Dupre - Idealism and Materialism in Marx's Dialectic

Idealism and Materialism in Marx's Dialectic
Author(s): Louis Dupr

Source: The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 30, No. 4 (Jun., 1977), pp. 649-685
Published by: Philosophy Education Society Inc.
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AND MATERIALISMINMARX'S DIALECTIC

IDEALISM
LOUIS DUPR?
I
11
o aspect
of Marx's
has
theory
more
received
in recent
attention
decades than the dialectical method.

Yet, Western
interpreters
in
have mainly restricted the discussion to those early writings
which Marx explicitly confronts Hegel's philosophy, while socialist
commentators
to subject
often hesitate
mature
Marx's
to funda
writings
In the present contribution I propose to raise a

mental questioning.
number of questions concerning the dialectical method as used
in Marx's later works and as interpreted in those of his principal
I realize that there may be a substantial difference
followers.
between
the
two,
since
yet
the
latter,
correctly
or
incorrectly,
demands further justification,

explicate a text which frequently
must
be
consulted.
they
My purpose with this task is hermeneutical
rather than critical. I feel that, despite the existing bulk of Marxist
literature, we still have not read Marx attentively enough to be
ready for a decisive critique of his work. My own critical remarks
to do no more
pretend
ing within
without
inantly
tions,
its total context.
which
there
to German
Up
than
to allow
the
to reveal
its own mean
They are part of that internal criticism
can be no
true
Ideology,
Marx's
anthropological.
as in the Manuscripts
text
Even
hermeneutic.
when
of
1844,
dialectic
he
had been predom
discussed
he
did
so
economic
from
an
ques
anthro
pological angle. In the writings immediately preceding Capital the

anthropological model ceases to determine the critique of economy
The
altogether.
dialectic
now
follows
an
intrinsically
economic
pat
tern.
Its contradictions result from internal conflicts within the
economic process, not from its opposition to any preconceived ideal
"nature"
of man.
This is not to say that Marx's philosophical concerns vanished

when Marx started writing his definitive critique of classical economy.
Capital is a "philosophical" text as well as a critique of economic
theory, though the latter is far more in evidence than the former.
The
rediscovery
of the preparatory
notes
for Capital,
the Grundrisse,

LOUIS DUPR?
650
clearly indicates the continuing role of philosophy in Marx's work.

Yet the Grundrisse
integrates a dialectical philosophy with an eco
nomic theory, which in the early writings had remained largely juxta
(1846) Marx had adumbrated
posed.1 In The Poverty of Philosophy
his own concept of the dialectical development of economic categories
while
nomic
Proudhon's.
attacking
contradiction
deserves
negation had consisted

economic
Marx
tions
conditions
envisions
of economic
economic
differs
Proudhon
Absolute
from Proudhon's
which
of
economic
cate
economic
eternal
laws,
principles,
in the
Spirit reappears
out as "general
of "humanity,"
decked
sarcasm
on
In heaping
Marx
Proudhon,
form
genius."2
a dialectic
Instead of studying
from
in "immutable
Even Hegel's
now,
contradic
Such
dialectic
development.
relations
But
its own
substantially
the
social
prevailing
relations.
separates
their historical
production
Proudhon
deals
ideal categories."
secular
in new
dialectical
model.
anthropological
as producing
process
historical
derive,
gories
Previously,
ideal,
development
categories from
the actual,
an
them
theory.
"Hegelian"
and
of eco
notion
the
in the opposition between
the economic
and surpassing
the emerging
Especially,
attention.
reason"
is really
or "social
settling
accounts with his own past, though he had formulated his abstract
in anthropological
universals
rather
than
economic
terms.
But only in the Grundrisse3 does Marx fully integrate the

dialectical method within his economic studies. Marx explicitly
warns against any simplistically Hegelian interpretation of economic
categories,
universal
that
to the
moves,
in Proudhon's
complex
concrete.4
manner,
Even
basic,
from
universal
the
abstract
categories
1
David
His Life and Thought

Karl Marx:
(New York:
McLellan,
1973), p. 296.
The Poverty
(Moscow: Foreign
of Philosophy
Languages
Publishing
s.d.) p. 112.
House,
3
der politischen
der Kritik
Oekonomie
Grundrisse
(Berlin: Dietz,
trans, by David McLellan
(New York: Harper
1953); The Grundrisse,
is only a partial
translation
and Row,
one, yet I have
1971). McLellan's
com
the enormously
it renders
because
it wherever
followed
possible
more
Martin
readable
than
notes
Marx's
somewhat
of
private
plex style
I refer
to the
Pelican
literal one (Baltimore:
Nicolaus'
1973).
Books,
edition
and to the German
former as "McL," to the latter as "Nicolaus,"
Harper, 2
as
"Gr."
4
as
the real (das Reale)
"Hegel fell into the error of considering
the result of self-coordinating,
self-absorbed,and
operating
spontaneously
to the concrete
from the abstract
the method
of advancing
thought, while
is but the way of thinking (dieArt f?r das Denken) by which the concrete
is grasped
and
is reproduced
in our mind
as concrete"
(Gr. 22, McL

35).
MARX'S DIALECTIC 651

such as production,
and agriculture
labor,
can never
be considered
sepa
rately: they are codetermined by a number of other factors and can be

fully understood only within the complex economic setting of the existing
relations.
production
Man
(Gr. 6, McL,
beginning
is social,
or
tion"
at a certain
production
therefore
from
complex,
the
of terms such as "produc
on
social
structures
and
specific
the
social-economic
process.
we
in
of production,
have
always
"population"
depends
with
the
changes
development
we
"Whenever
therefore
speak
mind
and
17). The meaning

of
stage
of social
a produc
development,
tion by social individuals" (Gr. 6, McL, 18). Moreover,

it is from
the beginning determined by distribution, exchange, and consumption.
All the stages
of production
have certain destinations
in common,
in thought; but the so-called general
which we generalize
conditions
are nothing but abstract conceptions which do not go
of all production
to make up any real stage in the history of production
(Gr. 10, McL,
21-22).
The
term
"production,"
social-economic
The
same
of "population."
can be used
in an analogous
only
of comparing similar (but never
for purposes
the
then,
way
identical) functions
in
process.
to the
adheres
ambiguity
It remains
economically
seemingly
univocal
concept
until
specified
meaningless
into the concrete classes of which it consists, and the composition of

these classes is determined by such varying historical factors as divi
sion
of labor,
wage
labor,
money,
greater
complexities.
of creating
wealth
at a certain
of production,
and,
etc.
(Gr. 21, McL,
in its universal
For
modes
in general
without
stage,
capital,
even
presents
that is, as a means
Labor
34).
form,
being
to any
specified
par
ticular form, it appears only at the end of a long, historical process

in the
of advanced
industrial
societies.
economy
Unlike
Proudhon's
uni versais,
abstract
Marx's
concrete
uni
versal emerge at the end of the dialectic. Yet Marx's method is

more fundamentally Hegelian insofar as he intrinsically connects the
various
of the economic
aspects
overcomes
the classical
separation
process
with
of its stages.
one
another
Production
and
already
contains consumption, and distribution itself is a form of producing

This interrelatedness of all economic cate
(Gr. 11, McL, 23-24).5
5
Nor
change be
of production,
interconnection
and ex
distribution,
a
as
in
if
formalists
interpreted
"Hegelian" way,
production
the products
of nature while distribution
deter
universally
appropriated
mined which particular
to partake of those products
and con
group were
constituted
the individual
(Gr. 11, McL, 22).
sumption
enjoyment
should
this

LOUIS DUPR?
652
marks
gories
a clear
in economic
innovation
made
thinking
under
In his review of Marx's

impact of Hegel's philosophy.
the difference:
Political
describes
Economy, Engels
of
the direct
Critique
Political
economy begins with commodities,
begins from the moment
for one another?whether
when products are exchanged
by individuals
a product becomes
a com
or by primitive
In exchange
communities.
a
a
two
relation
between
because
however,
commodity
solely
modity,
the relation
to the thing, the product,
attaches
persons or communities
and consumer who are here no longer united in the
between
producer
same
Marx
uses
term
must
person.6
no "simple"
anew
ever
concepts,
only conceptualized
in accordance
be defined
relations.
Each
the
complex
with
web of relations in which it appears.7

Though the point is of primary importance, we must postpone
further discussion of it until we have acquainted ourselves with the
most general principles which Marx borrowed from Hegel's dialectic:
the
developing
character
of reality
and
the
dynamic
nature
of con
tradiction. The internal relatedness of the categories can be fairly

evaluated only in the light of those two more comprehensive prin
ciples which entail it. We find them most clearly articulated in
Capital.
II
The
of a permanent,
assumption
discussion
of economic
Marx's
guishes
cal economists.8
To Marx
the
capitalist
internal
concepts
system
distin
development
from that of the classi
is not
the necessary
on August
in Das Volk
Review
20, 1859.
published
anonymously
Pub
Selected Works
Karl Marx-Friedrich
(Moscow: International
Engels,
lishers, 1962), Vol. I, p. 374.
7
the central theme of
this interrelatedness
Bertell Oilman has made
in Capitalist
Marx's
his study Alienation:
(New
ofMan
Society
Conception
York: Cambridge
1971).
Press,
University
8
a dynamic
is a principle which
is essentially
That reality
process,
In the Manuscripts
o?
at an early age.
from Hegel
Marx had adopted
"The outstanding
1844 appears
the oft-quoted
passage:
thing in Hegel's
of negativity
and its final outcome?that
is, the dialectic
Phenomenology
as the moving
and generating
thus
first
that
conceives
Hegel
principle?is
the self-genesis
of man as a process
..."
and Philosophic
(Economic
International
[Moscow:
of 18Jib, trans, by Martin Milligan
Manuscripts
This
considers
of course,
text,
1959], p. 151).
Publishers,
only man
as a process
But Marx regarded,
and ever more
so, man as the
being.
of all reality.
principle
moving

653
MARX'S DIALECTIC
of common
product
sense
and Western
but
inventiveness,
the
out
come of specific historical factors, subject to historical metamorphoses

and constantly passing through distinct but interconnected cycles of
and
sales,
circulation,
production,
a pre
It negates
reinvestment.
vious system of production and will, in time, be supplanted by a

new system that synthesizes the two preceding ones. Most of Capital
I and all of the preparatory Theories of Surplus Values
(post
as
deal
the
Karl
with
TV)
Capital
Kautsky
humously published by
and
historical,
intrinsically
therefore
of economic
character
relative,
III, Marx defines capital as "a definite social

concepts.
production relation, belonging to a definite historical formation of
society" (Capital III, 814),9 and he describes capitalist production
In Capital
as
"by no means
an absolute
form
for
the
ductive forces and for the creation of wealth"

Nowhere
than
dent
is the
in Marx's
pro
(Capital III, 263-264).
relative
of economic
quality
discussion
o? value.
Even
concepts
this most
cept intrinsically depends on a particular, historical

duction. The utility of a product becomes a value
system of social exchange which allows it to detach
and to adopt an economic significance independent
nature
of the
development
more
evi
basic
con
mode
of pro
a
within
only
itself from use
of the specific
of the product.
that these things now tell us is that human labor power has been
in them.
in their production,
that human labor is embodied
expended
common to them
When
looked at as crystals of this social substance,
all, they are?values
I, 38).
(Capital
All
Though such a claim may hardly seem to go beyond the fundamental

principles
innovation.
ticular
category
The
of classical
economy,
For Marx
mode
only
same
it constitutes,
value
itself
presents
of production.
Value
within
the capitalist
which
system
tions of undifferentiated
value-producing
activity
reduces
a revolutionary
as resulting
a par
from
in fact,
is the most
universal
economic
system.
all products
to "mere
congela
human labor" (Capital I, 67), renders the

into an abstract, strictly capitalist mode of
to Marx,
The term "labor," according
producing.
applies
a
to the specific
of
productive
activity
value-and-exchange
9
AU references
national Publishers,
Moore
and Edward
economic
exclusively
system
are to the editions published

from Capital
by Inter
1967.
The first volume was
translated
by Samuel
The
of the last two are
translations
Aveling.
anonymous.

