TAKAHISA OISHI
Professor of Economics
Takushoku University
Tokyo, Japan
INTRODUCTION
Marx's Poverty of Philosophy (1847; hereafter POVERTY)
is a methodological and theoretical critique of political
economy and socialism. It is a demonstration of Marx's
dialectical method of a critique of economic categories
in order to explain the genesis--or the origin--of
economic categories.The point we would like to make
here concerns Marx's dialectical method in Chapter
2 of POVERTY, with special reference to his methodological
critique of political economy. Marx's theoretical critique
of political economy in POVERTY will be expounded in
the next paper.
Capitalist society, the sum total of capitalist relations
of production and commerc, yields wealth on the one
hand and poverty on the other, each of which is represented
by political economists and socialists. Thus Proudhon
declared in his System of Economic Contradictions,
or Philosophy of Poverty (1846; hereafter SYSTEM) that
he established 'a revolutionary theory' in order to
abolish capitalist society by transcending both political
economists and socialists. SYSTEM is a critique of
political economy.
Consequently, Marx's POVERTY, directed against SYSTEM,
is not only a critique of Proudhon but also a critique
of political economy and socialism. The methodological
insufficiency of political economy, i.e. the unhistorical
understanding of economic categories, is a premise
for both Proudhon and Marx. The core of the controversy
between Proudhon and Marx is how to transcend the insufficiency
of political economy, i.e. the method of a critique
of economic categories. The core of Marx's critique
of Proudhon is that Proudhon, in a roundabout way,
arrived at the standpoint of political economists,
i.e. the unhistorical understanding of economic categories.
The quotation from On Proudhon below demonstrates this
to the full:
There [in POVERTY] I showed,...how in this roundabout way he [Proudhon] arrived once more at the standpoint of bourgeois economy [of making economic categories eternal] (italics mine)[1].
The point here is that political economists, as well as Proudhon and Hegel, are methodologically and theoretically criticised by Marx for their unhistorical understanding of economic categories, thus of capitalist society. This is the reason why Marx states as follows:
The decisive points of our view [of his critique of political economy] were first scientifically, although only polemically, indicated in my work [POVERTY] published in 1847 and directed against Proudhon[2].
Marx's POVERTY is not the work in which Marx defended
political economy from Proudhon's attack but the work
in which he expounded how political economy is to be
criticised. Thus, in this sense, Marx's methodological
critique of Proudhon in Chapter 2 of his POVERTY is
also directed against political economy, including
Ricardo[3]. Added to this, a careful investigation
of Chapter 1 will reveal that the Ricardian value theory
is also criticised, albeit indirectly, with regard
to the historical understanding of economic categories.
Methodologically speaking, 'the decisive points'
indicated in POVERTY can be summarised as follows:
1. Capitalist relations of production and commerce
are historical, transitory.
2. They form a sum total by coexisting simultaneously
and supporting one another.
3. Economic categories are only the theoretical expressions
of capitalist relations. Thus each economic category
must represent the historical character of capitalist
relation which it expresses and the intrinsic connection
with other relations.
4. Understanding economic categories from the twofold
aspects is explaining the genesis, or the origin, of
each economic category, i.e. what, how and by what
means each category is yielded. This is the crux of
Proudhon's and Marx's methodological critique of political
economy, i.e. of their unhistorical understanding of
categories.
5. Economic categories should be presented in accordance
with their genesis, i.e. in 'the order in which they
engender one another' (Marx-Engels Collected Works,
Vol.6, p.169; hereafter cited as 6 MEC 169) which was
later termed the 'genetical presentation' of economic
categories[4].
In Chapter I we examine the general character and
limitations of both political economists' and Marx's
method. Chapter II and III expound the historical character
and the intrinsic connection between economic categories.
Chapter IV investigates Marx's genetical presentation
of economic categories.
RICARDO VS. MARX ON METHOD
THE CHARACTER AND LIMITATIONS OF
RICARDO'S AND MARX'S METHOD
The method of political economy is logically termed
the 'analytical method'. Political economists analysed
capitalist relations of production and commerce, and
abstracted their essences. For example, they reduced
capital and commodity to labour. Also they analysed
fluctuation in prices and abstracted central price
from it. They called it 'natural price' (Smith) or
'cost of production' (Ricardo) and defined the value
of a commodity accordingly. It is this analytical method
which made their economics scientific and led them
to the formation of labour theory of value.
