-
Historical Materialism, volume 13:2 (167188) Koninklijke Brill
NV, Leiden, 2005Also available online www.brill.nl
1 This is particularly clear in Arthur 2003.2 See Sekine 1997
for a strong presentation of the inner logic of capital as a
dialectical
logic.
Robert Albritton
How Dialectics Runs Aground: The Antinomies of Arthurs Dialectic
of Capital
Chris Arthur and I agree on the basic nature ofdialectical
reasoning, but, when it comes to thinkingthrough the ways in which
Marxs theory of capitalsinner logic is and is not dialectical, I
shall argue thathis dialectics runs aground and finally breaks up
onthe rocky materiality of class struggle.1 In developingmy
analysis, I shall start with a brief discussion ofhis take on
dialectics, where there is much accordbetween us. It is my belief
that his account gets stuckon two specific oppositions: the
opposition betweenvalue and use-value and between capital and
labour.It seems to me that a dialectical approach based onthe work
of Japanese political economists Uno andSekine can deal with these
oppositions in a muchmore effective way than does Arthur, a way
thatconceives of Marxs theory of capital as a much morecoherent
dialectic, while, at the same time, presentinga potentially much
more powerful way of theorisingclass struggle.2
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168 Robert Albritton
3 Arthur 2002, p. 42.4 Arthur 2002, p. 8.5 Sohn-Rethel 1978.6
Lukcs 1971, Albritton 2003, Postone 2003.
Dialectics
At the most fundamental level, Arthur and I share a great deal
in our conceptu-alisation of dialectical reason and its immense
potential in presenting thestrongest possible theorisation of
capitals inner logic. He clearly and forcefullyargues that, through
the operation of its own logic, capital tends to bothexpand and
deepen the commodification of economic life. And, to the extentthat
commodification becomes complete, the quantitative side of
economiclife is asserted with increasing indifference to the
qualitative side.3 As quantitiesof value or price all commodities
are qualitatively the same, differing onlyquantitatively. And this
also applies to labour-power, which, in its deskilledforms, becomes
a homogeneous commodity input into the production process.To the
extent that social relations are expressed through the
commodity-formin capitalism, they can be conceptualised
quantitatively, and this quantitativethinking hugely facilitates
abstraction. It follows that, if capitals logic isallowed to
unfold, that unfolding will constitute a process in which
socialrelations self-abstract. Further, if that self-abstraction is
allowed to completeitself in thought, the result will be a thought
totality (self-expanding value)or a theory that reaches closure. To
summarise, capital, as self-expanding value,commodifies economic
life and this commodification is also a quantification,which, by
homogenising social relations, actually makes them more
abstractable,so that abstract thought is supported by
self-abstracting forces present withinsocial relations.
Appropriating a term from Sohn-Rethel, Arthur refers to the
ontological characteristics of capital that make its
self-abstracting realabstraction.4 For Sohn-Rethel, real
abstraction refers to the fact that exchangeprocesses make
qualitatively different things the same quantitatively
byabstracting from their differences.5
The self-abstracting tendencies of capital are closely related
to its self-reifying tendencies. Since the publication of Lukcss
brilliant but difficultessay Reification and the Consciousness of
the Proletariat, the understandingof exactly what reification is
has appeared daunting.6 No doubt, in its fullphilosophical
ramifications, it is a complex concept, but its most
fundamentalmeaning is simply the impersonal rule of the
commodity-form. That is, in sofar as all goods are capitalistically
produced as commodities for society-wide
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The Antinomies of Arthurs Dialectic of Capital 169
7 Arthur 2002, p. 8.8 Ibid. The extent to which this critique
can be encapsulated in a simple inversion
metaphor such that objects become subjects is a complicated
issue that I will not tryto address.
9 Bell 1995 and 2003, Sekine 1997 and 2003, Albritton 1999.10
For a discussion of totality, see Albritton 1999, pp. 235.11 See
Albritton 1999 for a fuller discussion of the sense in which
closure in this
context poses the necessity for more concrete levels of
analysis.12 See Marx 1976, pp. 24769.13 Arthur 2002, p. 99.14
Arthur 2002, p. 68.15 Arthur 2002, p. 117.
competitive markets, social life is governed by a
commodity-economic logic.In such a society, people only connect
through the commodity-form (and itsderivations: the money-form and
capital-form), and it is the summation ofthese connections in
markets that ultimately dictates economic outcomes.Arthur claims
that self-moving abstractions have the upper hand over
humanbeings,7 and this is very close to saying that self-regulating
markets (themotion of things) have the upper hand over human
beings. And I agree withArthur, when he claims that this
reification implies a critique of capitalism,a critique that arises
from surrendering to an economy where the only thingthat is valued
is profit.8
In the first instance, dialectical reason finds itself at home
with capital,because capital is self-abstracting and self-reifying
to an extent that stronglysupports the possibility of theorising an
inner logic of capital.9 Marx oftenuses the term inner as in
necessary inner connections or inner logic orinner relations. And
this is the language of totality, because inner impliessome sort of
boundedness or closure that can give sense to inner versusouter.10
Indeed, if we take Hegels formulation of dialectics seriously,
thendialectical reasoning always attempts to start from a necessary
beginning,and, to proceed through a necessary unfolding, to reach a
necessary closure.11
If we take Marxs fundamental formulation of capital, MCM (where
Mstands for money, C for commodity, and M is larger than M), this
totalitysubsumes the necessary inner connections between the basic
economiccategories, in so far as they must enter into
self-expanding value.12 Or, to usesome of Arthurs language, MCM
must become a subject,13 in the sensethat the basic conditions of
existence,14 required for its self-expansion mustbe theorised as an
inner structure with an inner logic that can reproduce andexpand
itself on its own (that is, commodity-economic) terms. Or, more
simply,in order for MCM to be an automatic subject,15 it must be
possible for
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170 Robert Albritton
16 Albritton 1999.17 Arthur 2002, p. 65.
MCM to internalise or subsume its necessary conditions of
existence. Onlythen does it become an automatic subject that can
stand on its own feet and expand itself from within itself without
relying on outside supports orextra-economic force.