LOUIS DUPR?
654
that is at least relatively independent of use. Indeed, it is precisely

labor which allows the production of use value to be converted
into one
of exchange
From
value.
this
its peculiar
arises
ambiguity.
as
to be understood
is on the one hand positively,
qualitatively
in the final analysis
of use values
pure anthro
production
(goods),
the 'substance'
of
pological
praxis; on the other hand it is negatively
what
is not useful,
of exchange
the substance
of
value,
quantitative
labor time.10
Labor
At an advanced stage of this process,

the exchange
process,
labor itself, the foundation of
an exchange
becomes
a commodity
value,
that
can be bought and sold.

Owing
to its abstract
ties of an arbitrarily
is the
concrete
can be measured
value
nature,
valued metal.
chosen and arbitrarily

of abstract
expression
in quanti
value.
Money
it comes
With
price,
"the money name of the labor realized in a commodity" (Capital I,

101), which allows any commodity to be exchanged for any other
However,
commodity.
is itself a commodity
economy
capitalist
since
this
of value as such
expression
a value
in a
of its own, money
a mere means
of exchange.
Its
concrete
and
possesses
is far more
than
principal function consists not in the acquisition of goods, but in the

of capital.
expansion
Most
importantly,
connections
with
Its real
is selling
rather
the
abstract
represents
price
than
buying.
to sever all direct
it allows the economic process

use;
through abstract
purpose
value
labor. All that counts is the process
produced
of value.
In the circulation m(oney)?c(ommodity)?m(oney)

both the money
and the commodity
of
of existence
represent
only different modes
value itself, the money
its general mode,
and the commodity
its par
ticular or, so to say, disguised mode.
It is constantly
changing from
one form to the other without
thus assumes
and
lost,
thereby becoming
an automatically
active character
I, 153).
(Capital
Value,
the
real
becomes
agent,
in process
value
tion of capital.
Capital depends on the presence
Though
classical
economists
were
emerge.
Thus
Ricardo,
who
aware
of that
fact, Marx
that those conditions
knew
the
circula
of specific historical conditions.
well
cizes them for simply assuming
through
the
concept
of
criti
"naturally"
surplus
value,
never concerned himself with the conditions of its origin. "He treats
it as a thing inherent in the capitalist mode of production, which mode,
10
Klaus Hartmann,
268.
p.
1970),
Die Marxsche
Theorie
(Berlin: Walter

de Gruyter,
MARX'S DIALECTIC
655
in his eyes, is the natural form of social production" (Capital I,

515). According to Marx, the very existence of those conditions
must be investigated.
They may have been historically inevitable
but
were
by
no means
"natural"
or
necessary,
intrinsically
since
they resulted from a specific mode of producing, not from production

as such. Capital is but the final outcome of a long line of historical
all its preceding
results
gories
conditions.
in inaccurate
an examination
without
be understood
It cannot
developments.
of
Ignoring the history of economic cate

interpretations.
classical
Thus,
econ
omists define the value of labor as the price it takes to produce

and maintain the labor power. But such an intrinsically capitalist
equation,
Marx
fies labor with
claims,
aside
from
confusing
and price,
value
identi
its producer.
In the expression
Value of labor,' the idea of value is not only com
as imagi
It is an expression
but actually reversed,
pletely obliterated,
These
arise,
nary as the value of the earth.
expressions
imaginary
themselves.
however, from the relations of production
They are cate
That in then
relations.
forms of essential
gories for the phenomenal
in
order is
inverted
themselves
often
appearance
represent
things
in
science
known
well
I,
economy
every
(Capital
except
political
pretty
537).
In classical economy, labor value is simply defined by the current
capitalist practice of determining its price by the maintainance cost
of the laborer. "What economists therefore call value of labor, is in
fact the value of labor power, as it exists in the personality of
the laborer, which is as different from its function, labor, as a
machine is from the work it performs" (Capital I, 538).
Nowhere
does
character
the historical-dialectical
appear more
cepts
clearly
value.
of surplus
the theory
than
Marx
in his most
presents
of Marx's
con
contribution?
original
which
the labor process
yields surplus value from two different points of view. At the be

ginning of Capital III, he describes the process of productive work
in its essential
capitalist
nature.
Far
from
being
labor almost directly negates
the
only
possible
realization,
this essence.
in which both man and nature

is, in the first place, a process
own accord starts,
man
in
of
his
and
which
regulates,
participate,
He
himself and Nature.
reaction between
and controls the material
in motion
as one of her own forces, setting
opposes himself to Nature
in
arms and legs, head and hands,
forces of his body,
the natural
to his
in a form adapted
Nature's
order to appropriate
productions
own wants.
it,
By thus acting on the external world and changing
his slum
He develops
he at the same time changes his own nature.
Labor

656
LOUIS DUPR?
and
bering powers
I, 177)11
(Capital
Marx
What
as the
here
describes
to act
them
compels
essence
sponds entirely to the anthropological

manuscripts,
nature.
The
own
accord,"
an
of
in obedience
to his
of productive
active,
on human
rests
emphasis
"controls."
"regulates,"
relation
between
initiative:
man
corre
work
in the Paris
view, articulated
dialectical
sway.
man
starts
and
"of his
The other description presents the labor process as it takes place

within the capitalist production.
Here a very different picture
emerges. Although the ability to buy and sell labor presupposes a
"personal"
a capitalist
sesses,
which
independence
sell or to withhold
neither
leaves
economy
the
the
nor
slave
laborer
no
the
serf
real freedom
pos
to
his labor power.
...
in the
The second
essential
condition
of finding
labor power
as a commodity
market
is this?that
the laborer instead of being in
to sell commodities
in which
the position
his labor is incorporated,
must be obliged to offer for sale as a commodity
that very labor power,
which exists only in his living self.
I, 168-169)
(Capital
All
of capitalist
by its principal
concepts
determined
value
alone
determines
economy,
goal,
what
plus
But
the only source
?profit.
the created
value must
exceed
such
Clearly
a surplus
are
labor, value,
price,
capital,
the creation
of surplus
value.
Sur
move
makes
the capitalist
economy
of value
the
is labor, and to yield profit

in labor wages.
returned
an
economic
situation
only in
amount
can be achieved
where the producer, no longer able to support himself independently

or to contribute the material conditions for the production (place,
machinery,
its product.
than
the
over his labor and

has surrendered
control
distribution),
no other goal
The resulting
mode
of producing
admits
creation
of surplus
value.
in the first place, he wants

in view:
Our capitalist
has two objects
that is to say,
to produce a use-value
that has a value in exchange,
an article destined
to be sold, a commodity;
and secondly,
he desires
to produce a commodity whose
than the sum
value shall be greater
that is, of
of the values of the commodities
used in its production,
and the labor-power,
that he purchased
with
the means
of production
in the open market.
His aim is to produce not only
his good money
a use-value,
but value; not
but a commodity
also; not only use-value
I, 186)
(Capital
only value, but at the same time surplus-value.
11
Marx
here does not use the
Exceptionally,
sense of the productive
exclusive
restrictive
activity
in
tem, but of productive
activity
general.
term "labor" in the

to the capitalist
sys

MARX'S DIALECTIC
In the
process
657
capital
and
expands,
it expands
an
through
increase
of the sole producer of value?labor

(Capital I, 208-210).
I prefer not to enter into Marx's controversial thesis that labor
is
the
exclusive
source
of
value
increase
and
means
that
of
production never yield more value than they lose through operating
expenses and amortization (Capital I, 204). Here I am concerned
his relativization
only with
of established
economic
constitutive
factors
labor, all have become
a
at
of
its
process
stage
particular
development.
a
rent
in
stands
to
stage
relationship
negative
price,
Value,
concepts.
of the productive
To Marx
the
ones:
earlier
cur
it
is
opposed to what productive work "essentially" is and historically was,

the
namely,
"necessary
condition
for
effecting
of matter
exchange
between man and Nature" (Capital I, 183-184) through which man

"develops his slumbering powers" (Capital I, 177).
Ill
leads us to a second aspect of Marx's
This
tradiction.
and
Development
between
the
dynamically
interconnectedness
do not
alone
In addition a contradictory
stitute dialectical necessity.
connected
moments
the con
dialectic:
con
opposition
is required.
Unfor
tunately Marx himself provides little help toward understanding the

nature of the dialectical contradiction as he conceived it. In the
Postface to the second edition of Capital I, he refers to a Russian
review
of his
book
and
stands by a dialectical
then
proceeds
development,
to explain
what
he
under
that is, a process whereby
are necessarily
and overcome.
generated
Such an inquiry will
confine
itself to the confrontation
and the
of a fact, not with
comparison
ideas, but with another fact. For this
is, that both facts be investigated
inquiry, the one thing of moment
as accurately
as possible, and that they actually form, each with respect
to the other, different moments
of an evolution,
but most
important
of all is the rigid analysis of the series of successions,
of the sequences
and concatenations
in which the different
stages of such an evolution
themselves.
present
I, 18)
(Capital
contradictions
Yet a dialectic which consists entirely in a succession of contingent

but mutually exclusive "facts" lacks the inevitability which enables
it to predict the outcome of history.
In contrast to bourgeois econo
mists,
Marx's
analysis
of the
current
economic
system
includes,
he
insists, "the recognition of the negation ofthat state, of its inevitable

breaking up" (Capital I, 20). In treating the economic process as

658
LOUIS DUPR?
a dialectical development Marx does far more than empirically de

scribe it; he intendes to expose the necessary inception and inevitable
demise of historical systems of production because of their inherent
(not contingent) contradictions.
What, then, provides the dialectic with the additional element
that directs the development of history and leads the contradictions
to a predictable, positive future? Marx himself, Engels, and Lenin,
all refer to Hegel's Logic. But clearly the dialectic of Capital lacks
the moving agent of Hegel's philosophy, a Spirit which by intrinsic
itself
negates
necessity
and,
then,
the
by
same
necessity
overcomes
this negation in a new affirmation. What substitutes for the Spirit

in providing the inner necessity which alone could grant total pre
future?
dictability, especially predictability of a non-contradictory
answers
Various
of Marx's
critic
have
nomic contradictions
movement
dialectical
been
method
claims
to this question.12
recent
One
given
eco
to detect
the actual,
underneath
an anthropological
obtains
theory from which alone the
its direction.
Klaus
Hartmann
regards
the so-called contradictions
of capitalist society truly antithetic (i.e.,

dialectically negating) only to an ever assumed but never fully ad
mitted anthropological "thesis." Political economy is negative and
"contradictory" only because it is negatively related to a positive
vision ofman. Without this vision there would be no true negativity
at all and,
consequently,
no genuine
dialectic.
But
not grant any active function to the anthropological

alectic,
Hartmann
wonders
what
unifies
the
into a meaningful,
("contradictions")
oppositions
to invoke Hegel's
ment.
Marx
continues
name,
variety
since Marx
does
factor in his di
of tensions
and
predictable
develop
his
critics
but,
charge,
he invokes it in vain.
an intuitively
concrete
of the
Marx
intends to present
explanation
to
his argument
social process,
type relation
by a mirror
supporting
a
a
But
he
achieves
is
of
what
concept
reality,
Hegel's
philosophy.
a representation.
Such an approach does not enable him
description,
in its negative
since
to explain the process,
especially
development,
all reality, all practice
is positive.
To be sure, in a particular
instance
one may compare a form of society
to the anthropological
model
of
life and criticize
it by that norm.
But one has thereby not
species
in explaining
the negative.13
succeeded
12
Long ago Rudolf
in the conscious
element
of a teleological
located the presence
Stammler
in
into
social
relations
decisions which
entering
und Recht,
2nd edition
1896), p.
Wirtschaft
(Leipzig,
requires.
evitably
of conscious
and eco
the separation
consider
421. Marxists
aspirations
on the second.
a "Kantian" error and prefer to concentrate
nomic necessity
13
Die Marxsche
Klaus Hartmann,
p. 226.
Theorie,