The analytical method, however, is inadequate to
comprehending historical organisms which pass the process
of formation development resolution: On the one hand,
the method cannot clarify the historical character
of capitalist relations. It reduces the substance of
commodity, capital, rent etc., but does not demonstrate
historical conditions which transform the substance,
i.e. labour, into capital or commodity. The "First
Observation" of POVERTY says:
Economists explain how production takes place in the
above-mentioned relations, but what they do not explain
is how these relations themselves are produced, that
is, the historical movement which gave them birth (Marx-Engels
Collected Works, Vol.6, p.162; hereafter sited as 6
MEC 162).
On the other hand, the method is inadequate to comprehend
the intrinsic connection between capitalist relations
of production and commerce. Capitalist relations form
a sum total by coexisting simultaneously and supporting
one another. They form the social structure in which
each relation forms a limb. The intrinsic connection
between the relations shows the structure and the relative
stability in their process of formation development
resolution: Capitalist relations spontaneously emerged
from feudal relations and exist now as an historical
stage and will evolve into higher levels.In the "Third
Observation", Marx emphasises the interrelation
of capitalist relations:
The different limbs of society are converted into so many separate societies [by Proudhon], following one upon the other. How, indeed, could the single logical formula of movement, of sequence, of time, explain the structure of society, in which all relations co-exist simultaneously and support one another(6 MEC 167).
In short, the analytical method is inadequate to comprehend
the following two aspects of capitalist relations:
the historical character and the intrinsic connection.
Both Proudhon and Marx attempt to explain the origin
of economic categories in order to transcend those
insufficiencies of political economy by using a dialectical
method[5]. Although Proudhon does not analyse the real
movement--process--of capitalist production, Marx's
dialectical method is a method of comprehending capitalist
relations from the two aspects of capitalist relations
based on an anlysis of the real capitalist relations.
In this sense, the analytical method of political economy
provides the basis for Marx's critical analysis of
economic categories. The general character and limitations
of the analytical method,thus of political economists,
is observed in Marx's Manuscripts of 1861-63 as follows:
Classical economy is not interested in elaborating how the various forms come into being, but seeks to reduce them to their unity by means of analysis, because it starts from them as given premises. But analysis is the necessary prerequisite of genetical presentation, and of the understanding of the real, formative process in its different phases[6].
As he was once an Hegelian, Marx has been critical on
the analytical method since his first encounter with
political economy in 1843[7]. For example, Marx writes
in his Economic Philosophic Manuscript of 1844 (hereafter
EPM) as follows:
Political economy proceeds from the fact of private
property [the right of ownership]; it does not explain
it to us. It grasps the material process of private
property, the process through which it actually passes,
in general and abstract formulae which it then takes
as laws. It does not comprehend these laws, i.e. it
does not show how they arise from the nature of private
property (3 MEC 270-271).
As a matter of fact, in the passage which follows the
quotation above, Marx sets himself the task of comprehending
economic laws of political economists from the 'general
nature of private property'[8] with the help of the
two concepts: 'private property' and 'estranged labour'
(3 MEC 281). This reminded us of Marx's Manuscripts
of 1861-63 [9] and should have been understood as his
first plan of the genetical presentation of economic
categories, but this has been interpreted as evidence
of immaturity of the 'early Marx'.
Å@It is also noteworthy that Marx's "On Proudhon"
quoted partly in INTRODUCTION is preceded by a critique
of the Hegelian speculative dialectics, a method of
understanding organisms from two aspects: the historical
character and the intrinsic connection. Here this can
be mentioned only briefly but the point is that in
the Hegelian dialectics categories and abstract ideas
produce real social relations, as Marx writes in his
Preface to the Second Edition of Capital [10].
Marx's dialectical method, however, is only the
dialectic of description, no more and no less than
that. It is said to be a systematic description for
comprehending capitalist relations from the two aspects:
the historical character and the intrinsic connection.
Therefore, his dialectic is, unlike Hegel's, not the
self-development or selfcreation of concepts themselves.
The movement of categories in Marx's dialectical presentation
is not 'the real act of production' of categories but,
in fact, 'a product of thinking and comprehending'[11].
In short, the limitation of Marx's dialectical method
is that it is only but 'the working- up of observation
and conception into concepts'[12]. This can be observed
in Marx's critique of Proudhon's made-up dialectics.