To refer to capital as an automatic subject is problematic
unless the senseof subject in this usage is further explicated. The
actions of a particularindividual subject may be quite capricious
and unpredictable, but capital isa machine-like subject. It is
powered by individual subjects who learn or areforced to
subordinate their actions to paths indicated by the
quantitativeoutcomes of capitalist markets. Thus, capital is both
us and not us; in onesense, we are the prime movers and yet, in
another sense, our movementshave been caught up in a capitalist
machine which ultimately directs them.And, of course, in history we
may seek to resist or alter the machine, so thatcapital can only be
conceptualised as an automatic subject at a level ofabstraction
where we theorise commodification and reification as complete.In
this context of pure capitalism, complete reification does not mean
thatindividuals cannot act, but that those actions are always
trumped by the lawsof motion of capital which those actions
themselves set in motion. Indeed, itis only because of this that
the laws of motion of capital can be theorisedso clearly as a set
of necessary inner connections between the basic capitalisteconomic
categories.
A third important dimension of dialectical reason is the
sequencing ofcategories. A dialectic must start with a category
that can encompass thetotality being theorised, and, in the case of
the dialectic of capital, that categoryis the commodity.16 The
reason for this starting point is that immanent in the
commodity-form is the entire dialectic. From the commodity-form,
onecan generate the money-form and, from these two, one can
generate thecapital-form. The dialectic reaches closure when
capital itself in the form ofinterest-bearing capital is subsumed
to the commodity-form. As Arthur points out, it is only when we
reach the end that the logical sequencing isretrogressively
justified.17 It is from that standpoint that we see why thesequence
of categories proceeds from commodity, to money, to capital andwhy,
overall, the theory moves from a theory of circulation to a theory
ofproduction to a theory of distribution.
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The Antinomies of Arthurs Dialectic of Capital 171
18 For a fuller discussion of how Marx conceived the scope of
the law of value, seeAlbritton 2004b.
19 It is the source of the reductionism and dogmatism that has
produced suchdivisions between Marxism and many social movements or
even many anticapitalistmovements.
In order to maintain the inner coherence and clarity of the
theory of capitalsinner logic, it is crucial to be fully cognisant
of its scope. The theory can onlydeal with the necessary inner
connection amongst value categories in theabstract and in general.
For example, the theory can deal with absolute rent,which is
understood by Marx as a portion of surplus-value appropriated
bylandlords because the average organic composition of capital in
agricultureis lower than that of industry, but it cannot deal with
monopoly rent, becauseit is arbitrarily determined by the collusion
of landlords and their relativepower to rip off the capitalist
class. Similarly, the rate of interest is at thevery edge of the
law of value, because, while the movement of interest ratesis
constrained by the motion of value, it is finally determined by
competitionand power relations between industrial capital and
interest-bearing capital.Thus, the rate of interest is not,
strictly speaking, a value category, althoughthe movement of value
categories constrains the long run movements of therate of interest
such that it might be considered a borderline or
quasi-valuecategory.18
These examples (and many others could be given) indicate that
the scopeof the theory and its generality does not enable it to
deal directly with economicoutcomes determined by historically
specific power relations, as opposed tothe value relations of
capital in the abstract and in general. A consequenceof this is
that more concrete levels of analysis must be developed that
doattempt to theorise the ways in which value relations and power
relationsare articulated with one another. I want to suggest here
that the greatest problemwith Marxian political economy from the
beginning has been its failure to develop
the more concrete levels of analysis that are essential for the
strength of the theory,a failure that often stems from substituting
Marxs text for doing the originalwork at more concrete levels that
is required. An unfortunate spin-off of thisis to discredit the
theory, so that it becomes less attractive within the
socialsciences generally. This tendency to think that Marxs Capital
says it all orcould say it all, were a few silences given voice,
has been a disaster forMarxism in theory and practice.19 Indeed, I
shall argue later that, althoughCapital provides a crucial
foundation for developing Marxian political economy,we need to
develop relatively autonomous and more concrete levels of
analysis
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172 Robert Albritton
20 Albritton 1991. While I have focused on the issue of levels
more than others,many have begun to address this problem to some
extent. See, for example, bothregulation theory and my critique of
it (Albritton 1995); social structures of accumulationtheory;
critical realism; some critical theorists such as Jameson (1990)
and MoishePostone (1996) and my critique of him (Albritton 1999);
Max Weber and my critiqueof him (Albritton 1999); Althusser and my
critique of him (Albritton 1999).
that attempt to trace the ways in which capitals logic
articulates with allsorts of social practices that cannot be
theorised within the abstract rarefiedair of a general theory of
capital. Once such a problematic is clearly formulated,it also
becomes clear that it is necessary to deal with the
complicatedepistemological problems of theorising relatively
autonomous levels of analysisthat inform one another. In short,
such a political economy implies a hugeamount of work, work that,
in many respects, has barely begun.20
It is not surprising that Marxists have not been clear about the
scope ofthe law of value or capitals logic, since Marx himself was
unclear about this.Indeed, his tendency to mix in historical detail
with the general laws of motionof capital can easily lead those
with empiricist predispositions to treat thetheory as an empiricist
model to be directly applied to explaining modernhistory. But the
clear and precise structural location and dynamics of classesin
pure capitalism is never duplicated in history, such that any
unmediatedapplication of the logic of capital to history is bound
to produce the sort ofcrude class reductionism that has given
Marxism a bad name.