MARX'S DIALECTIC
659
For a dialectical negation

realities by anthropological
in the
form
of
inner
torical-economic
it is not sufficient to criticize economic

ideas, even if this critique is presented
tensions
to an assumed
analysis
To
("contradictions").
an his
oppose
is to
model,
anthropological
pit against each other two different orders of reality. Such an oppo
In the description
sition does not constitute a dialectical negation.
of labor of Capital I, 177 (quoted earlier), the assumed anthro
pological
realization
model
surfaces
when
the
control
through
Marx
defines
of nature.
as man's
work
But
is such
an
self
anthro
pological "thesis" truly antithetical to the present mode of produc

tion? What precisely does "human work" as opposed to capitalist
"labor" mean on the economic level on which the dialectic is alleged
to take place? It is easy to see how the emancipation of exchange
value
from
use
could
a threat
constitute
to human
and
development
even how it is opposed to the original goals of production.

is difficult
to
conceive
of
such
an
as
emancipation
an
But
it
economic
In fact, it is hard to imagine how it could have been

contradiction.
avoided altogether and even harder to project a developed economic
exclude
it in principle.
Are Marx's
"contradic
system which would
tions" more
than economic
and conflicts which
become
"con
tensions
tradictory" only if one views

between
discrepancy
the
them as manifesting
current
social-economic
the fundamental
situation
and
an
This question seems to have determined much recent
ideal of man?
of Marx's
work.
interpretation
Two
have
positions
opposite
anthropological
One
emerged.
element inMarx's dialectic.
radicalizes
the
Those who have adopted
it realize,
of course,
that little anthropology
inMarx's
appears
critique
of economic
theories.
what
determines
this
Nevertheless,
critique,
is an idea of man,
in Marx's
formulated
insist,
they
clearly
early
writings
and
never
interpretation
successors.
Marx's
In
an
choosing
ascribe
the more
"naturalist"
They
to
and
his
theory
Engels
heavy-handed
own
view
remained
to the end.
humanistic
retracted.
of Marx's
anthropological
those
approach
interpreters
avail
themselves of the possibility of establishing an original Marxist

dialectic (the dialectic of freedom) instead of having to borrow secretly
from a repudiated Hegelian philosophy of Spirit. The most important
study to come out of this interpretation is Sartre's Critique de la
raison dialectique.
The other position simply denies that dialectical
an overall
and development
require
one.
Economic
contradictions
anthropological
necessity
the process of history
to the predicted
least
"thesis,"
alone
suffice
overcoming
of all an
to bring
of the capitalist

660
LOUIS DUPR?
system. Other factors undoubtedly play a role in this process, but

they ultimately depend on the economic ones. Those who have chosen
this
that
concede
approach
occa
considerations
anthropological
sionally appear inMarx's mature work, but they deny that they play
a role in the dialectic as such. Among them we find all "official"
of Marxist societies today, including the communist
representatives
of the West,
Marxists
Though
parties
had
Korsch,
already
as well
such
as a number
critics.
of Marx's
as Lukacs,
Gramsci,
and, to some
the presence
of anthropological
extent,
stressed
ele
inMarx's theory, the radically anthropological interpretation

It was pre
originated in French existentialist circles after the war.
ments
by Alexandre
pared
By highlighting
this work from
the foundation
would dispense
Idea,
and
on Hegel's
seminar
Koj?ve's
Phenomenology.
certain passages in the Phenomenology

and detaching
the totality of Hegel's System, Koj?ve laid, in fact,
for a wholly new dialectical philosophy, one which
with such idealist notions as Absolute Spirit and
concentrate
on the development
exclusively
of human
free
dom. This position, Koj?ve and his followers felt, basically coin
cided with Marx's original one. Their approach has been mainly
responsible
for
the
post-war
success
the relative neglect of his mature

be proven
to be
a number
authentic,
of Marx's
ones.
early
If this interpretation
of problems
and
writings
would
could
vanish
at
once.
On
Marxists
negation.
the basis
of Hegel's
Master-and-slave
conclude that freedom

In his
unrestricted
passage,
can be achieved
pursuit
of freedom
his life in order to gain full self-consciousness.

is limited
to a one-act
move.
After
this
victory
existentialist
only through self

the master
stakes
Yet his self-denial

no further
sacrifice
is required and he ends up depending on a slave to have his desires

fulfilled. Only with the slave does the real dialectic of freedom begin.
For him also the road to freedom leads through self-denial. While
cowardice deprived him of an instant access to full self-conscious
ness, his consequent daily self-negating labor proved in the end to
be a safer path toward the achievement of genuine freedom.
For
by persistently overcoming the resistance of a material world, the
slave gradually subjugates the entire cosmos and thus gains the kind
never
of objective
and lasting recognition
which
the master
received.
to freedom
in subsequent
The process
from denial
continues
stages
as
of self-consciousness
which
the
describes
self-suf
Hegel
negative
ficiency of Stoic freedom,
the unworldliness
of the unhappy conscious

MARX'S DIALECTIC
661
from
its achievements
mind
objective
from
of the creative mind
life, the detachment
ness, the denial of monastic
and, most
its self-created
the
importantly,
culture.
of the
alienation
Marx may not have agreed with most of this analysis; in the
Paris Manuscripts
he repudiates Hegel's alleged identification of
alienation and objectification.
But, his existentialist
interpreters
man
creates
never
himself
that
the
thesis
main
he
claim,
questioned
in a process
of self-negation.
for
Searching
a dialectical
necessity
which they do not find in Marx's own writings

they developed
at
the end of the
his brief allusion to the Master-and-slave
passage
I find this
into a full-fledged dialectical theory.
Paris Manuscripts
interpretation
inadequate
for a number
but mainly
of reasons,
because
the dialectic of freedom is insufficient to provide the development

of the capitalist system with the kind of necessity which Marx's theory
requires. What Koj?ve and his followers proposed may help to solve
But it provides no help in
the problems of Marx's early writings.
For the conflicts resulting from the capitalist
understanding Capital.
are
system
precisely
not
the
ones
Marx
As
of freedom.
presents
them, they are created not by decisions and attitudes, but by objec
It may still be true
tive modes of production and social structures.
that the "contradictions" of Capital derive their dialectical quality
from
an unstated
anthropological
but
"thesis,"
can be no doubt
there
that Marx studiously avoided basing his argument on anthropological

concepts.
any
Consequently,
of his
interpretation
anthropological
dialectic deviates from Marx's clearly stated intentions. Certainly he

regarded the capitalist mode of production incongruous with the
But he did not want his dialectic to
demands of human nature.
on
No
this
anthropological or philosophical thesis
opposition.
depend
initiates
such
the
as
because
any general
concept
process,
result
is
itself
the
"human
work,"
nature,"
already
be
therefore
and must
social-economic
development
social-economic
"human
of a preceding
as "ideological,"
regarded
i.e.,
with
secondary
respect
to the process
It is a basic principle of hermeneutics not to neglect

of production.
an author's own interpretation of his work until one has tried it
and found
already
ceived
it wanting.
exist within
to Marx,
contradictions
Now,
according
not some
the economic
itself,
process
idea of human nature,

cause
its
and will
system
of economy,
into a critique
of production
constitute
collapse.
since
cannot fail to expose
precon
the inner dialectic

as
Economics
an
which
analysis
its multiple
of
the
a science
present
contradictions.

of the
turns
mode
Di
LOUIS DUPR?
662
alectical
economic
are
then,
contradictions,
self-contradictions
of
the
social
system.
IV
Whether
economic
Marx
is
system
in keeping
succeeded
which
question
his dialectic within

we
be
may
the
to
able
answer at the end. That it was his intention to keep it within

those limits is beyond doubt. We must then first study the con
tradiction on his own terms. Capital III defines the contradiction
of the
as a whole.
system
capitalist
. . . lies
contradiction
of the capitalist
mode
of production
an
in
of
its tendency
towards
absolute development
the pro
precisely
come into conflict with
ductive
the specific
forces which
continually
in which
and alone can move.
conditions
of production
capital moves
The
(Capital III, 257)

These
he
conditions,
specific
has
told
us
a few
pages
are
earlier,
the ones that foster and expand the surplus value of the existing
Yet
capital.
development
overcome
as production
increases,
of capitalist economy
this
built-in
profit
rates
decline.
is determined
The
entire
to
by the attempt
handicap.
The general "contradiction" of the capitalist system manifests

itself in a number of specific conflicts, starting with the first and
most
fundamental
without
realized
more
to
category
use value.
suppress
the
use
of value.
Yet
value
No
economic
on which
economic
value
can
value
tends
it depends.
more
be
and
Because
of the partial identity of the two "values" their opposition becomes

a dialectical contradiction:
. . . the two sides which tend to isolate themselves
from each other,
are nevertheless
linked and cannot exist independently.
intrinsically
were
or indifferent
to each other, no
If the opposites
not related
could produce even one
Thus if a producer
struggle would take place.
and contradictions
use, all the difficulties
single unit of value without
of production
and exchange would vanish.14
The
same
contradiction
reappears
in the opposition
between
concrete
labor (resulting in use value) and abstract labor (producing value).

In the process of exchanging one usable object with another, abstract
labor tends to suppress concrete labor on which it nevertheless depends.
14
dans Le Capital
Les probl?mes
de la dialectique
M. Rosenthal,
174.
This
claim is based
de Marx
(Moscow: Langues
1959), p.
?trang?res,
own exposition
in Theories
trans. Jack
upon Marx's
Value,
of Surplus
Cohen and S. W. Rayazanskaya
(Moscow: Progress
Publishers,
1971), esp.
and III, 453-540.
I, 152-304

663
MARX'S DIALECTIC
value
Together
and
labor
lead
to
the
contradiction
of money.
Value asserts its independent existence inmoney. Originally amere

means of circulation, money gradually turns into the real end of
the circulating commodities.
It brings to a close the simple form
of exchange (commodity-money-commodity)
and initiates the complex
one
in which
(money-commodity-money)
value
exchange
becomes
the
only goal of production. Money enables the producer to retain surplus

value and to add it to his original capital. Thus, what began as a
means of circulation has turned into the main instrument for
accumulating
mechanize,
in the end,
value.
This
and
thereby
will
expansion
capital to concentrate,
the process
of production.
Yet,
As
capital's
undoing.
production
accumulation
expand
become
allows
increases, capital must compensate for the declining profit rate. By

lowering wages and lengthening working time it extracts an ever
greater
amount
of surplus
conflict between
stract
and
concrete
and
more
the worker.
an increased production
that eventually
results
power
In them all the contradictions
more
from
value
labor,
succession
between
use
explosive
commodity
confrontations.
buying
of economic
and
crises.
between
value,
and money
Marx
creates
and a decreased
in a
between
This
describes
ab
come
to
this
development in Capital III.15

Has this initial survey taught us what Marx understands pre
In his critical study On the
cisely by "contradiction?" Hardly.
Dialectical Method (1868), Eduard von Hartmann attacked Hegel
was
as contradictions
in fact not at all con
what
presenting
sense
in
at
the
exclusive
of
tradictory
commonly
mutually
accepted
same
same
are
the
time in the
Nor
contradictions
respect.
Hegel's
for
for they
"contraries,"
the term suffers
from
do exist
the same
in the
same
of
Marx's
usage
subject.
ones.
some
additional
and
ambiguities
Its meaning
to practical
from logical
varies
incompati
inconsistency
use and exchange
to
social
conflict.16
The
between
contradiction
bility
15
Marx
a number
mentions
of other "contradictions,"
such as the
machine
to shorten working
time and to free the worker
designed
leading
in fact to an unprecedentedly
day and chaining the worker
long working
to one restricted
task at one machine.
16
The ambiguity
has grown worse
fol
among Marx's
contemporary
lowers.
in exasperation:
One student of Soviet logic concludes
"There are so
of contradiction
notions
that one does not know where
to
many different
For some, contradiction
is little more than the antagonism
of vectors
begin.
are mutually
the effect of which
exclusive.
For others,
contradiction
is
sense.
almost the same as the constitutive
relation in the Hegelian
Between
two extremes
these
there
is place for almost
anything"
(Guy Planty
The
Dialectical
trans. J. J. Blakeley
Materialism,
Bonjour,
Categories
of
A. Praeger,
[New York: Frederick
1967], p. 105).