In the "Fifth Observation' Marx states: '...now
we have M. Proudhon reduced to saying that the order
in which he gives the economic categories is no longer
the order in which they engender one another' (6 MEC
169). To read it the other way round, Marx presents
categories in the order in which they do engender one
another.
RICARDO VS. MARX ON VIEW OF ECONOMIC CATEGORIES
Political economists reduce the various forms of wealth
to their inner unity, but they do not explain the real
formative process in its different phases. This is
a necessary result of their method. The idea of explaining
the genesis of economic categories never came into
their minds. As Marx states in the "First Observation":
'what they ... do not explain is how these relations
themselves are produced' (6 MEC 162).
To take a couple of examples, they reduce 'commodity'
to 'labour', but they are not concerned with why, how
and by what means the 'labour' appears in the 'value'
of a product in capitalist condition. Similarly, they
do not explain 'natural price' 'production cost' from
'value' nor the possibility and necessity for the historical
abolition of commodities. They concentrate instead
on the quantitative analysis of economic relations,
i.e. average, highest and lowest rates. The deficiency
of political economists in this respect is a necessary
result of their analytical method. Consequently, Ricardo
is not an exception.
It would be clear from these examples that political
economists do not understand capitalist relations,
or economic categories, as historical, because their
method necessarily abstracts all characteristics distinctive
of capitalist relations. At least in theory, political
economists do not understand economic categories as
theoretical reflections of capitalist relations of
production and commerce. They do not directly assert
that capitalist relations are eternal, but they say
so indirectly. In the "First Observation"
Marx remarks: 'Economists express the relations of
bourgeois production, the division of labour, credit,
money, etc., as fixed, immutable, eternal categories'
(6 MEC 162).
On the other hand, Marx understands: 'Economic categories
are only the theoretical expressions,the abstractions
of the social relations of production' (6 MEC 165).
What concerns Marx is the historical conditions which
transform 'labour' into the 'value' of a commodity
or into 'capital'. In other words, the genesis of economic
categories are explained, as Marx states in the "First
Observation": Economists explain how production
takes place in the above-mentioned relations, but what
they do not explain is how these relations themselves
are produced, that is, the historical movement which
give them birth' (6 MEC 162). By 'the historical movement'
in the quotation, we should not understand history
qua history. Once capitalist relations are established,
they are produced every day before our eyes. Furthermore,
by 'movement' Marx means 'process'. The point here
is that economic laws are grasped from the 'very nature
of private property' through this genetical presentation
of economic categories. Comprehending economic laws
as necessary laws of private property is the other
side of explaining the gnesis of economic categories.
This requires a critical analysis of capitalist relations
which even Ricardo had never thought of. Thus for Marx's
genetical presentation of economic categories, the
arrival-point of political economists serves, at most,
only as the starting-point.
For example, Marx points out that the followings
must be examined minutely: what are men's 'respective
needs, their productive forces, their mode of production,
the raw materials of their production in short, what
[are] the relations between man and man which resulted
from all these conditions of existence' (6 MEC 170).
This leads us to the definition of economic categories
from the two aspects. As the theoretical expression
of capitalist relations: each category must express
the stage in the development of productive forces to
which it corresponds. In the "Second Observation"
Marx writes that 'Social relations are closely bound
up with productive forces' (6 MEC 166); each category,
on the other hand, must reflect the interconnection
with other relations, which coexist simultaneously
and support one another.
There are a couple of things worth mentioning in
regard to Marx's dialectical method. First, economic
categories 'are truths only insofar as those relations
continue to exist' (38 MEC 100). Marx specifies that
Proudhon's and Hegel's dialectics have to be speculative
because they do not 'pursue the historical movement
of production relations, of which the categories are
but the theoretical expression'(6 MEC 162). As we shall
see later, this concerns the order in which economic
categories should be presented.
Secondly, capitalist relations must be separated
from feudal or mere transitional relations through
critical analyses of the movement of capitalist production
and consumption. The term 'capital', for example, has
been used from ancient times. It is, however, careless
to jump from this simple fact to the conclusion that
capitalism is as old as the term. As Marx points out
in "$4. PROPERTY OR RENT" of "Chapter
2", 'property has developed differently and under
a set of entirely different social relations' (6 MEC
197). Confusing modern capital with that in ancient
times, e.g. the cattle, will lead us to a complete
misunderstanding of our society based on large-scale
industry.
In the following two chapters, let us examine further
the point we have been considering with special reference
to the Ricardian rent theory.