I believe that I can find support in Arthurs book for nearly
everythingthat I have written about dialectics so far, with the
possible exception of someof what I have written about scope and
levels of analysis in the previous twoparagraphs. On the one hand,
he might not agree precisely with all thelanguage that I have used,
but, in a general sense, I think we are not far apartin our
thinking. On the other hand, I could consider many possible
omissionsfrom Arthurs presentation of dialectics, but I only want
to mention one. Hewrites a great deal about how a dialectic of
capital might be formulated andhow it is consistent with Marxs
Capital, but has little to say about why weshould attempt to
theorise capital dialectically, as, say, opposed to
empiricist,phenomenological, structuralist, or poststructuralist
theorisations. Whatadvantages does a dialectical theory of capital
offer? While I consider this toolarge a question to deal with in
this paper, I would like to offer a few assertionsas food for
thought.
First, I would claim that, in so far as a social object of
knowledge is capableof being theorised dialectically, we should
pursue this, because it is the most
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The Antinomies of Arthurs Dialectic of Capital 173
21 See Kourkoulakos 2003 and Albritton 1999. It may be that, for
various reasons,capitals unique ontology makes it the only social
object with a deep structure thatcan be theorised as a dialectical
logic of necessary inner connections.
22 Albritton 2004a.23 Arthur 2002, p. 153.24 Arthur 2002, p.
158, italics in the original.25 Arthur 2002, p. 163.
powerful theory possible of a social object.21 Second, in the
case of capitalism,theorising the inner logic of capital is the
basis for a clear and precise under-standing of what capital is and
how it operates when it operates in accordwith its own norms, and
this, in turn, can help us to think more clearly aboutcapital
throughout the social sciences. Third, by having clear and precise
ideasabout the basic forms of capitalist commodities, money,
prices, wages, crises,expanded reproduction, unemployment, rent,
interest, profit, classes, and soon, we can be clearer about the
use of these categories where they are articulatedwith and
overdetermined by other categories in concrete historical
situations.Fourth, in thinking about alternatives to capitalism,
being clear about thenature of capital is crucial to separating
ourselves from it in ways that amelioratethe human condition, while
being responsive to humanitys diverse needsand aspirations.22
Fifth, the clearer we are about how capital operates economically,
the clearer we can be about thinking through alternative ways of
organising postcapitalist economic life. Sixth, the clearer we are
about what capital is, the better we can oppose all forms of
apologetic andprocapitalist indoctrination thereby developing
strong counter-hegemonicmodes of thought.
Value and use-value
According to Arthur, commodity exchange . . . abstracts from or
absents, theentire substance of use-value.23 Arthur is clearly
uncompromising in his claimthat use-value absents itself from
exchange when he states:
To sum up: exchange brings about a sui generic form without any
given
content, because all use-value is absented, not merely all
determinate utility
but the category itself.24
It follows that, in the theory of the circulation forms the
commodity-form,the money form, and the capital-form that
constitutes Parts I and II of CapitalVolume I, there can be no
dialectic between value and use-value. Instead, thedialectic is a
wavering of value between absence and presence.25 If Hegels
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174 Robert Albritton
26 I find wavering a most peculiar metaphor to use to describe a
dialectic, but itmay be strangely appropriate in the case of pure
forms without content that consequentlyare free to wander and waver
without any real supersession or Aufhebung.
27 Arthur 2002, p. 160.28 Arthur 2002, p. 159.29 Arthur 2002, p.
167.30 Arthur 2002, p. 172.
dialectic begins with a relation between Being and Nothing, the
equivalentfor Arthur, in Marxs Capital, is a wavering between the
presence of valueand the absence of value.26 Thus,
exchange and circulation set up an ideal world of pure forms,
empty of
content [such that] [v]alue will be shown to mark an empty
presence.27
And Arthur claims that
[s]ince money represents the emptiness of commodities as
value-bodies, it
need share no common property with them, and, indeed, need have
hardly
any natural body at all, an electronic charge will do.28
Though devoid of content, value has the power to drain our world
of reality,29
because capital accumulation is an infinite increase in
emptiness. . . . [As aresult] we exist for each other only as
capitals zombies.30
I consider this interpretation of Marxs theory of circulation to
be not onlyinconsistent with Marxs position, but also to be
inconsistent with a logicallyrigorous dialectic of capital. Value
has content in value-form theory and thatcontent is something
social and homogeneous. Where I agree with Arthur isthat, in a
rigorous dialectic, this content cannot be further specified as
abstractlabour until we address the commodification of labour-power
in the dialecticalmove from the circulation forms of capital to the
labour and productionprocess. Contrary to Arthur, and following the
work of Sekine, it is mycontention that the dialectic of capital is
a dialectic between value and use-value from the beginning. Arthur
inserts Hegels entire logic into Parts 1and 2 of Volume I of
Capital, and once he introduces use-value in Part 3 ofVolume I, the
dialectic is blown apart, leaving the lions share of Capital in
akind of epistemological limbo. Indeed, if value were really so
empty, its success in ruling over us for at least three centuries
becomes inexplicable. We would have to be really radically
zombified to let the accumulation ofemptiness rule over us for so
long a time. By totally excluding materialityfrom the theory of
circulation forms, the dialectic itself becomes seriouslyweakened,
since it is totally disconnected from material life. And this
weakness
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The Antinomies of Arthurs Dialectic of Capital 175
31 Hence Baudrillards critique of Capital on this is completely
beside the point. SeeAlbritton 1995, pp. 16280.
