necessary with all work that requires a highly developed division of labor, since the activity of tens of thousands of individuals can only be coordinated with some external authority? And is it really possible that everyone involved in such large-scale production can have a full understanding of it, let alone a voice in it? Or on the other hand, isn't there work that is necessary but intrinsically tedious or unpleasant? – no external authority compels you to clean your bathroom and the production process is transparent, but it's hard to argue that it develops any physical or mental capacities or that anyone would do it except in the expectation of satisfying the need for a clean bathroom later on.

Needless to say, these questions have been extensively debated, and we won't resolve them here. What does seem clear is that for Marx, the essential question about work was not wages or hours but its qualitative character as human or alienated, and that he believed it was indeed possible for all productive activity to take the form of free, intrinsically rewarding, unalienated labor.

The German Ideology and methodology

One of the central concerns here is evidently the need to make our analysis of society in concrete, historical terms. "We know only a single science, the science of history." And it seems important that his presentation of the materialist approach to history takes the form of a narrative, not a set of abstract relationships. As he says, "Viewed apart from real history, these abstractions have in themselves no value whatsoever. They can only serve to facilitate the arrangement of historical material. ... our difficulties [i.e. genuine work] begin only when we set about the observation and arrangement -- the real depiction -- of our historical material, whether of a past epoch or of the present."

I was especially struck by the suggestion that abstract categories "only serve to facilitate the arrangement of historical material" because it suggests that economics and other social sciences need to be thought of as branches of, or approaches to, history, and in particular should be written as history, or as narrative. I'm thinking of something like Robin Blackburn's Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, which, while a deeply theoretically informed book, read almost like conventional narrative history -- the theory was like a scaffolding that was essential to constructing the building but removed or hidden out of sight once it was done. (You could say the same about the work of various other Marxist historians.)

I'm wondering how seriously we should take these injunctions in our own writing -- how much should we strive to make our work take the form of concrete historical narrative? Is there e.g. a place for theories of crisis in general, or do "our difficulties begin only" when we analyze a particular crisis as it unfolded historically?

On Relative Wages

Relative Wages,
Marx discusses three different wages
1-Money wage
2-Real Wage
3-Relative Wage
According to him, it is very clear that relative wage is the most relevant one. Real wage and profit can go together, but relative wages and profits have always, as a rule, an inverse relationship. To him, the main indicator of the poverty of working class lies in the relative wage which tends to decrease as a result of increasing share of the profit of capitalists.

In his words “ [n]either the nominal wages – i.e., the amount of money for which the laborer sells himself to the capitalist – nor the real wages – i.e., the amount of commodities which he can buy for this money – exhausts the relations which are comprehended in the term wages. Wages are determined above all by their relations to the gain, the profit, of the capitalist. In other words, wages are a proportionate, relative quantity”

This point is very crucial for many purposes. When Joseph Schumpeter explains the success of capitalism in his magnus opum “Capitalism Socialism and Democracy” , he argues that, as opposed to the claim of Marx, capitalism has improved the conditions of workers. He counts several improvements in the conditions of working class. One of them is high real wages (he published the book in 1942). This line of argument has been repeated several times. Even, some of progressive critiques have tried to focus on real wages as opposed to relative wages to show the failure of capitalism.

However, Marx’s original position is much more insightful and strong (although in Chapter 8 he has a twist in his position, this may be another discussion). According to him “If capital grows rapidly, wages may rise, but the profit of capital rises disproportionately faster. The material position of the worker has improved, but at the cost of his social position. The social chasm that separates him from the capitalist has widened”.

In this line, in several passages, he seems to think that relative poverty of working class means more antagonism between working class and capitalist class even though real wages increase. Can this position be justified by historical observations? ( If not, why ?). Can we say that Marx does ignore the importance of ideology in this discussion?

The German Ideology

Several comments and questions with respect to this text.