RICARDO VS. MARX ON THE 'HISTORICAL CHARACTER'
Let us take up Marx's critical analysis of rent in POVERTY
and demonstrate how the historical character of rent
is grasped by Marx. Proudhon declares himself incapable
of understanding the economic origin of rent by saying
that it is 'so to speak, extra-economic'; Though he
referrs to the Ricardian rent theory as to the average
rent. To begin with, Marx summarises Ricardo's rent
theory as follows:
(1) 'In agricultural industry, ... it is the price
of the product obtained by the greatest amount of labour
which regulates the price of all products of the same
kind' (6 MEC 199).
(2) 'Then, as population increases, land of an inferior
quality begins to be exploited, or new outlays of capital,
proportionately less productive than before, are made
upon the same plot of land. In both cases a greater
amount of labour is expended to obtain a proportionately
smaller product' (6 MEC 199).
(3) 'As competition levels the market price,the product
of the better soil will be paid for as dearly as that
of the inferior. It is the excess of the price of the
products of the better soil over the cost of their
production that constitutes rent' (6 MEC 200).
After this summary, Marx points out that the Ricadian
rent theory partly shows the economic origin of rent.
Rent, in the Ricardian sense, is property in land in its bourgeois state, that is, feudal property which has become subject to the conditions of bourgeois production (6 MEC 199).
In contrast with Proudhon, Marx rates the Ricardian
rent theory as a scientific analysis of real production
relations. However, it should also be noted that Marx
points out the insufficiency of Ricardo's analysis
of rent as an historical, or a production relation.
For example,Marx names the followings as the historical
conditions of the Ricardian doctrine:
(1) that 'capital should be freely applicable to different
branches of industry';
(2) that 'a strongly developed competition among capitalists
should have brought profits to an equal level';
(3) that 'the farmer should be no more than an industrial
capitalist claiming for the use of his capital on inferior
land a profit equal to that which he would draw from
his capital it were applied in any kind of manufacture';
(4) that 'agricultural exploitation should be subjected
to the regime of large-scale industry'; and finally,
(5) that 'the landowner himself should aim at nothing
beyond the money return' (6 MEC 200).
In a succeeding paragraph, with regard to the subjective
essence of rent, Marx counts the followings as 'the
different relations expressed by rent':
(1) 'The abasement of the labourer, reduced to the
role of a simple worker, day labourer, wage-earner,
working for the industrial capitalist';
(2) 'the intervention of the industrial capitalist,
exploiting the land like any other factory';
(3) 'the transformation of the landed proprietor from
a petty sovereign into a vulgar usurer' (6 MEC 201).
It would be clear from these that Marx grasps rent
as a capitalist production relation by analysing historical
conditions which rent expresses. This analysis, on
the other hand, separates rent relation from other
feudal, transitional or untypical relations. The following
serves as an example:
Farm rent can imply again, apart from rent proper, the interest on the capital incorporated in the land. In this instance the landowner receives this part of the farm rent, not as a landowner but as a capitalist; but this is not the rent proper that we are to deal with (6 MEC 205).
It is well-known that Ricardo determines rent by the
following two factors: (1) the different 'situation'
of land to market; and (2) the different 'degrees of
fertility of soil'. Marx argues against this determination.
Since the two factors are unhistorical, this determination
makes his rent unhistorical and unsocial. In this sense,
his rent theory illustrates the insufficiency as well
as the scientific aspect of the Ricardian economics.
Marx writes:
Ricardo, after postulating bourgeois production as necessary
for determining rent, applies it [the conception of
rent: in the German ed.], nevertheless, to the landed
property of all ages and all countries. This is an
old trick [error: in the German ed.] common to all
the economists, who represent the bourgeois relations
of production as eternal categories [relations: in
the German ed.] (6 MEC 202).
Although he had not yet finished his own rent theory in POVERTY, basic points of Marx's view have already become clear. For example, he asserts: 'Rent results from the social relations in which the exploitation of the land takes place' (6 MEC 205). Rent should express those social relations. However, this is beyond the analytical method.
RICARDO VS. MARX ON THE 'INTRINSIC CONNECTION'
Capitalist relations of production coexist simultaneously,
support one another and form a whole. They are all
interconnected, accordingly economic categories must
express the intrinsic connection between capitalist
relations. To 'give an exposition of all the social
relations of bourgeois production' is 'to define bourgeois
property' (6 MEC 197). On the other hand, unless the
'bonds' are shown, each capitaist relation is understood
as independent of the others.