32 Marx 1978.
is fully demonstrated by its collapse once it meets up with the
materialitiesof the labour and production process. A dialectic must
move by overcomingsome kind of resistance, but there can be no
meaningful resistance whenvalue simply wavers between presence and
absence. In my view, exchangeproceeds from the point of view of the
seller (who eventually becomes thecapitalist) and the act of
exchange involves the negation of use-value on thepart of the
seller. I think this position makes the most dialectical sense in
the context of capitals logic.
From the beginning, Marx makes it clear that a commodity is the
unity ofvalue and use-value, and since the theory starts with the
commodity-form,the dialectic must be a continual overcoming of
use-value obstacles (that is,various materialities) by value. It is
only in this way that it can show howthe motion of value can
subsume materiality. At first, both value and use-value are
abstract and relatively empty, but, through the motion of the
dialectic,this emptiness is filled in with content. But it must be
understood that thiscontent never gets beyond the content of
capital in the abstract and in general(as opposed to any actually
existing capitalism in a particular time and place).The dialectic
of capitals inner logic cannot, for example, include
historicallyspecific commodities, such as a Mercedes Benz that may
have a status-relatedvalue in a particular time and place.
Initially, all we know about commoditiesis that, as value, they are
the economic social connector, connecting personspurely
quantitatively. We also know that every commodity has
particularqualitative material properties by virtue of which it is
wanted, and that,without this, it cannot be a commodity. At this
level of abstraction, however,it is not possible to specify
anything about what particular commodities areproduced, who wants
these commodities, how much they want them, andwho actually has the
where-with-all to purchase them. Issues such as symbolicstatus that
lie behind conspicuous consumption cannot be addressed at allin the
theory of capitals inner logic.31 In Volume II, where Marx
theorisesexpanded reproduction, he distinguishes four types of
commodities: productionversus consumption goods and subsistence
goods versus luxury goods.32 Thetheory of capitals inner logic
cannot include answers to questions that areconjunctural such as:
why are petroleum products valued so highly today asopposed to,
say, 1830? Or why did automobiles change from being exclusively
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176 Robert Albritton
33 See Albritton 2004b for quotations from Marxs Capital that
support these assertions.34 Marx 1981.35 Marx 1968, pp. 50713.
luxury goods to being both subsistence goods and status symbols
(in someparts of the world)?
Any use-value dimension of economic life that is historically
specific orcannot be managed commodity-economically is outside the
theory of capitalsinner logic (or the dialectic of capital).
Moreover, only capitalistically producedcommodities are included in
the theory. Historically specific state structures,state policies,
and state practices cannot be addressed. Also, historically
specificways in which either capital or labour organise to
intervene in markets cannotbe theorised at this level of
abstraction. Money must be theorised as acommodity to be managed
commodity-economically. Fiat or state-made moneyis outside the
theory because it depends on historically specific state
policies.Labour is assumed to be commodified, but we cannot specify
anything aboutwho does what kind of labour or how labour may
organise itself to resistcapital. Technology is simply fixed
capital, and, while Marx specifies generalproblems that capital has
in managing fixed capital, he cannot address theimpact of
particular kinds of technology on social relations. He outlines
thebasic features of the capitalist wage-form, but the theory
cannot addressspecific wage-forms in different times and places.
The theorisation of land isalso limited to the most basic forms of
rent that capital in general must paylandlords in general for the
use of monopoliseable natural resources, showinghow this
relationship must be established if the law of value is not to
bedisrupted. Finally, the historical specificity of financial
markets cannot beaddressed at this level of theory. Given the basic
features of capital, we cantheorise the prospects of such markets,
but their specificity depends uponstate policy and the organisation
of capital and of labour in particular timesand places.33
The theory of capitals inner logic can only address those
use-values thatmust be commodity-economically managed in any
capitalist society in orderfor MCM as self-expanding value to be
possible. No doubt, value as capitalwould like to expand itself
without dealing with use-value at all, as in theformula for
interest-bearing capital, MM.34 But, as Marx argues, this is
themost fetishised form of capital, in the sense that the M seems
to be totallydisconnected from the exploitation of labour, while
the theory of capitalsinner logic demonstrates that it is
not.35
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The Antinomies of Arthurs Dialectic of Capital 177
Use-value is present from the beginning to the end of the
dialectic of capital.Indeed, the dialectic can only work in so far
as the motion of value cansubsume use-value obstacles, such that
capitalist material life can, in principle,fall under MCM as
self-expanding value. Some use-values are easier tomanage than
others, and, by the end of the dialectic, capital, as value,
attemptsto achieve a general indifference to use-value so that it
can focus 100 per centof its attention on profit maximisation. In
the case of the commodity labour-power, achieving indifference is
difficult for three basic reasons: one, like land,labour-power is
not a capitalistically produced commodity; two, unlike
othercommodities, labour-power can resist commodification; and
three, all profitsstem from the exploitation of this commodity. The
commodification of labour-power is crucial to the entire theory
because it is this commodification thatexplains how labour-power
can be paid its value as a commodity while, atthe same time,
creating the surplus-value that profits come from. In short, itis
this particular commodification that is at the basis of class
exploitation.Much of the most important substance of the theory of
capitals inner logic has to do with the special requirements for
the commodity-economicmanagement of labour-power. Some of the
principal dimensions of thismanagement would include: subsistence
wages, the basic wage forms,mechanisation, an industrial reserve
army, and periodic crises. It is only withall these structures in
place that capital can achieve the total indifference
tolabour-power that its single-minded focus on profits
requires.