664
LOUIS DUPR?
value
refers
to the
nomic
value,
while
to make
trend
capitalist
use continues
to provide
of exchange.
is this tendency to transform a production process

designed for the creation of use value a contradiction?
But
from
to abstract
concrete
when
contradictory
the eco
into
exchange
the basis
originally
Is a shift
labor
Does money
contradictory?
a means
of circulation
it turns
from
become
into
the
determining factor of the exchange process? The inverted relation

between profit rate and surplus labor value intrigued Ricardo, but
he never thought of it as a contradiction.
Other contradictions are
economic tensions which may lead to social crises, such as the in
creasing productivity of industrial capitalism and an inevitable (in
Marx's theory!) decline in buying power.17
The only reason for attaching such a variety of meanings to the
same term is that Marx regarded them all as creating conflicts which
would eventually lead to the final crisis of capitalism. Any tension
that is expected to accelerate the final conflict is termed contradictory.
To understand the full meaning one must read the story backward,
so to speak, from the anticipated final crisis to the tensions whose
cumulative effect will bring it about. Only from the perspective
as the preparation
of history
for an apocalyptic
as "contradictory"
and
tensions
conflicts
those
regard
but
Such a perspective
may not be unreasonable,
war
class
(i.e.,
neither
can we
explosive).
is it scien
as Marx
if the social
and Engels
Even
tifically
"necessary,"
thought.
were
in which
to destroy
economic
tensions
the system
proven
they
no
still
information
about
its successor
would
appear,
they
provide
that
except
degree.
with
it would
Without
not
ment.
Hegel
of reality
him,
reason
results
intrinsically
provides
meaningful
such a teleological
Spirit.
spiritual reality.
exclusively
structure
from
But
of reality
which
towards an ideal telos,

them
as dialectical,
and necessary
structure
Marx
simultaneous
that
develop
in his theory
recognizes
Dialectical movement,
the
same
to the
contradictions
ideal
for regarding
as a self-developing
comprehensive
same
directs the oppositions
no
compelling
of an
is, as moments
the
an overall,
accepting
logical necessity
one has
contain
no
all
according to
existence
of
con
17
The "contradiction"
of ? lengthening
labor day as a result of the
to shorten
introduction
of machinery
devised
the manufacturing
process,
Marx
himself
his
distinction
constant
between
and vari
largely dispels
by
If only the addition of labor (variable capital) allows capital
able capital.
to increase profits,
then any investment
in machinery
(constant
capital) for
an
whatever
must
be
in
for
increase
labor.
purpose,
compensated
by

665
MARX'S DIALECTIC
flicting
states.
ments,
not
the
force.
driving
ocassionally
the
Only
structure
internal
effect
anticipatory
Yet
teleological
In Capital
expressed.
of any
of the
final
assumptions
III we read:
contradictory
cause,
provides
and
abound
ele
the
are
The capitalist mode of production

is, for this reason, a historical means
of developing
forces of production
the material
and creating an appro
same
and
at
the
world-market
conflict
time, a continual
is,
priate
between
this its historical
task and its own corresponding
relations
of social production.
III, p. 250)18
(Capital
Even
if we
consider
those
a mere
assumptions
remnant
from Marx's
Hegelian past which does not intrinsically affect the basic argument,
we still shall have to show how contradiction can result in develop
ment without the assumption of an overall logical structure which
unifies
the
separate
agents
into a single,
consistent
movement.
Even the term "contradiction," if it is to mean more than the

simultaneous existence o? different realities, implies the presence of
a mental
factor.
Some
interpreters
admit
this presence?not,
to be
sure, by reintroducing an Hegelian Spirit, but by granting the human

mind a constitutive part in the dialectic of opposing realities.19
(Soviet Marxists have traditionally rejected interpretations of this
sort as Hegelian.
Yet
these
present
more
of an alternative
to Hegel's
18
This was no mere slip of the pen.
In the Grundrisse
where we find
his thought
in process, Marx
states: uThe historical
is
vocation
of capital
fulfilled as soon as, on the one hand, demand has developed
to the point
where
there is a general need for surplus labor beyond what
is necessary,
and surplus labor itself arises from individual needs; and on the other, general
. . . and has been
industriousness
has developed
passed on to succeeding
new generation;
it
until
has
become
the
of
the
and
generations,
property
to the point
forces of labor . . . have developed
finally when the productive
on the
where
the possession
and maintenance
of general wealth
requires,
. . ." (Grundrisse,
one hand shorter working
hours for the whole of society
"But this contradictory
form
And
p. 231, McLellan,
p. 85).
again:
a
is
itself
and
the
real
conditions
[of capitalism]
one,
produces
transitory
of its own termination.
The result is the creation of a basis that consists
in the tendency
towards universal
of the productive
forces?
development
in general,
and wealth
also the universality
of commerce and a world market.
The basis
the possibility
of the universal
offers
of in
development
. . ."
dividuals
p. 121).
(Ibid., p. 440, McLellan,
19
Most significantly Georg Lukacs mHistory
and Class Consciousness
(1923).

LOUIS DUPR?
666
theory than their own "objective" readings which in the end attribute
to Nature all the ideal qualities of Hegel's Spirit.)
The French
Marxist Henri Lefebvre, for instance, considers all categories of the
dialectic abstract and mental, yet derived from an objective, social
An
reality.20
nectedness
mind
and opposition.
orders
subsequently
their
beyond
of economic
study
empirical
empirical
data
structure
The dialectical
those
data
givenness
allows
reveals
one
in which
to understand
to predict
and
con
their
their
the
them
future
development.
The basic economic category?exchange-value?is
and, by
developed
an internal movement,
abstract
gives rise to fresh determinations:
Each complex determination
dialecti
emerges
labor, money,
capital.
ones.
Each
has a logical and
cally from the preceding
category
whole which
role, it has its place in the explicative
methodological
of the given concrete
the modern
leads to the reconstitution
totality,
It also corresponds
to an epoch and the general historical
world.
char
of the epoch in question?the
framework
for events
and
acteristics
to it.
essential
actions?can
be deduced by starting from the category
This theoretical
deduction must thus agree with the empirical and spe
and
research
into documents,
accounts,
cifically historical
ego-witness
events.21
Even
the
this most Hegelian
certainty
which
of all interpretations
Hegel's
dialectic
derives
falls short of yielding

from
the all-encompass
An inductive a priori obtained by repeated ob

ing active Notion.
servation cannot accomplish what Marx's dialectic is supposed to
do.22
How
more
much
empirical
than a heuristic
available
evidence
evidence
is required
device or a working
support
even
a moral
to make
hypothesis?
the dialectic
Does
the
certitude?
The difficulties increase if we turn to other, less "idealist" in

terpretations, the only ones, it should be noted, officially recognized
All of them are solidly rooted in Engels'
by communist parties.
"realist" account of the dialectic. Marxists of existentialist
leanings
tend to dismiss this account as a betrayal of Marx's theory. Yet
they conveniently overlook the fact that Marx himself left the task
Nor did he
of justifying his method entirely to his collaborator.
20
trans. John Sturrock
(London: Jona
Materialism,
Cf., Dialectical
88-89.
than Cape,
pp.
1968),
21
p. 95.
22Op. cit.,
to admit this point.
reluctant
is understandably
Official Marxism
asserts:
Fundamentals
"Owing to their
dogmatically
ofMarxism-Leninism
are of a methodological
im
the laws of dialectics
universal
character,
as
serve
for
and
research."
(Moscow:
portance
pointers
Foreign Languages
is this universal
character
House,
1963), p. 87. But nowhere
Publishing
justified.

667
MARX'S DIALECTIC
remain in the dark about the nature of Engels' interpretation.

For Engels personally read the Anti-D?hring,
the only finished ex
position
Marx's
of the method,
own
thought
to Marx.
but,
His
having
no
work
not
may
information
express
exactly
on this thought,
we
must give serious attention to the sole interpretation of his method

which he himself approved.
Engels initiated the "realist" interpretation of historical mate
rialism in a review of Marx's Contribution to the Critique of Political
Economy.
Commending Marx for divesting Hegel's
logic "of its
idealist trappings," he describes the dialectic as a "real process"
of interacting and conflicting economic relations.23 The mind merely
retraces
this
extra-mental
dialectic,
but
plays
no active
role
in con
necting its moments: they are intrinsically related by themselves.24

Nor is the dialectic restricted to social-economic relations or to human
Dialectic
affairs.
constitutes
an essential
Indeed, it is reality itself inmovement.