1.
I think in this text Marx offers a very I insightful solution to the debates within Western Marxism in the 20th century – on the role of subjective and objective factors of the communist revolution. Lukács and his followers were seeking an answer to the question why revolution was not successful in Hungary, Germany, etc. in the early 20th century in what they denote as “the subjective factors” – in the specificity of labour movement and self-consciousness of the proletariat. Marx makes a very good point – in the best tradition of his dialectical thinking – that for the revolution to be successful, we need a unity of the subjective and objective factors. On the one hand, a high degree of development of productive forces, on the other hand, high development of self-consciousness. If either one is missing, the revolution will not be successful. As Marx put it, “if these material elements of a complete revolution are not present (namely, on the one hand the existing productive forces, on the other the formation of a revolutionary mass, which revolts not only against separate conditions of society up till then, but against the very "production of life" till then, the "total activity" on which it was based), then, as far as practical development is concerned, it is absolutely immaterial whether the idea of this revolution has been expressed a hundred times already, as the history of communism proves” (p. 16-17 online).

2.
Hasan brought up an excellent point – on the extent to which communism is feasible only as a “world-historical” phenomenon. I agree with him that several times Marx makes explicit statements about impossibility of “local” communism. At the same time, I would suggest that we interpret these statements carefully. When Marx talks about communism as a world phenomenon, for me, it implies that for communism to be self-sustainable, i.e. a system capable of reproduction, it does indeed need to be universal. As Marx put it, “each extension of intercourse would abolish local communism” (p. 14 online). At the same time, this does not imply that genesis and initial stages of development of communism cannot be localized within a particular country or a group of countries. To put it in the “mystified and mystifying terms” of the Hegelian philosophy, we need to distinguish between communism in its Becoming and its Being. The former can be initiated not as a global phenomenon, whereas for the latter to be a system capable of reproduction, it needs to be a world phenomenon.

3.
There is a quite an interesting point having relevance for the agenda of the left today. Analyzing the class struggle in the Middle Ages, Marx stresses that there exist revolts of completely marginalized strata of the society that are not strong and influential enough, on the one hand, and small action by members of the guild system not questioning the system as such and merely demanding improvements within it, on the other hand: “While, therefore, the rabble at least carried out revolts against the whole municipal order, revolts which remained completely ineffective because of their powerlessness, the journeymen never got further than small acts of insubordination within separate guilds, such as belong to the very nature of the guild-system” (p. 25-26 online). I think it reflects quite well the current situation too – radicalism of the marginalized groups of the society and demands of the wage-labour. The real challenge for me is how can this be overcome?

4.
Marx argues that “in imagination, individuals seem freer under the dominance of the bourgeoisie than before, because their conditions of life seem accidental; in reality, of course, they are less free, because they are more subjected to the violence of things” (p. 35 online). I think the first part of the argument is a good point on the reasons behind an appearance of more freedom. As for the second part, I suppose the point on the reality of less freedom is not proved by Marx. Why is it not just a different mode of un-freedom compared to the previous epochs? How can these different modes of un-freedom (i.e., different qualities) be quantitatively compared?

5.
Speaking of transition from feudalism to communism, Marx shows that “here they [serfs] only were doing what every class that is freeing itself from a fetter does; and they did not free themselves as a class but separately. Moreover, they did not rise above the system of estates, but only formed a new estate, retaining their previous mode of labour even in their new situation, and developing it further by freeing it from its earlier fetters” (p. 35 online). Can it be the case that it is the only possible way of freeing oneself, i.e. individually, not only with respect to the transition from feudalism to communism, but also the transition to communism? If it is not applicable to communism, why not? Can setting up enterprises not rising above the capitalist system but forming a new one within it be a mode of liberation nowadays? If yes, how, if not, why not?

6.
Absence on intra-class mobility, a possibility of which is reduced merely to an accident, is one of the arguments by Marx important for his concept of revolution. What can we say about intra-class mobility today? Does this argument hold today, hence, can it be one of the arguments by the modern left? How can it be estimated, if at all?

7.
Marx stresses a transformation of Man for and through revolution: “Both for the production on a mass scale of this communist consciousness, and for the success of the cause itself, the alteration of men on a mass scale is, necessary, an alteration which can only take place in a practical movement, a revolution; this revolution is necessary, therefore, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew” (p. 42 online). Man changes through the revolution, but in order to initiate the revolution the Man should already be changed. Isn’t it a contradictory statement? How can we reconcile the two claims?