Marx not only includes use-value as the material content of the
commodityfrom the beginning, but also the contradiction between
value and use-valueis basic to the entire dialectic, including the
generation of the money-formout of the commodity-form. Exchanges
take place because the commodity isa (non use-value) potential
value to the seller and a potential use-value tothe buyer. In the
expression I will give you 20 yards of linen for one coat,the
use-value of the coat is the value reflector of the linen, such
that the value of the linen is already expressed in coat-money. Of
course, coat-moneywould be very inconvenient, but it just so
happens that gold has the idealuse-value characteristics (it does
not rust, is easily purified and divided, hasa homogeneous quality,
is worth a lot per weight and hence much value canbe easily
transported, is scarce but not too scarce, a luxury commodity,
andso on) required by the money commodity. Of course, silver might
also do,but the logic of capital requires a single universal
equivalent. The point isthat use-value plays a crucial role in the
generation of the money-form, and
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178 Robert Albritton
36 Arthur 2002, p. 159.
capitalist money, in the first instance, must be a particular
commodity thatis set aside to play the role of universal
equivalent. State-made fiat money,which is not part of the
dialectic of capital, must function as if it were acommodity or
face the possibility of such phenomena as hyper-inflation, inwhich
money essentially fails to operate as money. This also holds for
moneyas an electric charge.36 In short, in order for money to
function as capitalistmoney, it must function as though it had
commodity-like properties, even ifit is nothing but an electrical
charge.
That use-value also plays a similarly crucial role in the
generation of thecapital-form becomes apparent when we compare
Marxs formulas CMCand MCM. With CMC, we exchange a use-value that
we do not wantfor a different one that we do. There is no need for
CMC to repeat itself,since the process of exchange ends with the
satisfaction of a use-value want.Clearly, with CMC, value expansion
is constrained by use-value, and, hence,cannot have the
self-expanding dynamism required by capital. It is only theformula
MCM, in which both Ms are the same thing (quality) and differonly
quantitatively, that the exchange motivation becomes unlimited. If
theonly reason for the exchange is that the second M is more than
the first, thenthe pursuit of profit becomes unlimited, so that
value is freed up from use-value constraints and can become capital
that is indifferent to use-value.
The point is that, right from the beginning, the dialectic of
capital is adialectic between value and use-value and not between
value as presenceand value as absence. Indeed, the key move in the
entire dialectic is thesubsumption of the labour-and-production
process to MCM, because it isonly then that the profit embodied in
the second M becomes explicable.Labour-power is the only commodity
that, when employed productively, canproduce more value than it
costs. Thus, MCM has to be expanded toMC . . . P . . . CM, where
the first C includes both means of productionthat pass their value
on to the product of the production process, P, andlabour-power
that makes C larger by producing more value than it costswhen used
productively in the production process, P. Thus, the movementof the
logic of transition (as in Hegels theory of Being) that connects
theseparate value-forms in their immediacy in the theory of
circulation, mustbe followed in Part 3 of Capital Volume I by a
logic of reflection (as in Hegelstheory of Essence) that
dialectically unfolds capitals primary other (labour)
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The Antinomies of Arthurs Dialectic of Capital 179
37 Hegel 1991.38 Arthur 2002, p. 8.39 Ibid.40 Arthur 2002, p.
57.41 Arthur 2002, p. 58.
as the fundamental relation internal to capital (as an
internalised other).37
And it is here that Arthur begins to sabotage the theory of
value, by introducingthe category class struggle, a category which
belongs to more concrete levelsof analysis. The absence of
use-value in his rendition of the theory of circulationmakes things
too easy for value, and, now, suddenly, in the theory of
productionrelations, use-value is introduced with such a vengeance
that the law of valuecollapses.
Class struggle
Because of the way Arthur inserts class struggle into the
dialectic of capital,it becomes impossible to theorise capitals
inner logic as a whole dialectically,and the relations between the
dialectically theorised circulation forms andthe remainder of the
theory of capital becomes indeterminate. Indeed, itbecomes
impossible to determine the extent to which the outcomes of thelaws
of motion of capital are determined by the law of value as opposed
toclass struggle. At times, it seems as if the self-moving
abstractions have theupper hand over human beings,38 and that the
production process invertssubject and object to the extent that
it is doubtful whether the workers may be said to be producers
at all, but
rather they are reduced to servants [elsewhere zombies] of a
production
process originated and directed by capital.39
But, then, Arthur turns around and claims that class struggle is
ontologicallyconstitutive of capitalism,40 and that [v]alue . . .
is the outcome of class struggleat the point of production.41 Is
Marxs Capital a theory of capital, as the titleof this great
three-volume work suggests, or is it a theory of class struggle,in
which capital and labour as opposed subjects mutually determine
theoutcomes? Arthur seems to want it both ways simultaneously.