D?hring,
nature,
of reality
as such.
Dialectic, we read inAnti
. . . law of the
is "an extremely
of
general
development
contra
and thought."25
motion
with
history
Engels
equates
and matter
with motion.26
Even
mechanical
simple
change
diction,
can occur
place
feature
and
only because
in another.27
of a body's
being
at
the
same
time
in one
23
Selected Works
Publish
(Moscow: Foreign Languages
Marx-Engels,
1962), I, p. 374.
ing House,
24
This "reality" of the contradictions
what Marxists
call
distinguishes
"dialectical" from "metaphysical"
Thus Maurice Cornforth writes:
thought.
to the common, metaphysical
occur
contradictions
"According
conception,
. . . This
in our ideas about things, but not in things.
point of view regards
contradiction
simply and solely as a logical relation between
propositions,
but does not consider it as a real relation between
and
things" (Materialism
the Dialectical
Method
York: International
[New
92).
p.
Publishers,
1971],
25
Herr Eugen D?hring's
in Science (Anti-D?hring),
Revolution
trans.
Emile Burns
s.d. [1966]), p. 154.
International
(New York:
Publishers,
I shall refer to it as Anti-D?hring.
Henceforth
26
"Motion is the mode of existence
of matter.
Never
has
anywhere
. . . Matter without motion
there been matter without motion.
is just as
as motion without matter"
unthinkable
the two
(op. cit., p. 68). Together
assertions
the entire "justification"
for a dialectic of nature.
provide
27
refers to Hegel's
Op. cit., p. 132. To support this assertion Engels
of
non-contradiction.
is dubious sup
This
"rejection" of Aristotle's
principle
claims Aristotle's
for his own theory
port, since Hegel
explicitly
authority
of motion.
der Logik
Cf., Hegel, Wissenschaft
(Hamburg: Felix Meiner,
1934 [1967]), I, pp. 192-193. Science ofLogic, trans. A. V. Miller (NewYork:
and negation
at the
Press,
1969), p. 198. Such an affirmation
an outright
in the same respect,
of the fundamental
rejection
of traditional
scholars find hard to swallow
principle
logic, even Soviet
op. cit., p. 118).
(Planty-Bonjour,
Humanities
same time

668
LOUIS DUPR?
In the Logic,
Of course, in Hegel also, motion is dialectical.
becoming results from the opposition in identity of pure Being and
pure Nothing,28 and in the History of Philosophy we read:
as
The reason why dialectic
first seizes upon motion
or put
in the fact that dialectic
is itself this motion;
motion
is the dialectic
of all that is.29
its object
lies
another way,
But Hegel's moving reality is essentially spiritual. Without a spir

itual basis a dialectical theory of human praxis is still possible (as
Western
non-orthodox,
Marxists
like
Lukacs
and
Korsch
have
shown), but a dialectical theory of nature is excluded unless one

endows "nature" or "matter" with the teleological quality of Hegel's
Spirit. We shall see later that this is what happens in orthodox
nor consistently.
In his
Marxism,
though neither methodically
Notebooks
Lenin
of
Philosophical
qualified Engels' equation
develop
ment and dialectic by specifying that the development must be a
unity
of
contraries.
But,
and
by
the simpler version and uncritically
large,
assumed
textbooks
returned
to
that all development
is contradictory.31
VI
Engels
means
of
converted
three
contradiction
fundamental
laws:
into
progressive
of
the unity
movement
contraries,
by
the
28
der Logik
p. 83.
I, p. 67. Science
of Logic,
Wissenschaft
29
p. 313.
1832), Vol. XIII,
(Berlin,
Gesamtausgabe
30
trans. Clemens
I. Lenin,
Dutt
V.
Collected
(Moscow:
Works,
It isworth noting that in
1961 [1972]), Vol. 38, p. 258.
Publishers,
Progress
an early, polemical work
on the dialectical
restricts
it to
method
Lenin
called the dialectical method
social development:
"What Marx and Engels
con
in sociology, which
is nothing more nor less than the scientific method
a
a
as
state
in
constant
of
de
sists in regarding
living organism
society
an
rela
of
the
of
the
which
analysis
objective
velopment,
study
requires
the given social formation and investiga
tions of production which constitute
and development."
tion of its laws of functioning
(What the ((Friends of
Collected
the Social Democrats.
the People" Are and How
They Fight
Vol. I, p. 165).
Works,
31
Fundamentals
For
(Moscow:
instance,
of Marxism-Leninism
"All development,
1964) states:
House,
Publishing
Foreign
Language
of stars, the growth of a plant, the life of a man or the
the evolution
whether
in its essence"
is contradictory
(p. 79).
history of society

669
MARX'S DIALECTIC
negation of negation, and the transformation of quantity into quality.32

Since the official interpretation of Marxist dialectic depends on these
laws, we must consider them in some detail. The dynamic quality
of the dialectic is due to the so-called law of the contraries, that
is,
the
simultaneous
existence
of
opposite
in the
qualities
same
subject. Our earlier discussion of the contradiction has shown how

difficult it is to grasp the precise meaning of the alleged con
traries/contradictories
(the terms are used inconsistently). Marxists
that
the
contradiction is a conflict between internally
generally agree
connected
of the
aspects
tradiction
requires
turn require
a connection
objective
the existence
a connection
possible
world.33
But
of all elements
of reality.
an all-comprehensive
without
the
con
internal
of internal relations,
which
How
in
is such
structure
logical
of reality? That Marx assumed the existence of internal relations

is, I believe, beyond doubt. Without it his entire critique of politi
In Theories of Surplus Value
cal economy becomes unintelligible.
(III, 503) he criticizes "vulgar" economists for not perceiving the
internal
connections
the
among
oppositions
which
encounter
they
in their science and thus failing to bring out their antagonistic

acter.
Yet
Marx
rarely
ventured
beyond
the man-made
char
contradic
tions of economic systems. Engels did and his interpretation became

decisive.
To him all reality is in process and all its aspects are,
therefore, internally related. The great merit of Hegel's system,
he claims, is that "the whole natural, historical and spiritual world
was
presented
transformation
the
internal
as a process,
that is, as in constant
motion,
was made
and development;
and the attempt
between
in this motion
interconnections
p. 30).
D?hring,
of relations
and
Both
change,
to show
nature
interactions.
individual things
and development"
(Anti
an
maze
and history
endless
present
to see the
Not
inner
connections
is to overlook
their coming
32
into being
In the Dialectics
of Nature
they appear as follows: "The
into quality and vice versa; the law of
transformation
of quantity
of opposites;
the law of the negation
of the negation"
penetration
C. Dutt
[New York: International
1940], p. 26). Lenin
Publishers,
the order of the first two.
33
in the
"Contradictions
Cf., for instance, Ts. A. Stepanyan,
ment of Socialist Society," inVoprosy Filosofii,
law of the
the inter
(Trans.
reversed
Develop
II (1955), pp. 69-86, and
in Gustav Wetter,
comments
Dialectical
Materialism,
(New York: Frederick
1958), pp. 343-345.
Praeger,
trans.

Peter
Heath
670
LOUIS DUPR?
and their passing away (Anti-D?hring,

existence
of internal
as creative
ceived
is a primary
Only because
relations
process.
The universal
pp. 26-28).34
for a reality
condition
they
con
penetrate
"mutually
each other" (Anti-D?hring,

p. 29), do the oppositions of reality
result in constant novelty. For Engels the inner relations constitute
the moving power of the dialectic: oppositions become dynamic only
when they exist within one and the same reality, when a thing
is internally divided against itself and its own constituents are in
conflict with each other.35
Lenin and Stalin faithfully follow Engels' doctrine.
"Dialectics
in the proper sense," Lenin writes in his Notebooks,
"is the study
essence
in the very
of contradiction
Stalin
of objects."
explicates:
to metaphysics,
dialectics
holds that internal contradictions
Contrary
are inherent
in all things and phenomena
of nature,
for they all have
their negative
and positive
sides, a past and a future,
something
dying away and something
developing.37
It is the existence
so confident
phers
extra-mundane
of internal relations which makes

that
nature
is self-moving
and no
Soviet philoso
longer
needs
an
mover.
Yet how can internal relations exist without some logical and
teleological structure which unites all elements in an organic totality?
nature
Bertell
that the internal
commentator,
Oilman,
responds
of the "parts" rather
of the whole
than the function
pro
qua whole
his claim by what
he considers
vides
the connection.38
He supports
One
to be the independence of internal relations in Leibniz's monads of

But the very term parts ("whatever parts") implies
the totality.
an
idea
of a totum.
The
reference
to Leibniz
seems
particularly
inappropriate, both logically and ontologically, since each monad is

directly related to the principle of totality and harmony (God) and
only through it to all other monads which it internally "reflects."
By themselves, monads constitute separate ("windowless") worlds
incapable of direct interaction. Oilman finds the philosophical under
34
inmotion
Also: "The first thing that strikes us in considering matter
is the interconnection
their
of separate
of the individual motions
bodies,
determined
p. 304).
(Dialectics
of Nature,
being 35
by one another"
Gustav A. Wetter,
Dialectical
p. 337.
Materialism,
36Cf.,
Notebooks
in Collected Works, Vol. 38, p. 253.
Philosophical
37
and Historical
Dialectical
Materialism
International
(New York:
11.
1940
Materialism
See
also
Maurice
Publishers,
[1972]), p.
Cornforth,
and the Dialectical
p. 90.
Method,
38
Bertell Oilman, Alienation,
p. 35.

MARX'S DIALECTIC
pinnings
671
in Marx's
of this theory
the self-made
contemporary,
German
But Dietzgen starts from the idea

philosopher Joseph Dietzgen.39
of a totality and then attempts to show how universally recognized
parts can be established, while the problem inMarxist theory is pre
it on
cisely the existence of such a totality. Dietzgen presupposes
the basis of cognitive processes which cannot conceive of the real
as relational.
I do not see how relations
except
one assumes
in the real "parts," unless
idealistically
must
that
be
internal
the relations
of the mind are the relations of things.

and possibly
Engels
even Marx
made
precisely
such
an assump
tion. How would the dialectic apply to nature as well as to history,

except on the idealist supposition that nature obeys the same laws
as the human mind? Marx's "materialist" reversal of the priorities
of nature and mind in no way exorcizes the basic idealist identity
of the two. Nor did Engels' further subordination of mind to nature
eliminate idealism. On the contrary! That the mind follows dialecti
cal laws in its relation to nature is in itself no idealist thesis: the
notion of logical law is implied in that of mind (whether derived or
original).
But
?independently
but
monism,
once
of
closer
those
laws
are
the mind?one
conceived
moves
as existing
in reality
not away
from
idealist
to it.
If nature and mind are aspects of the same totality, the dialectic
of history must inevitably entail a dialectic of nature and vice-versa.
Marx may not have been quite ready for this conclusion.
But I
see no consistent way of escaping it on Engels' principles.
Oilman
is one of the few to have fully understood that the universal existence
of internal
relations
leaves
no other
choice
but
to integrate
the dialec
tic of history with a dialectic of nature.

If nature and society are internally
related
denies
(Marx explicitly
are 'two separate
nature and history
of any
things') an examination
aspect of either involves one immediately with aspects of the other.40
And further:
can be given to the question whether
the
The same kind of response
dialectic
is in the world or in people's minds thinking about the world.
a question
the two is rejected,
When
the logical distinction
between
In this case, it is important
to
which assumes
it cannot be asked.
as
and
realize that nature
is invariably
'nature')
(even
conceptualized
38.
39/6id.,p.
53.
40Ibid., p.