In his SYSTEM, Proudhon gives property an independent
chapter (Chapter 11 Property). Furthermore, as a
matter of fact, there he investigates only rent. In
the opening paragraph of "Chapter 2 $4 Property
or Rent", Marx criticises this.
To try to give a definition of property as of an independent relation, a category apart, an abstract and eternal idea, can be nothing but an illusion of metaphysics or jurisprudence (6 MEC 197).
However, this criticism can be applied to political
economy too. The Ricardian rent theory provides an
example. He deals with rent in relation to 'value'
(Chapter 2 On Rent), but his point of view is limited
to whether rent is a component of natural price or
a result of it. Rent, especially average rent, is already
presupposed in his determination of value (Chapter
1). Rent is not explained as a 'particular and developed
expression' (3 MEC 281) of value. Similarly, the intrinsic
connection between value, profit, rent or cost of production
(including profit) are not grasped nor developed from
value by Ricardo.
Thus, from Marx's point of view or from the standpoint
of the genetical presentation of economic categories,
Ricardo does not grasp the connection between the categories
nor explain anything. His presentation of economic
categories is nothing but a tautology. This is also
a necessary result of his analytical method.
Another notable example occurs in Chapter 1 of POVERTY.
Marx investigates money as 'a social relation' (6 MEC
145) closely connected with a whole chain of other
economic relations.Although the criticism is directed
against Proudhon, it should be understood as a critique
of the Ricardian money theory because he does not differ
much from Proudhon in money theory. This is the reason
why Ricardo is not contrastd with Proudhon any longer.
Anyway, Marx's critique of Proudhon's money theory
can be completely applied to Ricardo's.
Marx's critique can be summarised as follows: Proudhon
does not distinguish money itself from its functions
forms and grasps money only in its concrete functions,
i.e. only as means of exchange. He presupposes the
necessity for money a special agent of exchange rather
than explains it. He explains only a secondary question,
i.e. 'why this particular function [a special agent
of exchange] has developed upon gold and silver rather
than upon any other commodity' (6 MEC 146). He does
not realise that 'this [the money] relation corresponds
to a definite mode of production neither more nor less
than does individual exchange' (6 MEC 146). Gold and
silver are commodities and also have the capacity of
being the universal agent of exchange. Thus the first
question to be asked is, 'why, in exchanges as they
[the values] are actually constituted, it has been
necessary to individualise exchangeable-value, so to
speak, by the creation of a special agent of exchange'
(6 MEC 145). Commodity production and commodity exchange
require and perpetually produce money. The necessity
for the creation of money is in the determination of
value itself. This is, however, beyond Ricardo's comprehension.
Marx specifies this in his Manuscripts of 1861-63 by
saying:
But Ricardo does not examine the form the peculiar characteristic of labour that creates exchange-value or manifests itself in exchange-value the nature of this labour. Hence he does not grasp the connection of this labour with money or that it must assume the form of money. Hence he completely fails to grasp the connection between the determination of the exchange-value of the commodity by labour time and the fact that the devlopment of commodities necessarily leads to the formation of money[13].
As we have examined above, the Ricardian theory of rent
and money do not comprehend the intrinsic connection
with other capitalist relations, or economic categories.
Understanding money as a means of exchange does not
necessarily mean comprehending it as 'a production
relation' (6 MEC 145). Marx, on the other hand, comprehends
the connection between commodities and money from the
social substance of value[14].
So far, we have examined the inadequacy of the Ricardian
method from three points of view: the view on economic
categories, the historical character of capitalist
relations and the connections between them. Those limitations
are necessary results of his analytical method. They
are not three different things, but three aspects of
the same thing, i.e. the analytical method. In the
next chapter we would give readers the full particulars
of Marx's methodological confrontation with Ricardo
in POVERTY by unifying those three aspects.
MARX'S PRESENTATION OF ECONOMIC CATEGORIES
The "First Observation" in Chapter 2 specifies
that the crux of the Proudhonian and Marxian methodological
critique of political economy is the historical understanding
of economic categories by explaining the genesis of
them, i.e. a dialectical method. Their point of diverging
is whether they pursue the real movement of capitalist
production and commerce or not,or whether their critique
of political economy is a critique of economic categories
or not.