Sometimes,workers are subsumed to the motion of value in the
abstract and in generaland, at other times, value itself is
determined conjuncturally by class struggleat the point of
production. If the emphasis is placed on the latter, then atheory
of the laws of motion of capital in the abstract and in general
is
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180 Robert Albritton
impossible, since value would always be a purely conjunctural
phenomenon.Furthermore, the class struggle approach opens the
possibility that the powerof labour and capital being equal, they
would equally share in the laws ofmotion of capital. Indeed,
labours share of any particular outcome couldonly be determined in
retrospect by weighing the relative power of capitaland labour. We
could end up with the embarrassment of a happy family of capital
and labour sharing in the outcomes of the operation of the law of
value.
Because class struggle plays a central role in historical
materialism, it isnatural for Marxists to also want it to play a
central role in the theory ofcapitals inner logic. While this
impulse is very understandable, it must beresisted. Before we can
effectively theorise class struggle, we must have atheory of
precisely what a class is as a subject position within capitals
innerlogic. The way we can arrive at the clearest possible
conceptions of class isto theorise the structural locations and
structural dynamics of classes in adialectical theory of capital.
This clarity can then be used to analyse actualclass struggles in
contexts where class forces interact with a whole array ofother
social forces. And, in this way, there is at least the possibility
of notfalling into class reductionism, since we can be clearer
about the actualeffectivity of class struggle in various historical
contexts.
The rhetorical and, rather too often, unthinking embracing of
class struggleis one of the greatest sources of confusion, error,
and good old-fashioneddogmatism in contemporary Marxist theory. As
I have implied, it is a reflexaction that is understandable, but
the way it plays out in Arthurs case is thatthe primacy of the law
of value and the primacy of class struggle is neverreconciled. And,
I have to add that the loose rhetorical way in which classstruggle
is tossed around in some Marxist circles is deeply problematic,
sinceit tends to cheapen the concept and drain away its cognitive
possibilities. Bysubstituting dogmatism for openness,
class-struggle reductionists actuallyclose off the possibilities
for a more complex, de-centred, and accurateunderstanding of class
struggle, an understanding that would more easilyinvite dialogue
with anticapitalist movements that have strong interests thatcannot
simply be reduced to class interests.
I believe that the apparent antinomy in Arthurs case arises from
notdevoting enough attention to the problem of levels of analysis,
or, in his ownlanguage, the distinction between systematic
dialectics and historicaldialectics. For example, Arthur claims
that [c]apital can produce value only
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The Antinomies of Arthurs Dialectic of Capital 181
42 Arthur 2002, p. 54.43 Ibid.
through winning the class struggle at the point of production.42
He then goeson to approvingly quote Michael Lebowitz to the effect
that, in order to realiseits goal of valorisation, capital must
defeat workers.43 What exactly does thismean? It is a truism that,
at the level of history, were workers to defeat capital,capitalist
valorisation could not exist. It is also the case that, at that
level,capital must at least get some workers to go along with
capitalist production,however reluctantly and grudgingly. It is not
clear, however, that capital mustdefeat workers, or even what that
would mean. Must they be totally crushed,converted into the walking
dead (zombies), or turned into masochists at thebeck and call of
capital?
At the level of abstract theory, however much workers may hate
capital,we assume that the imperatives of self-preservation force
them to work forcapital on capitals terms. The predominance of the
commodity-form atomisesthe working class, to the extent that
workers compete with each other forjobs and enter into contracts
with capitalists as individuals. When the industrialreserve army
shrinks to almost nothing at the crest of prosperity, the demandfor
workers enables them to push wages above the value of
labour-power,just as the huge expansion of the industrial reserve
army in the trough of adepression forces wages below the value of
labour-power. But this raisingand lowering of wages is not the
result of class struggle. Individual workersare able to get higher
wages in prosperity phases because they are in shortsupply, but
this ability of individual workers to get higher wages because
oflabour shortages cannot be accurately described as class
struggle. Whatcannot be theorised at this level of abstraction is
combinations of workers orof capitalists, because this is always
historically specific. Indeed, the basicreason that class struggle
cannot be theorised at this level is that classes canonly be
conceived of as sets of subject positions and subject interests, or
assubjects propelled in certain directions by commodity-economic
logics. Alleconomic subjects are conceived as atomised individuals,
and, hence, actingin concert as a class is impossible. The working
class is simply all thoseindividuals who must sell their
labour-power for a wage in order to survive.
Since, in a purely capitalist society, all production is
production of capitalistcommodities, every individual is located in
one of three class locations: capital,labour, or landlord. What is
important to emphasise here is that, before wecan think clearly
about class struggle, we need a clear theorisation of the
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182 Robert Albritton
44 Arthur 2002, p. 53.
most fundamental dynamics of capitalist classes, as those
dynamics arerevealed by the necessary inner connections within
capitals inner logic.
Abstract theory brings out the structurally based antagonism
betweencapital and labour, but it cannot go beyond this to theorise
historically specificforms of class struggle. It cannot take a
position on the degree to whichworkers are organised/disorganised,
optimistic/demoralised, ideologicallyhegemonised/ideologically
counter-hegemonic, constrained by statelegislation/enabled by state
legislation, or internationally potent/weak. Atthe level of
abstract theory, workers relate to capital as free
individuals,pursuing their preservation needs in a strictly
capitalist context. In a sense,they always have the potential to be
subjects with agency, and, at the levelof history, they are always
likely to struggle against capital to some extent,because capital
can only expand itself in the long run by exploiting workers.In
short, the theory of capitals inner logic theorises the basic
structuraldynamics that will generate class struggle at more
concrete levels of analysis,but actual class struggle cannot be
effectively theorised at such an abstract level.