672
LOUIS DUPR?
are part of nature
in reciprocal
interaction with
that people's minds
The claim, therefore,
exists in nature
other parts.
that the dialectic
and the claim that it exists in people's minds are Identical.'41
This interpretation correctly reflects Engels' thought, yet the author

does not seem to realize, any more than Engels himself, that the
assumption of a single homogeneous reality subject to laws which
the mind brings to conscious expression is an idealist one. To rid
the dialectic of its idealism it is not sufficient to reverse the order
Idealists often
and to replace a priori methods by empirical ones.
as fundamentally
own method
their
present
empirical.42
Among the few Soviet thinkers who have genuinely tried to

overcome the idealist elements in Marxist
theory the Georgian
T.
out.
In
S.
Bakradze
stands
his
study on System and
logician
Method in Hegel's Philosophy
he openly rejects the possibility of
internal
contradictions
in general,
and,
of internal
relations.
a Hegel,
can speak of internal contra
Only an idealist,
specifically
of internal and immanent
dictions
of concepts,
about
connections,
connec
transitions
from one into the other, because
the immanent
of one concept
to
tions?the
transition
into another?are
equivalent
of the concepts.43
the self-movement
If ideas
to exist
are secondary
to reality,
internal
in reality,
since such connections
In the West,
ture of the real.

the drive
against
idealism.
To present
for
the novelty
of his
Marx's
according
enterprise.
For
be assumed
an ideal
presuppose
Louis Althusser
image ("right side up") of Hegel's,

account
cannot
relations
struc
has spearheaded
as a mirror
dialectic
to Althusser,
Marx's
fails to
dialectic
pro
ceeds not by "cumulative internaiization," as Hegel's Spirit does, but

(deriving from the
by "the accumulation of effective determinations
superstructures
and
from
special
national
and
circum
international
stances) on the determination in the last instance by the economic."44

Rather than being internal contradictions created by a single self
41
p. 269.
42Ibid.,
as
Thus Koj?ve characterizes
in the Phenomenology
Hegel's method
insofar as Hegel
"looks at the real and describes
empirical and descriptive
what
he sees, everything
that he sees, and nothing
but what
he sees,"
to the Reading
Introduction
trans.
James
H.
Nichols
York:
(New
of Hegel,
Basic Books,
1969), p. 176.
43Sistema
discussion
Dialectical
44
i metod filosofii Gegelja (Tbilisi, 1958), p. 438. Cf., the
of Bakradze's
in Planty-Bonjour,
The
thought
pp. 53-70.
Materialism,
For Marx,
Louis Althusser,
trans. Ben Brewster
Pantheon
1969), p. 113.
Books,
Categories

(New
of
York:
673
MARX'S DIALECTIC
Marx's
contradictions
developing
reality,
structure
with
collision
of the economic
structure.
In Althusser's
are
caused
determinations
contradictions
language,
by the external
of the super
originate
through
over-determination.45
Althusser
correctly
as idealist.
tions
of external
can
basis
another
ture
The
arises,
question
contradictions
the
be
identifies the theory of internal contradic
said
to establish
with
a "dialectic"
whether
can still claim predictability.
innumerable
of development
however,
external
determinations
On what
on
acting
one
a homogeneous,
struc
relatively
simple
a clearly
foreseeable
As we
outcome?
observed earlier, dialectical contradiction cannot be simply equated

with social conflict; it consists of an historically necessary conflict
that will
herent
in an equally
result
While
Althusser
in a dialectic
ist, writing
necessary
"resolution."
seems but dimly aware of the problems

of external
In
consistency.
an
essay
another
contradictions,
under his influence has attempted

on
"Structure
to justify
and
in
structural
its logical
in
Contradiction
Capital"46 Maurice Godelier strongly asserts the dialectical quality

of Marx's theory, while denying all intrinsic dependence on Hegel's
theory. He distinguishes internal contradictions within an economic
structure,
as the
such
relation
between
capital
and
labor,
from
con
tradictions between two different structures, such as the opposition

between the social conditions of production and the forces of produc
tion. The latter opposition is external because the forces of produc
tion constitute "a reality completely distinct from the relations of
production and irreducible to them" (p. 356). It is precisely because
one does not imply the other that the opposition between the two
45
Althusser's
cautioned against
new.
is not entirely
Plekhanov
had
theory
Already
a simplistic understanding
of the economic determination,
that Marx's theory oiinteraction
between
forces
claiming rightly
productive
and social relations
excludes
the simple economic determinism
of which he
is so often accused.
See Fundamental
Problems
(Moscow:
of Marxism
1908
52-56.
Karl
in his classical
[1976]), pp.
Publishers,
Progress
Kautsky
is even more
"Let
study on the materialist
concept of history
explicit.
us not forget: only in the final
is the whole
analysis
juridical, political,
as a superstructure
to be regarded
upon an economic
ideological
complex
infrastructure.
It does not necessarily
apply to any individual phenomenon
in history.
Whether
it be economic,
ideological or other, in some relations
as infrastructure,
as superstructure"
it may
in others
function
(Die
Materialistische
p. 837).
[Berlin,
1927],
I,
Geschichtsauffassung
46
First published
in Les Temps Modernes
246 (Nov. 1966) and later
in a collection Ideology
in Social Science,
translated
ed. Robin Blackburn
(New York: Pantheon
Books,
1972), pp. 334-368.

LOUIS DUPR?
674
becomes
The
revolutionary.
second
contradiction
not
"does
contain
within itself the set of conditions for its solution" (p. 356) and therefore
results in violent conflict.
the text of Capital supports no clear distinction
Unfortunately,
between
internal
and external
For Marx,
contradictions.
simple
pro
duction and circulation lead directly to capitalist production and cir

culation
opposition
and,
eventually,
use
between
to
and
revolutionary
value
exchange
ones.
It is true enough that the

commodity from the beginning only
conflicts and that for this possibility
of conditions must be fulfilled which
of
the
commodity
as
such.47
Yet
conflict.
contains
The
original
all subsequent
contradiction immanent in the

creates the possibility of social
to become actualized a number
are not given with the existence
those
conditions,
those
circum
stances are not simply extrinsic to the internal contradiction.

They
not
In
follow from it directly and necessarily
immediately.
though
and through its own development capitalist production creates the
conditions which convert the possible into the actual conflict.48 The
contradictions
in Marx's
theory
cannot
achieve
what
they
are
sup
posed to achieve without being internal. The structuralists can win

the battle against idealism only by sacrificing the dialectic itself.
VII
The problems created by the idealist heritage inMarx's dialectic
increase with the law of the negation of negation.
Simply stated,
47
that private
use-value
and value; the contradictions
"The antithesis,
itself as direct social labor, that a particularized
labor is bound to manifest
concrete kind of labor has to pass for abstract human labor; the contradic
of persons
of objects and the representation
the personification
tion between
are immanent
which
and contradictions,
by things; all these antitheses
in
of motion,
in commodities,
assert themselves,
and develop
their modes
a
modes
These
of
of
the
the antithetical
metamorphosis
commodity.
phases
of crises.
and no more than the possibility,
therefore
imply the possibility,
is the result of a long
into a reality
The conversion
of this mere possibility
. . ."
See also, Grundrisse
series
of relations
310,
I, 114).
(Capital
406.
Nicolaus
48
an external from an internal opposition.
Marx
also distinguishes
first of all, enter into
But one directly
entails the other.
"Commodities,
then differentiates
of exchange
the process
just as they are. The process
and thus produces an external
and money,
them into commodities
opposi
in them, as being at
inherent
to the internal
tion corresponding
opposition
now stand opposed
as use-values
once use-values
Commodities
and values.
as exchange-value.
sides are
On the other hand, both opposing
to money
unities of use-value
and value" (Capital
I, 104).
commodities,

675
MARX'S DIALECTIC
the second negation prevents the dialectical movement from coming

to an end after the first conflict. In the Hegelian tradition Marxists
to this moment
ascribe
the progressive
is far more
than
nature,
For Hegel
"the spiral form," of the dialectic.

a negative
movement
a positive
aspect
which
as well
in fact,
It includes,
what
Lenin
termed
the second negation
ends up negating
itself.
as a negative
one, since
it leads to a genuinely new and positive synthesis inwhich the origi

nal conflict is resolved. The first negation, the contradiction, is not
fully understood until it is understood also as a unity of contraries.
Hegel himself insisted on the two-fold function of this second
negation when he envisioned the possibility of distinguishing four
moments
Yet
rather
than
three
dialectic
Marx's
in the dialectical
differs
from
process.49
on a crucial
Hegel's
issue.
While for Hegel the second negation completes the cycle and brings
the dialectical movement to a temporary conclusion, Marx admits in
principle
no concluding
synthesis,
not
even
a temporary
one.
Con
flicts are not resolved; they intensify until their combined effect
explodes in a revolution. Nor is this a later interpretation of Marx's
theory. Marx's reaction against Hegel's triadic cycles dates back to
his student years in Berlin. From his fellow Young Hegelians he
had learned to distrust the dialectical "synthesis" through which the
German philosopher had brought the revolutionary power of his
method to rest in a religious and political conservatism.
Hegel's
syntheses,
according
to his emancipated
disciples,
are mere
stepping
stones toward the final synthesis of the Prussian, Protestant State.

They betray the dialectical principle which, rather than ratifying
the established reality, criticizes and changes it. Marx had soon
repudiated the purely "critical" and theoretical approach of the Young
For him the real dialectic of history occurs not through
Hegelians.
but
speculation
versally,
but
49
G. W.
1934), II, p.
in The Legacy
through
selectively.
and a practice
practice,
never
Yet Marx
reversed
not uni
negates
his stand on the
F. Hegel,
der Logik
Wissenschaft
Meiner,
(Hamburg:
497.
in Eric Weil,
"The Hegelian
Comments
Dialectic"
ed. J. O'Malley, K. W. Algozin, H. P. Kainz, L. C.
of Hegel,
Rice, (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1973), p. 58. Lenin understood this dual na
ture of the second negation.

statement
about the dialectical
Quoting Hegel's
comments:
the
immediate
he
"Not
only
empty negation,
negation negating
not futile negation,
not sceptical
and doubt is charac
vacillation
negation,
...
as a movement
in dialectics
teristic and essential
of
no, but negation
as a moment
of development,
..."
the positive
connection,
retaining
in Collected Works
Notebooks
38, p. 226).
(Philosophical

676
LOUIS DUPR?
endless
of dialectical
character
negation.
This
creates
serious
prob
lems in understanding
the law of negation of negation, especially
with respect to the "spiral form" of the resulting development.
Here again Marx's thought has received two different interpre
tations: one that brings the dialectic to a more or less complete halt
in the communist society (the interpretation of Plekhanov, Lenin,
Stalin, and subsequent "party" philosophers), the other which attri
butes to the praxis the same permanent negation which the Young
Hegelians reserved to the philosophical critique (the position of the
Frankfurt
to the latter,
According
an end; it must
continue
school).
never
tion
reaches
tablished order.
In the words
the movement
of nega
the es
to revolutionize
of Theodor Adorno:
...
to lend itself to sanctioning
it is a refusal
things as they are.
To negate a negation does not bring about its reversal;
it proves rather
. . . This is the decisive
that the negation
is not negative
enough.
con
To use identity as a palliative
for dialectical
break with Hegel.
...
is to ignore what the contradiction
means.50
tradiction
Frankfurt
philosophers
tional Marxist
ment
justify their apparent deviation
by what
theory
they
consider
the un-Marxist
of the official communist practice itself.