Proudhon does not analyse the real movement. He does
not examine the historical conditions nor the interrelation
of capitalist relations which the categories express.
He explains their origins by introducing a person,
like a deus ex machina [15], who makes the proposition
to other persons to establish the relation in question.
Thus for Proudhon, economic categories do not express
the historical conditions of them nor their interrelation.
He presents economic categories in the order classified
by an outside principle, i.e. 'equality'. In this sense,
Proudhon's critique of political economy is not a critique
of economic categories.
Marx, on the other hand, analyses the movement of
capitalist production from the following two aspects
in order to explain their genesis: the historical character
and the intrinsic connection. Economic categories are
presented accordingly in the order which is shown by
the intrinsic connection between the categories. Marx
later calls this method of presenting economic categories
the 'genetical presentation', because it explains the
genesis of economic categories, thus, of the capitalist
relations which they express. It is through this presentation,
the logical necessity for capitalist society, i.e.
of formation - development - resolution, is grasped
by the twofold determination of economic categories
too[16]: the historical character of capitalist relations
corresponding to a certain stage in the development
of productive forces; the intrinsic connection between
capitalist relations coexisting simultaneously and
supporting one another.In this sense Marx's critique
of political economy is a critique of economic categories.
With regard to this, it should be noted that Proudhon's
attempt at explaining the genesis of economic categories
as such is rated highly by Marx in the "First
Observation"[17]. Unfortunately, not all
economic categories are presented in POVERTY because
of its polemical nature, but the outline of Marx's
genetical presentation can be read between the lines
such as:
The same men who establish their social relations in
conformity with their material productivity, produce
also principles, ideas and categories, in conformity
with their social relations (6 MEC 166).
Now that he has to put this dialectics into practice,
his reason in default. M. Proudhon's dialectics runs
counter to Hegel's dialectics, and now we have M. Proudhon
reduced to saying that the order in which he gives
the economic categories is no longer the order in which
they engender one another. Economic evolutions are
no longer the evolutions of reason itself (6 MEC 169;
italics added).
Here we should note that the so-called return journey
from abstract to concrete[18] is suggested by the emphasised
sentence. Taking into account his critical analysis
of rent in POVERTY and his plans in the works preceding
POVERTY[19], it would be safe to say that Marx plans
to develop economic categories in the following order:
from the abstract to the concrete; from the simple
to the aggregate; from those of production process
to those of circulation process. For example, commodities
and money before capital, profit and average profit
before rent. The term 'engender' in the above quotation
indicates the 'premise - development' relation between
the categories.
It is worth mentioning the 'spontaneity' of economic
categories. The following passage in POVERTY may mislead
us unless we keep it within its context.
Indeed, from the moment the process of the dialectic movement is reduced to the simple process of opposing good to bad, of posing problems tending to eliminate the bad, and of administering one category as an antidote to another, the categories are deprived of all spontaneity; the idea 'no longer function'; there is no life left in it. It is no longer posed or decomposed into categories (6 MEC 169).
It is careless to jump from this to the interpretation
that Marx's categories have spontaneity or life in
themselves. On the contrary, the quotation above indicates
the inadequacy of Proudhon's made-up dialectics even
as speculative.
First: Proudhon does not 'pursue the historical movement
of production relations, of which the categories are
but the theoretical expression' (6 MEC 162). He inverts
the relationship between economic categories, just
as in Hegel's speculative dialectics.
Secondly: however,Proudhon's dialectics differs from
Hegel's. Contradictions produce other categories in
Hegel's dialectics, but not in Proudhon's. Because,
for Proudhon, 'the dialectic movement is the dogmatic
distinctions between good and bad' (6 MEC 168). His
contradictions are not real contradictions but mere
distinctions.
Thirdly: consequently, in Proudhon's speculative
dialectics, unlike Hegel's, categories have to be developed
through the power of other categories, i.e. other categories
must be presupposed. For example, 'to arrive at the
constitution of value, which for him is the basis of
all economic evolutions, he could not do without division
of labour, competition, etc.' (6 MEC 166). Thus the
quotation above is followed by:
The sequence of categories has become a sort of scaffolding. Dialectics has ceased to be the movement of absolute reason. There is no longer any dialectics but only, at the most, absolutely pure morality (6 MEC 169).