We know that subsistence, for Marx, is theoretically given in
Capital, andthat class struggle (which can only be fully theorised
at the level of historicalanalysis) is likely to play an important
role in determining its level; however,unless class struggle is
expanded to include almost everything (and itsometimes is), there
may be other important determinants of subsistence.Any of the
following determinates may be relatively autonomous (howautonomous
to be determined by studying each case) from class struggle andmay
be partial determinates of subsistence: state policy, relatively
free accessto land, windfall profits (for example, from oil), and
status considerationsdue to gender, race, caste.
What does Arthur mean when he claims that the wage is set
through classstruggle?44 In Marxs theory of capitals inner logic,
the wage is the result ofan historically established subsistence
which may result from many factors,and the wage may further vary
with skill, with the state of the labour market(supply and demand),
and the phase of the business cycle (that is, periodiccrisis).
According to Marx, the law of value operating through
competitioninsures that wages and working conditions for unskilled
workers continuallytend to be equalised across all industries.
Class struggle, strictly speaking, isoutside the theory, since,
while it may play a big role in establishing the level
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The Antinomies of Arthurs Dialectic of Capital 183
45 Arthur 2002, p. 53.46 Hegel 1991.
of subsistence and the length of the working day in history,
research into itsspecific role in different times and places must
be carried out at more concretelevels of analysis. In other words,
the aim of the theory of capitals inner logicis to show the
importance of variations in subsistence and in the length ofthe
working day and to demonstrate how these vary with variations in
otherbasic economic categories, and not to do the historical
research to determinehow a working day of a certain length was
arrived at (for example, constrainedby inadequate light before
gas-lighting) or how a level of subsistence wasarrived at (for
example, in modern Saudi Arabia). Were this historical researchto
be carried out, it is likely that we would find that various forms
of classstruggle have often played a crucial role in determining
these variables. Butthe various forms is crucial, because of the
complex ways class needs to bethought as it articulates with
gender, race, and other social factors and thecomplexity in the
meaning of class itself when it is thought concretely interms of
international/regional dimensions, fractions, strata, and
contradictorylocations.
Arthur also points out that the contract of employment cannot
guaranteein advance how much work a particular capitalist can get
out of his workers,and that this depends on class struggle at the
point of production.45 At thelevel of history, this is no doubt
true, but, in the abstract theory of competitivecapitalism, these
things are determined by competition. Workers who do notdeliver the
expected level of work are simply fired, and, if such a workerwants
to survive, she will need to conform. Without these assumptions,
itwould not be possible to theorise capitals inner logic at all,
and then we couldnever achieve the clarity on what capital is that
is so necessary if we are todistance ourselves from and eventually
transform it.
Is class struggle ontologically constitutive of capitalism? What
does Arthurmean by ontologically constitutive? If he means the
historical-materialistclaim that capitalism could never have come
into being in history withoutclass struggle, then I agree. If he
means that, in the theory of a purely capitalistsociety, the
capital/labour relation lies at the center of the dialectical
theoryof capitals essence (in Hegels sense of Being, Essence, and
Notion46), then Ialso agree. If he means that predominant types of
class relations and classstruggle ought to play an important role
in periodising the history of capitalismin accord with dominant
stage-specific types of capital accumulation, then I
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184 Robert Albritton
47 Arthur 2002, p. 83.48 Colletti 1975.49 Arthur 2002, p. 88.50
Colletti 1975.
also agree. If he means that a powerful counter-hegemonic
working class,may, in certain historical contexts, redistribute
value in its favour and evenput an end to capitalism, then I also
agree. The problem I have is his failureto adequately differentiate
between a historically developmental and variablecapitalism and the
theory of capital. Capital can only be a self-expanding subjectto
the extent that it achieves a level of reification that connects
workers onlythrough the labour market and through being appendages
of machine-basedfactory production. It is only then that the law of
value can show itself forwhat it is without outside interference.
And we can never know in advanceof historical research anything
about the efficacy of capitals logic in particularhistorical
contexts. We can never know without historical research, for
example,what specific ways workers have organised themselves to
force compromisesupon capital in particular times and places.
Arthur suggests that labour is asecond subject in the dialectic of
capital, but how can a zombie be a subject?Indeed, Arthur never
explains how a dialectic can have two subjects (becauseit cannot),
except to suggest that labour is a kind of quasi-subject
totallyencompassed within the larger subject, but still capable of
resisting. But howmuch resistance and how does this alter value
theory? Capital, then, becomesa (relatively) self-subsistent
whole.47 How are we to understand thisrelatively? It is
self-subsistent, except when it is opposed by labour (all
thetime?)? How can labour be internal to capital in a dialectical
sense and yetbe outside it enough to constitute a real opposition
(nb: a real opposition isnot the same thing as a dialectical
contradiction48)? For Arthur, the form ofcapital will turn out to
be the overriding moment in the system,49 while, atthe same time,
class struggle appears to be ontologically primary. Capitalcannot
be self-expanding value, because labourers may resist. But, then,
whatis capital? Is it value that would be self-expanding but for
its continualdisruption by labour? Clearly, what are needed here
are levels of analysiswhere capital can be self-subsistent at one
level and not so at more concretelevels. To try to combine these at
a single level of abstraction totally destroysdialectical
contradiction in favour of the real opposition between two
subjects.50
The dialectic of capital can tell us how capital would like the
proletariat tobe for it (for capital, the proletariat should be a
passive commodity input), but
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The Antinomies of Arthurs Dialectic of Capital 185
it cannot tell us what the proletariat might like were it not
constrained bycapitalist imperatives of survival. And it is not
enough in the current historicalcontext to say that the proletariat
would like to overcome all the ways inwhich it is objectified in
order to become a pure self-determining subject (thusending the
inversions of capitalism). We need to recognise not only theimmense
variety of wants and needs that will be expressed in any
internationalanticapitalist movement, but also forms of healthy
interdependency that willconstrain self-determination in even the
most democratic of socialisms.