As far as I know, Marx applies the negation
to social
In Capital
developments.
I, he uses
from tradi
develop
of negation
it to explain
only
the evolu
Individual private property directly result

tion of private property.
from
work
is
destroyed by capitalist production which expropri
ing
ates both the workers' products and their instruments of production.
But capitalist property will, in turn, be negated when the means of
production
become
common
property.
The capitalist mode of appropriation,

the result of the capitalist mode
This is the first
of production,
produces
capitalist private property.
on the labor of
as founded
of individual private
property,
negation
the inexora
with
But capitalist
the proprietor.
production
begets,
It is the negation
of
its own negation.
bility of a law of nature,
This does not reestablish
for the pro
private
property
negation.
based on the acquisitions
ducer, but gives him individual property
in common
and the possession
of the capitalist era: i.e., on cooperation
of production.
of the land and of the means
I, 763)
(Capital
We
find other instances of the dialectical negation
always
in social-economic
50
Negative
1973), p. 159.
Dialectics,
of negation,
but
developments.
trans. E. B. Ashton
(New York:
Seabury

Press,
MARX'S DIALECTIC
Engels
particular
677
the
universalized
instance
of natural
law and
social
considered
In Anti-D?hring,
processes.
a
processes
he applies
the principle to botany, geology, and mathematics as well as to history

Most of this is of dubious value for the under
and anthropology.
standing of natural processes. What does it mean (Anti-D?hring,
ceases to exist as a
p. 169) that a grain of barley germinates,
grain (negation) and becomes a plant which, in turn, produces new
grains and dies (negation of negation)? Does Engels say anything
more than that natural developments follow a cyclic pattern? Not
only is this non-informative, but it is non-dialectical as well, for in
of the third moment from the
such a presentation the distinctness
first is lost.51 Yet this distinctness is essential to a dialectic of social
Not surprisingly, then, most contemporary Marxists
revolution.
have quietly abandoned Engels' scientific simplifications. Cornforth,
for instance, denies that the law of negation of negation applies to
all forms of development, even though he upholds the dialectical char
acter
of all development.
does not
of negation
of negation
The importance
of this conception
of all develop
lie in its supposedly
the necessary
pattern
expressing
out of con
ment.
All development
takes place through the working
universal
tradictions?that
is a necessary
law; but specinc contradic
work out in such a way that an earlier stage
tions do not necessarily
at a later stage?sometimes
that may
of development
is repeated
on
of
character
the
sometimes
and
not,
specific
depending
happen
of an earlier stage
of development.
Yet the repetition
the processes
is a notable feature of some processes
of development
and, moreover,
to bring it about is often an important aim of practice.52
Yet the real difficulty concerns the nature of the synthesis.

mere
presents
follows
negation
of the
state
of affairs
new unless
really
nothing
an upward
direction.
resulting
one assumes
But
this
a "contradiction"
from
that
"spiral"
the development
movement
is not
given by the negation of negation, it is presupposed

by it. In
a
this
trend.
But, for
upward
Hegel,
self-realizing Spirit justifies
Marx,
progress
must
emerge
from
the
contradictions
themselves.
Then the difficult question arises how Marx's second negation differs
It is hard to
from the first or, for that matter, from any other.
51
in Engels' presentation,
has pointed out other inadequacies
Kautsky
the obvious fact that the new life in nature is not directly caused
especially
by the death of the old. See Die Materialistische
Geschichtsauffassung,
p. 132.
52
and the Dialectical
also
Materialism
p. 117. Plekhanov
Method,
about its universal
reservations
expresses
application.

LOUIS DUPR?
678
conceive of a negation of negation without introducing teleological

A dialectic consisting exclusively of a collision of dif
considerations.
ferent aspects of a moving reality ("objective contradictions") holds
no
clue
whatever
about
outcome
the
of
its
Even
contradictions.
Lenin's
"apparent return to the old"53 cannot be justified
course,
the
notion
of "progress"
must
remain
and, of
unsupported.
wholly
priority of "the fittest" holds no promise of constant
The Darwinian
or even of temporary
for "fit" is any situation
progress
improvement,
that survives
the present
contradiction.
What
survives
will be more
compatible with the prevailing conditions than what changes, but

nothing guarantees that it will possess a higher degree of intrinsic
not mean
It does
perfection.
the
best
or even
possible
"better,"
except in the one respect of being able to cope with the current
conditions. Yet Marxist philosophers usually regard a developing
to be an upward
reality
whom
Cornforth,
reality.
moving
we
found
earlier distinguishing processes which are truly progressive (negation

of negation) from others which are not, denies that the distinction
on any
depends
that a movement
can
between
have
what
to others?
processes
direction
some
determines
and
"nature"
"spirit" and asserts

to
any consciousness
without
of God being
it (the hypothesis
direct
then,
difference
excluded).
explicitly
as progressive
movements
Cornforth's answer blatantly begs the question: "If some

have direction and others have not, this depends solely on
the particular
ditions
under
of the processes
We
they happen."54
which
and
themselves
character
tion of everything,
cannot
in which we are interested

such as the
things
to capitalism
to communism."55
from feudalism
too arbitrary
to merit
discussion.
to the point, Kautsky
its own
con
of the direc
speak
ticular
sesses
of the
he claims, "but only of the direction of the par
ment
More
But,
in contrast
structure
for
observes
self-preservation
'forward'
move
Clearly
this
is
that each organism pos

and
procreation,
and
may be considered more perfect as it is better equipped to cope

with both. "It is impossible to say that this teleology and perfection
increase
in the
course
of development
the more highly developed
of a series
ones, which
of organisms,
are farthest
removed
that
from
53
in Collected Works
Notebooks
38, p. 222. My critique
Philosophical
"It is clear that a twofold negation
is confirmed
by no means
by Wetter:
lands one back at the starting point (even at a higher
level)"
necessarily
(Dialectical Materialism,
p. 364).
54
Op. cit., p. 109.
55Ibid., p. 110.

679
MARX'S DIALECTIC
the
more
forms
of their
affirmative
anthropomorphic
Kant,57
Kautsky
Darwinian
theory
are
ancestors,
than the simple
teleology,
any
rejects
of evolution.
better
organized,
ones."56
Precisely
in which
he detects
equation
of Marxist
more
vital
because
and
of
its
the influence of
dialectic
with
The law of negation of negation constitutes a Marxist attempt

I
to retain Hegel's ascending movement without his spiritualism.
do not believe that it has succeeded in its task. For to be pro
gressive a process of negation must follow a teleological direction for
which there is no room inMarx's theory. Some Marxists implicitly
admit this and consider the law to be nothing more than the dialectical
negation (understood in the Marxist sense of pure contradiction)
brought to its ultimate conclusion. Others attempt to give it a sepa
rate status by distinguishing it as a particular species of the generic
law of negation.58 Most consistent was Stalin who dropped the
law of negation of negation altogether, replacing it by two others
of his own making.
Stalin fully realized that the law was either
redundant
or idealist.
to a simultaneous
is reduced
the negation
resources
no
in reality,
remain
from
elements
Once
of "contrary"
presence
can be extracted.
which
"positive"
meanings
to a natural
ment
then
is reduced
process
to include
social
The
dialectical
of evolution
move
extended
developments.59
56
Die Materialistische
p. 139.
Geschichtsauffassung,
57
Ibid., p. 197.
58
thus describes
the negation of negation: "Every phenome
Plekhanov
to its conclusion,
transformed
into its opposite;
becomes
non, developing
to
but as the new phenomenon,
the
also
is transformed
first,
being opposite
in its turn into its own opposite,
the third phase of development
bears a
to the first"
View of
resemblance
(The Development
formal
of the Monist
trans. Andrew
Rothstein
International
[New York:
Publishers,
History,
is not identity,
Of course,
resemblance
1972], p. 81).
yet Plekhanov's
reservations
about the triadic character
of the dialectic
indicates that he is
in the dark as to how the second negation
could essentially
differ from the
Lenin also places it at the end of the list in his "Elements
first.
of Dialectics"
(Notebooks, Collected Works 38, p. 221) as if itwere implied by the doctrine
of the unity of opposites

which
On the questions
Soviet
(cf., p. 223).
have begun to raise about the same point, see Guy Planty
philosophers
pp. 136-138.
Bonjour,59 The Categories
of Dialectical
Materialism,
Godelier
also concludes
that the negation
of negation
has lost its
in a dialectic
that is no longer propelled
validity
by a self-moving
Spirit.
Marx's
dialectic must
with
all internal
It consists
dispense
teleology.
in a conflict of incompatible
but relatively
structures.
entirely
independent
Unlike Stalin, Godelier does not appeal to some self-evident
law of evolution
that conflict must result in greater perfection.
I suspect that he assumes
progress,
though.

LOUIS DUPR?
680
But if the third movement brings nothing new, has the dialectic
not changed from triadic to dyadic? Most Marxists continue to pay
lip service to the triadic form, but they often do so with little con
viction.
Plekhanov, while upholding the triadic schema against
Mikhailovski, estimates that "it does not at all play in Hegel's work
the part which is attributed to it by those who have no idea of his
philosophy."60 His judgment may be erroneous for Hegel, but it
certainly applies to Marx. Lenin, in his early polemic with the same
claims that attempts to prove the correctness of the
Mikhailovski,
triad are but a relic of Hegelianism; Engels does not even men
tion the triads in his method.61
If the second negation introduces no positive element into the
dialectic, is the Marxist still justified in expecting a final synthesis,
a positive and permanent state of society? Here the critique of
orthodox Marxism by the Frankfurt school becomes particularly
How could all contradictions be resolved in a socialist
pertinent.
society without bringing the dialectic to the same artificial halt which
denounced in Hegel?
Orthodox
Marx and the Young Hegelians
Marxists
not
have
unaware
remained
of
the
It
problem.
forced
Lenin to distinguish "antagonism" from "contradiction": the former

would disappear, while the latter would remain and become the
moving power in the development of the communist society.62 Stalin
went
further
and
such
tradictions,
permanent
the
forces
cit.,
always
existence
between
the
society
between
of society
con
of genuine
and
the
class
peasant
continued
conflict
contradictions
of production
60
61Op.
the
in the socialist
proletariat,
productive
admitted
as
continue
lags behind
of the Soviet
relations
to exist,
Union.
Even
and the
of production
since the development
the development
of productive
p. 79.
What theFriends of thePeople Are and How They Fight the Social
Soviet
in Collected
Some
Works
I, p. 164.
contemporary
and A. G.
T. A. Kazakevich
similar reservations.
express
philosophers
the Law of
Abolentseva
conclude their article on "Some Problems
concerning
"Marxism by no means rejects the triad, but nor
of Negation":
the Negation
as a universal master
is it regarded
key which can be used to prove every
in
the triad is above all expres
dialectical
As
understood
materialism,
thing.
and social
sion of the path of double negation
by all natural
pursued
as well as our knowledge,
in the course of their development"
phenomena
Democrats
(Vestnik Leningradskogo Universiteta, XXIII
[1956], p. 76). Quoted in
Dialectical
p. 362.
Materialism,
62
V. I. Lenin, "Remarks on N. I. Bukharin's
tional Period"
(May 1920), Collected Works.
Economics
Wetter,

of the Transi
681
MARX'S DIALECTIC
Yet
forces.63
Stalin
did not regard
those
as "antagonis
contradictions
tic" in that economic planning will prevent them from leading to open
conflicts.
Mao
alone
was
consistent
to perceive
enough
the
con
sequences of a negative dialectic when he declared the existence of

genuine contradictions between individuals and society to be "nothing
strange" in a communist society and when, in 1957, he criticized
Stalin for not having perceived the existence of internal contradic
as
such
tions,
treated
having
the
between
oppositions
them as external
mass
and
leaders,
and
for
antagonisms.64
The proliferation of scholastic distinctions between communist

and other oppositions suggests that Marxists have not been able
to account satisfactorily for a "positive" synthesis in a dialectic
of internal conflict. The law of negation of negation constitutes a
somewhat
incongruous
ically is a dialectic
what
justifies
to introduce
attempt
of revolution.
it purports
to
The
achieve,
evolution
into what
law neither
since
quately integrated with the dialectical method
it has
explains
not
been
bas
nor
ade
as Marx conceived it.
VIII
As the status of the negation of negation became more and more
dubious, the law of transformation from quantity to quality gained
in importance. Stalin and his followers who had dropped the former
strongly emphasized the latter. The reason is not difficult to grasp.
If the negation of negation was considered to be too idealist to be
effective in a Marxist dialectic, some other law had to be found to
direct
the movement
it a consistent
to give
from
resulting
upward
turn.
more
contradiction,
specifically
came to seek it more
Marxists
and more in a scientific theory that, without invoking any teleology,

and by purely empirical methods, succeeded in educing intelligible
patterns of development out of conflict and in creating an expectation,
however
gratuitous,
of continuing
progress.
Neo-Darwinism
par
ticularly appealed to Marxist dialecticians for having dislodged final

causality from its last stronghold. The survival of the fittest alone
63
"Economie
of Socialism
Problems
in the U.S.S.R.
in
(1952),"
Current Soviet Policies,
ed. Leo Gruliow
14.
(New York: Praeger,
p.
1953),
64
Arthur A. Cohen, The Communism
of Mao
Tse-Tung
(Chicago:
The University
of Chicago Press,
in his work
1964), pp. 160-163.
Already
On Contradiction (1937) (SelectedReadings, Peking, 1971)Mao advocates

a theory
of permanent
contradiction.