8.
Just a note on the meaning behind the concept of abolition of the family: “Where the family is actually abolished, as with the proletariat, just the opposite of what "Stirner" thinks takes place. Then the concept of the family does not exist at all, but here and there family affection based on extremely real relations is certainly to be found” (p. 57 online). I am brining this up because this point is often misinterpreted.

Excerpts from James Mill’s Elements of Political Economy

I have a couple of points to make that are minor in the context of what the crucial issues are in Marx’s early writings, hence, maybe don’t even deserve a separate discussion when we meet. But that can hopefully be of some general interest for some of you.

1. Marx has a very interesting discussion of the concept of an economic law. He stresses that abstract laws come into being through fluctuations, continual suspension [p. 260]. That is, these fluctuations are not just violations of the law – the laws operate not despite fluctuations, but thanks to them. There is an even stronger point: “Laws in economics are determined by their opposite, lawlessness” [260]. Law is “an abstract, contingent and one-sided moment” in the real movement [260]. I think these are extremely important considerations on the nature of laws that shed light on a lot of later ideas of Marx. Such a conceptualization can contribute, from my perspective, to understanding the famous tendency of the profit rate to fall and many other laws derived by Marx that are often a subject of hot debates.

2. There is an interesting evolution of Marx’s thought visible especially in this piece. I noticed that what he denotes as private property in his early writings, he discusses as a commodity in his later works. One of the most obvious examples is on p. 267-8. The most striking examples are mutual alienation of private property (=exchange), private property as a surrogate, equivalent (see equivalent and relative forms of value in Volume 1).

Some thoughts on A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right

Thanks to everybody initiating the discussion on this text – there were a lot of interesting points made by people. I had a couple of thoughts in light of them.

1. Ad Al’s comment on freedom and necessity.
As long as the decision making in communism Al talks about is a realization of freedom, its necessity is a form of realization of freedom. Moreover, to the extent this necessity enhances freedom, it becomes a prerequisite to freedom, its premise. That is, the necessity becomes a form of expression and a premise of freedom, which is a truly dialectical relationship of the two. Probably, the difference from the pre-history is the fact that in communism the two are dialectically related in the above sense, whereas in the hitherto existing societies necessity is a direct impediment to freedom, making the relationship between freedom and necessity ‘one-directional’: freedom’s attempt of self-realization, and necessity’s blocking this process. If it is correct, then the contradiction Al talks about does indeed have its actual ontological basis: this contradiction is a reflection in thought of the actual contradiction in the real (future) world – one of the contradictions inherent in communism. A propos, I’d like to stress that, from my perspective, communism is not a contradiction-free system, the question is of the nature of these contradictions that are qualitatively distinct from contradictions of the pre-history. Does it make sense?

2. Ad Al’s point on private property.
I think Al is bringing up an extremely important issue, and I’d love to know what he and Bertell have to say on that. In addition to Al’s remarks, I also want to draw you attention to the fact that, firstly, Marx distinguishes between private and personal property (sorry, can’t recall the text in which he talks abut it) with the classical example of the latter being the toothbrush Al is referring to. Secondly, Marx talks about superseding, sublation [Aufhebung] of private property, not its elimination as it is often understood in primitive versions of Marxism. The concept of Aufhebung – dissolution and preservation – can be another possible way of looking into it.

3. Another interesting point made by Marx in this text is that we can’t transcend [aufheben] philosophy without realizing [verwirklichen] it, on the one hand, though we can’t realize philosophy without transcending it, on the other hand (p. 250). The latter is put by him in another way elsewhere: “Criticism of the speculative philosophy of law finds its progression not within itself but in tasks which can only be solved in one way – through practice [Praxis]” (p. 251). The reason I am bringing this up is because it reminds me of Lukács stressing in his Theory of Class Consciousness that Marxism is a logical development of Hegelian philosophy, Hegel pushed to the logical conclusion of his theory. That is, the solution of contradictions inherent in the Hegelian philosophy lies beyond this philosophy per se.