In contrast to that, Marx's genetical presentation is
the dialectic of description and merely 'the working-up
observation and conception into concept'. It must be
based on the analysis of 'the historical movement of
production relations' (6 MEC 162). Consequently, however
his presentation of economic categories may appear
as the self-development or self-creation of 'concept',
it is not a dogma. As Marx warns us 'the subject, society,
must constantly be kept in mind as the premise from
which we start' [20] in the whole process of his presentation.
From all the observations above, we may conclude
that Marx suggests the 'genetical presentation of economic
categories' in POVERTY.
CONCLUSION
In the early 1840s Marx faced the so-called material
problem and the problem of the abolition of capital.
At the time when capital was establishing itself and
causing friction with feudal property in Germany, the
abolition of capital was acclaimed by socialists and
communists in England and France. Thus it was an anachronism
for Marx to deal with the German domestic problems,
because they had already been solved in England and
France. The first step he took to solve the problem
was a critical investigation of Hegel's Philosophy
of Right which is an exceptional critique of capitalist
society in England.
Through that work, Marx realised that the separation
of civil society and political state has its root in
civil society, i.e. in the separation of individuals
into citizen (citoyen )and bourgeois. Consequently,
he formulates that human emancipation will be accomplished
only when: 'the real, individual man ... in his particular
work ... has reorganised and organised his "forces
propres" as social forces, and consequently no
longer separates social powers from himself' (3 MEC
168).In this way, Marx comes to the conclusion that
a critical analysis of capitalist relations of production
is necessary for him to clarify material conditions
for it.
For Marx the real question is: Can 'Germany attain
a practice à la hauteur des principes, i.e.
a revolution which will raise not only to the official
level of the modern nations but to the height of humanity
which will be the near future of these nations' (3
MEC 182)? As I have already clarified in my preceding
paper Individual, Social and Common Property",
Marx tackles this question by separating out the general
essence (Wesen ) of private property through a twofold
analysis of the capitalist production process in EPM.
Capitalist society, i.e. the sum total of capitalist
relations, develops antagonistically by producing wealth
on one hand and poverty on the other. A controversy
between political economists and socialists follows.
Political economists are a fatalist school and represent
a bourgeoisie which works only ... to increase the
productive forces and to give a new upsurge to industry
and commerce' (6 MEC 176). They understand capitalist
society as eternal by conceptualising capitalist relations
into unhistorical categories. They do not comprehend
how economic laws arise from the very nature (Wesen
) of capital nor demonstrate economic laws as necessary
laws of capital. This is a necessary result of their
analytical method. Socialists, on the other hand, are
on the workers' side and try to reform society, especially
distribution relations,without abolishing capitalist
production relations. Neither economists nor socialists
comprehend capitalist society as an historical, transitory
society corresponding to a certain stage in the development
of productive forces.
Proudhon claimed in his SYSTEM that he had transcended
both political economy and socialism.Therefore, Marx
in POVERTY is directly concerned with Proudhon, but
indirectly, concerned with political economy and socialism.
The methodological inadequacy of Ricardo's analysis
was presupposed by Proudhon and Marx in 1846. The core
of the problem is the new method required to transcend
the inadequacy of the analytical method of political
economy, including Ricardo. As we have seen, the point
is how to understand economic categories by explaining
the genesis of them. Marx's critique of Proudhon's
made-up dialectical is only his methodologi-cal critique
of Ricardo from the following two aspects: the historical
character of economic categories; and the intrinsic
connection between those categories. This brings us
to another point which is going to be made in the succeeding
paper, i.e. Marx's critique of the Ricardian concept
cost of production' in Chapter 1 of POVERTY.
ä(TM)ññíç********************************
[1]. ÅgOn Proudhon" (Marx's letter to J. B. Schweitzer dated 24 January 1865), Karl MarxÅ|Fredrick Engels Selected Works in three volumes, Vol.2 (Progress Publishers, 1977), p.26.
[2]. The Preface to A Critique of Political Economy (1859), in: David McLellan, Karl Marx Selected Writings (Oxford, 1977), p.390.
[3]. In POVERTY, Marx contrasts Ricardo, Bray and Hegel with Proudhon. This is neither to defend them from Proudhon's attacks nor to criticise Proudhon by using their theories. It is to illustrate that Proudhon has not transcended Ricardo the economist or Bray the Ricardian socialist. It is expressed best in the following quotation:
Å@ He [Proudhon] wants to be the synthesis.... He wants to soar as the Å@ man of science above the bourgeois and the proletarians; he is Å@Å@Å@ merely the petty bourgeois, continually tossed back and forth Å@Å@Å@ between capital and labour, political economy and communism (6 Å@Å@ MEC 178).