682
LOUIS DUPR?
or so it was
sufficed,
thought,
to account
for
the
emergence
of ever
more developed forms. At the same time, the theory of evolution

so intimately combined conflict with movement
that it might be
as
dialectic.
the
scientific
of
counterpart
Hegelian
Already
regarded
Marx and Engels had taken a lively interest inDarwin's theory. But
they had rejected, as had Hegel himself, the concept of a gradual
change from one species to another: dialectic progressed by sudden
reversals.
De Vries' discovery of genetic mutations dispelled the
dialecticians'
reservations.65
Where
once
the
of negation
negation
had been needed to secure the "upward turn" of the dialectic, hence
forth the law of quantity and quality interpreted in a Neo-Darwinian
fashion would suffice to give the dialectical movement a "progressive"
in
direction.
Hegel's principle asserted that purely quantitative
creases
"vice
in qualitative
result
"and," Engels
eventually
changes
to
versa."m
Marx
the
the transition
applies
principle
to capitalist
precapitalists
possession
of money
and
adds,
from
commodities.67
Engels points out similar transitions in the fourth part of Capital I

on "The Production of Relative Surplus-Value"
p.
(Anti-D?hring,
139).
Other
to money
and
instances
the
are the transformation
transitions
between
the
of value
successive
from use
modes
value
of co
operation that lead to capitalist production.68

65
that Marxism
This is not to say, of course,
simply threw its lot in
now discredited
to revive
with Neo-Darwinism.
Lysenko's
attempts
of
Lamarck's
of
the
inheritance
habits,
accepted
officially
acquired
theory
us of the contrary.
In Engels'
of the Stalin era, reminds
through most
as a simplistic
trans
criticizes Darwinism
papers one passage
unpublished
contra omnes and bourgeois
bellum omnium
economic
of Hobbes'
position
i Engelsa
to the development
of nature
(Archiv K. Marxa
struggles
II, p. 62.)
[Moscow],
66
trans. C. Dutt,
thesis that
Dialectics
p. 26. Hegel's
of Nature,
of an
until
remain
changes
purely quantitative
they surpass the "measure"
a
occurs
in
at
is
found
which
Wissenschaft
object,
point
qualitative
"leap"
The "vice versa"
Science
der Logik,
pp. 333-336.
pp. 343-346;
of Logic,
"But we have
is based on Hegel's words:
which has puzzled commentators
are not only the transition
seen that the alterations
of
of being in general
one magnitude
and
from quality into quantity
into another, but a transition
vice versa" (Logik I, p. 383; Science
p. 370).
of Logic,
67
of the law
is shown the correctness
science,
"Here, as in natural
differences
discovered
(in his 'Logic'), that merely
by Hegel
quantitative
I, p. 309).
changes"
(Capital
beyond a certain point pass into qualitative
as developed
A footnote refers to a molecular
theory of modern
chemistry
on June 22, 1867,
In a letter written
to Engels
and Gerhardt.
by Laurent
a
in
series.
Marx also refers to the qualitative
leap
quantitative
68
129-137.
op. cit., pp.
Cf., Rosenthal,

683
MARX'S DIALECTIC
Engels
that
argues
the
entire
sulted
from small quantitative
turned
into qualitative
changes
flora
present
and
fauna
changes
accumulating
over millions
of years.69
re
have
until
they
Character
istically, Plekhanov and Lenin removed the law from the first place
The two Russians were anxious enough
which it held with Engels.
to provide
social
theory
marily
tion,
concerned
the
other
with
as
a "scientific"
with
sidered change essentially

social
subordinate
above
they found,
Their
interest
namics.
they
con
Both were
pri
but
as a philosopher
In Hegel's
revolutionary.
conflict,
a practical
all, a method
foundation,
to conflict.
one
of revolu
dialectic
for the understanding

of social dy
was
second
sciences
entirely
in the positive
ary. Yet, they felt, the dialectic would remain an idealist theory
of action, unless it was integrated with the determinist laws of the
In this respect, Lenin remained a faithful follower
material universe.
Z. A. Jordan's suggestive description of the "political
of Plekhanov.
cosmology" of one applies equally well to the other.
As long as Plekhanov
the concurrence,
and con
considered
sequence
of historical
events alone, revolutions
and upheavals were
catenation
bound to remain what
and un
contingent
they actually are, namely,
occurrences.
doctrine
of leaps
foreseeable
Only the cosmological
the inevitability
of political
revolutions
allowed him to establish
by
some kind of cosmic decree and natural necessity.70
for the
The law of the interp?n?tration
of opposites
is "cosmologized"
over with strife, conflict and con
same reason: "A universe
brimming
for a social and political theory
tradiction offers self-evident
advantages
and class struggle."71
based on the concept of class antagonism
Thus the two men who restored Hegel's

were,
ment
by a perverse
paradox
a homogeneous
toward
of fate, also
materialist
dialectic to Marx's
responsible
for
theory,
its develop
system.
Yet it took a different kind of mind to complete this develop

ment.
Engels had first attempted to streamline Marxist dialectic
a
into "scientific" system. Yet he had been too close toMarx's original
vision and had perhaps remained too imbued by the spirit of Hegel's
philosophy to reduce the dialectic to a unified, scientific theory. Stalin
came better prepared for the task of reducing the dialectic to a cosmic
69
He fails to account for the "vice-versa"
of the transition from quantity
to quality.
For some contemporary
op. cit.,
cf., Planty-Bonjour,
attempts,
pp. 126-127.
70
Z. A. Jordan, The Evolution
(New York:
Materialism,
of Dialectical
St. Martin's Press,
1967) p. 204.
71
Ibid., p. 205.

684
LOUIS DUPR?
"spirit" or by a thorough
by Marx's
acquaint
an orderly
and endowed
with
school-master's
Unencumbered
system.
ance with Hegel's
work
he felt but little empathy with
mind,
a dialectic
If dialectical
of freedom.
as Marx's
claimed
theory
were,
they
the unpredictable
novelty
of
"necessary,"
no good
reason
to
were
developments
there was
keep politics apart from a deterministic but fully dialectical cos

Stalin uninhibitedly proceeded to homogenize history and
mology.
nature.
Significant for his attitude is that he restored the law of
the transition from quantity to quality to the primary position which
it had held in Engels and from which Plekhanov (followed by Lenin)
had removed it. To Stalin the qualitative leap constitutes the essence
of
the
now
to nature
evolution
in
and
the
in
the
equated
the dialectic
same
Thus
society
way.72
converted
into an all-comprehensive
of
theory
a
the revolutionary
but
presents
praxis
particular
apply
was
dialectic
Marx's
he
Since
of this process with progress,
creasing complexification
would
of nature.
process
evolutionary
of which
facet. Only with Stalin does the "monist view" of reality fully conquer
Marxist thought. All preceding positions still labored under too much
ambiguity to allow an entirely homogeneous description of all aspects
of reality. Idealist considerations kept interfering with the professed
materialism.
Stalin
ism. He may,
Marx's
revolutionary
what
sistency
have
thereby,
Yet
theory.
to remove
attempted
what
Marxism
its
of ideal
of
improved the logical consistency
Stalin
power.
was
by
last remnants
the
very
gained
attempted
nature
to
in coherence,
to
reduce
con
logical
to unity.
irreducible
in
it lost
He
thereby stifled revolutionary action into dialectical determinism, sub

jecting human initiative to the same necessity which rules the mate
rial world.
In retrospect,
we
notice
in the
of Marxist
development
theory
an increasing tendency to impose unity upon a dualist mode of think

ing. This was mostly attempted by eliminating the "idealist" factor
in favor of the "naturalist" one. If the attempts had ever completely
came
succeeded?Stalin
been
converted
into
close
to success?the
the unchanging
would
have
of nature.
But
dialectic
law of a system
72
"The dialectical method

therefore
[i.e., on the basis of this law]
not as movement
that the process of development
should be understood
but
of what has already occurred,
circle, not as a simple repetition
as a transition
from an old, qualitative
inward and upward movement,
as a development
from the simple to the complex,
from the lower
and Historical
(Dialectical
p. 9).
Materialism,
higher"

holds
in a
as an
state,
to the
MARX'S DIALECTIC
such
a "naturalist"
doubtful whether
devised
it, namely,
of history
future
685
dialectic
to understand
in such a way
as well
must
remain
as the means
the
It
descriptive.
it could still fulfill the purpose

social-economic
development
that we gain a certain knowledge

to hasten
is most
for which Marx

of the
its coming.
Yale University.


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Idealism and Materialism in Marx's Dialectic

Author(s): Louis Dupr

This content downloaded from 194.27.186.18 on Thu, 25 Dec 2014 20:47:36 PM

AND MATERIALISMINMARX'S DIALECTIC

decades than the dialectical method.

In the present contribution I propose to raise a

demands further justification,

its total context.

its own mean

They are part of that internal criticism

had been predom

pological angle. In the writings immediately preceding Capital the

This is not to say that Marx's philosophical concerns vanished

This content downloaded from 194.27.186.18 on Thu, 25 Dec 2014 20:47:36 PM

clearly indicates the continuing role of philosophy in Marx's work.

negation had consisted

in the opposition between

But only in the Grundrisse3 does Marx fully integrate the

His Life and Thought

(Gr. 22, McL

This content downloaded from 194.27.186.18 on Thu, 25 Dec 2014 20:47:36 PM

MARX'S DIALECTIC 651

rately: they are codetermined by a number of other factors and can be

of terms such as "produc

17). The meaning

tion by social individuals" (Gr. 6, McL, 18). Moreover,

of comparing similar (but never

into the concrete classes of which it consists, and the composition of

ticular form, it appears only at the end of a long, historical process

versal emerge at the end of the dialectic. Yet Marx's method is

contains consumption, and distribution itself is a form of producing

This content downloaded from 194.27.186.18 on Thu, 25 Dec 2014 20:47:36 PM

In his review of Marx's

web of relations in which it appears.7

tradiction. The internal relatedness of the categories can be fairly

This content downloaded from 194.27.186.18 on Thu, 25 Dec 2014 20:47:36 PM

come of specific historical factors, subject to historical metamorphoses

vious system of production and will, in time, be supplanted by a

III, Marx defines capital as "a definite social

ductive forces and for the creation of wealth"

(Capital III, 263-264).

cept intrinsically depends on a particular, historical

Though such a claim may hardly seem to go beyond the fundamental

human labor" (Capital I, 67), renders the

are to the editions published

This content downloaded from 194.27.186.18 on Thu, 25 Dec 2014 20:47:36 PM

that is at least relatively independent of use. Indeed, it is precisely

At an advanced stage of this process,

labor itself, the foundation of

can be bought and sold.

chosen and arbitrarily

"the money name of the labor realized in a commodity" (Capital I,

principal function consists not in the acquisition of goods, but in the

to sever all direct

it allows the economic process

labor. All that counts is the process

In the circulation m(oney)?c(ommodity)?m(oney)

that those conditions

of specific historical conditions.

cizes them for simply assuming

This content downloaded from 194.27.186.18 on Thu, 25 Dec 2014 20:47:36 PM

in his eyes, is the natural form of social production" (Capital I,

they resulted from a specific mode of producing, not from production

Ignoring the history of economic cate

Dupre - Idealism and Materialism in Marx's Dialectic

Dupre - Idealism and Materialism in Marx's Dialectic