Conclusions
I strongly agree with Arthurs attempt to theorise a dialectic of
capital andwith at least some of his understanding of what
dialectical reasoning is allabout. I believe, however, that it is
deeply problematic to limit the dialecticto value-form theory in
the first two parts of Capital, Volume I. I see furtherproblems
with his exclusion of use-value from this dialectic, only to have
itreturn to destroy the dialectic in Part 3 of Volume I, leaving
the lions shareof Capital outside the dialectic all together. It
may be that these particularproblems stem from the irreconcilable
antagonism in his theory that arisesfrom claiming primacy for the
law of value and, at the same time, primacyfor class struggle at
the point of production.
Just because class struggle, in Marxs view, plays the key role
in explainingthe largest structural changes in history, it does not
follow that it need playthe key role in the dialectic of capital. I
have tried to show that, if theabstractions of the dialectic of
capital are real abstractions and, if we allowthe self-abstracting
character of capital to complete itself, the result is a
self-subsistent reified totality. It is this theory that can most
effectively inform anytheory of class struggle, and, precisely by
excluding class struggle from thedialectic, we achieve the clearest
possible conceptualisation of class. Thedialectic of capital
clearly and precisely theorises the fundamental structuraldynamics
between capital and labour, between capital and landlords,
andbetween various fractions of capital. Capital and labour are the
only twoprimary classes and their relationship is one of capitalist
accumulation throughthe exploitation of labour. Any effort to
theorise class struggle within thistheory is a serious mistake for
the following reasons: one, it will underminethe clarity of the
theory of what capital is in its innermost logic (that is,undermine
the law of value); two, it will reify class struggle (thereby
producing
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186 Robert Albritton
reductionism) by theorising it at a level of abstraction where
all the mainvariables are highly reified social relations; three,
it will weaken our abilityto theorise class struggle (by reifying
the concept class struggle) at moreconcrete levels where this sort
of theorisation is crucial; four, it will cloud ourthinking about
what belongs to capital and what belongs to us, by seeing
theoutcomes of capitals laws of motion as a result of capital and
labour mixingit up; five, it will cloud clear thinking about
alternatives to capitalism. Itfollows that, by excluding class
struggle from the theory of capitals innerlogic, we can produce a
stronger theory of class struggle within Marxianpolitical economy
as a whole. And, in my view, Marxian political economyneeds at
least three levels of analysis, where the theory of capitals inner
logicneeds to be supplemented by extensive work at more concrete
levels.
Briefly, I would advocate that such a political economy might
theorise thestructural relation of exploitation between capital and
labour at the highestlevel of abstraction. At the level of
mid-range theory, the types of class strugglemost characteristic of
the dominant modes of capital accumulation in variousphases of
capitalist development can be theorised. Thus, I would argue
thatthe most typical capitalist industry during the phase of
imperialism, whichreached its golden age in the United States and
Germany between 1890 and1914, is steel production, and that, if we
compare the steel industries in thesetwo countries, we find
interesting similarities and differences in the formsthat class
struggle took. In carrying out this example further, at the level
ofhistorical analysis, we would need to consider such factors as
the impact ofrelatively cheap land on wage levels in the US, or the
immigrant characterof the work force in the US, the types of
organisation of the two workingclasses, how imperialism influenced
class struggle in the two countries, howrace, gender and other
sorts of status differentials influenced class struggle,the impact
of this type of capital accumulation on family life, on political
lifeand on ideological formations, as well as their impact on
capital accumulation.We would need to consider the strengths and
weaknesses of various effortsto organise workers (or of
self-organisation) and to consider the impact ofracism and sexism
on these efforts. We would need to compare the role ofbanks in
centralising capital in Germany, as opposed to stock markets in
theUS. We would need to examine the implementation of Taylorism in
the twocountries. And these are only some of the major dimensions
that would needto be considered. Since historical analysis, above
all, attempts to explain orat least elucidate change, we would need
to explain why the forces unleashed
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The Antinomies of Arthurs Dialectic of Capital 187
by these modes of capital accumulation could strongly contribute
to anhistorical outcome like World War I. And this is only a
start.
The anticapitalist movement needs to be international, and it
needs to berelatively unified, but that requires relating to the
specificity of diverse concernsof people who labour within
different socio-economic and cultural locationsregarding such
issues as ecology, exploitation, health, oppression,
democracy,rights, housing, food, and violence.
Similarly, the movement towards socialism is not a matter of
simply invertingvalue and use-value, but of integrating them. A
central problem with capitalismis the tendency to value only profit
and to therefore be indifferent to all otherhuman values. So, for
example, from the point of view of capital, we canonly save the
environment to the extent that it is profitable to do so. Thismust
change, but that does not mean doing away with the
quantitativethinking that would indicate our success in pursuing
other goals than profit.Instead, it means taking our overdeveloped
and over-formalised quantitativethinking and finding ways to better
integrate it with qualitative thinking.
In order to get capital out of our systems, we need to be clear
about whatit is, and, on the basis of this, devise ways of
economically meeting our needsthat encourages the best that is
within us, is between us, and is around usto move out of the muck
of capitalism towards more democratic, free, just,ethical, caring
and egalitarian modes of life as understood and advanced bya
massive and diverse international anticapitalist movement.
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