Stressing the scientific aspect of the Ricardian value
theory in Chapter 1 and the methodological critique
of him in Chapter 2 of POVERTY, albeit indirectly,
do not contradict each other. On the contrary, a careful
investigation of Chapter 1 reveals that the Ricardian
value theory opposed to Proudhon is not his but the
reread by Marx; surprisingly few studies have clarified
this. They have analysed the two chapters of POVERTY
separately. As a result, Marx's methodological and
theoretical critique of Ricardo's Åecost of production'
has been completely overlooked. The interpretation
follows that in POVERTY Marx Åeaccepted' or Åeaffirmed'
the Ricardian value theory. I would like to argue against
this undialectical interpretation of Marx's formation
process in the next paper. The point is that Chapter
1 of POVERTY is to be understood with regard to his
methodological critique of Ricardo in Chapter 2.
Similarly, Bray is contrasted with Proudhon in order
to show that Proudhon has no originality as a utopian
interpreter of the Ricardian value theory. Likewise,
Hegel is opposed to Proudhon, albeit his dialectics
has nothing to do with Hegel's, in order to rail against
methodological confusion. Marx illustrates on the one
hand, that Proudhon's dialectics has the same speculative
structure as Hegel's; i.e. he understands economic
categories as eternal by inverting the relationship
between categories and real relations; on the other,
that Proudhon's dialectics is fatal as a speculative
dialectics. Since his categories have no life in themselves,
they need help for development from the outside.
[4]. MEGA2, Ö+-3, Teil 4, S.1499. Theories of Surplus Value, Part Öo (Progress Publishers, 1971), p.500.
[5]. See Marx's letter to J.B. Schweitzer dated on 24
January 1865, in: KARL MARXÅ|FREDRICK ENGELS
SELECTED WORKS in three volumes, Vol. 2 (Progress Publishers,
Moscow, 1977), p.26. Marx came into personal contact
with Proudhon in 1844 in Paris and Åeinfected
him to his great injury with Hegelianism'. Both Marx
and Proudhon attempt to criticise private property
in the form of a critique of political economy by using
a dialectical method. However, since Proudhon does
not pursue the real movement of capitalist production,
his dialectics has to be speculative just like the
Hegelian. In other words his critique of political
economy is not a critique of economic categories.
[6]. MEGA2, Ö+-3, Teil 4, S.1499. Theories of Surplus Value, PartÖo (Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1971), p.500.
[7]. See, e.g. my ÅgMarx's First Critique of Political Economy", The Review of Takushoku University, No.190 (1991). To ignore this fact is to misunderstand the whole of Marx's formation process.
[8]. As to this concept, see Chapter Öc of my paper ÅgIndividual, Social and Common Property", The Review of Takushoku University, No. 199 (1992).
[9]. MEGA2, Ö+-3, Teil 4, S.1389. Theories of Surplus Value, PartÖo, pp.258-259.
[10]. Capital, Vol. 1, Pelican ed., pp.102-103. As Marx asserts in the ÅgFirst Observation", this is a necessary result of not pursuing Åethe historical movement of production relations' (6 MEC 162).
[11]. Grundrisse, Pelican ed., p.101.
[12]. Ibid., p.101.
[13]. MEGA2, Ö+-3, Teil 3, S.816. Theories of Surplus Value, PartÖ+, p.164. See also Footnotes 33, 34 and 35 of Capital, Vol.1, Pelican ed., pp.173-176.
[14]. This brings us to the point I would like to make in the next paper: Marx's critique of Ricardo's value theory in POVERTY. What we should notice here, with regard to this, is Marx's following remark:
There is no ready-constituted Åeproportional relation' [of supply to demand], but only a constituting movement (6 MEC 134).
[15]. See Editor's Note b on 6 MEC 198. As to how Proudhon explains the genesis of economic categories, see 6 MEC 198-199 and 112.
[16]. See Preface to the Second Edition of Capital, Vol. 1, Pelican ed., p.103.
[17]. See, e.g. 6 MEC 111 and 162.
[18]. See Grunrisse, Pelican ed., pp.100-101.
[19]. See, for example, EPM (3 MEC 281, 289) and Notes on James Mill (3 MEC 221-222).
[20]. Grunrisse, Pelican ed., p. 102.