Schumpeter and Marxist Dialectics - by Joseph BelbrunoSchumpeterbuch2

8/12/2019 Schumpeter and Marxist Dialectics - by Joseph BelbrunoSchumpeterbuch2

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The social process is really one indivisible whole (Ch.7)

The very notion of equilibrium or tranquility (the term preferred by Joan obinson)as applied to the body politic was very common in the !iddle "#es. $pecifically%

!arsilius of &adua spo'e of tranquilitas% meanin# a period of social peace and

prosperity (see . von ier'e% The Political Theory of the Middle Age.) *nterestin#ly%both "ntiquity and the !iddle "#es lac'ed the notion of revolution% which is a modern

+uropean concept ori#inatin# in the ,7thcentury (see -. "rendt% On Revolution).

"ntiquity 'new only of metabole% meanin# social chan#e% of stasis% meanin# civilwar% and of homo-noia% meanin# harmony or a#reement% and corruptio% obviously

meanin# corruption% that is% de#eneration from a perfect state (a perfectione ad defectum%

from perfection to defect). (n all this% see $. !aarino/s invaluable and irreplaceableIl

Pensiero Storico lassico.)

Creative Destruction: SchumpetersEntwicklungand the Marxian Dialectic

There is however one thin# of fundamental importance for the methodology of economicswhich he 0!ar12 actually

achieved. +conomists always have either themselves done wor' in economic history or else used the historical wor' ofothers. 3ut the facts of economic history were assi#ned to a separate compartment. They entered theory% if at all% merely

in the role of illustrations% or possibly of verifications of results. They mi!ed "ith it only mechanically# $o" Mar!%s

mi!ture is a chemicalone&that is to say% he introduced them into the very ar#ument that produces the results. -e wasthe first economist of top ran' to see and to teach systematically how economic theory may be turned into historical

analysis and how the historical narrative may be turned into histoire raisonnee. (C$45% p.66)

Once more, Schumpeters con-fusion that is to say, the fusing together of concepts that are

incompatible, just as he did with theStatikand theDynamik becomes evident when we reflect

thoroughly on this most important passage. The reason why Marx is ableto introduce the facts of

economic history into the very argument that produces the resultscannot be due to anymethodology of

economicsbecause there is no such thing as a methodology of economics just as there is no

methodology of science. What leads to successful scientific studies is not an identifiable

methodology but rather a humanpraxisthat first identifies a desirable outcome and then sets

about to apply existing knowledge to achieve it and, in the practical process of doing so, may or

may not come out with that desirable outcome or other serendipitous outcomes. Each particular

scientificexperimentissui generis it is an experience - and there is no way of abstracting from

individual experiments to a broader methodology for the simple reason that no method will

ever be capable of being scientifically or logically connected to thepredictable(rather than

causal) relation that is ultimately found between events.

If we define theory as a series of abstract rules that connect facts in a predictive or apodictic

relation by means of experiments, then it is obvious that no theory will ever be able to achieve

such a relation by means of a method because each experiment is, by definition, a unique

experience whose outcome cannot be formalised in isolation from the actual experience.

Furthermore, for what concerns the connection of theory with facts, first, the selection of facts

is itself arbitrary from a theoretical viewpoint in that it is the theory that selects the facts,

which means that the theory itself must be arbitrary from an objective theoretical or

scientific viewpoint! (Cf. Windelband, Thus,in the scientific sense, fact is already ateleological


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concept, [History and Natural Science, p.181]). And second, no amount of theorizing will ever be

able to establish any causal links between facts independently of thehuman interestinvolved

in isolating a particular chain of causality among an infinity of other causal chains (the point

was first established by Nietzsche from as early asUber Wahrheit und Luge, and then elaborated by

Weber [cf. hisObjektivitat]). After Nietzsche, we ought to know that there is noordo et connexio

rerum et idearum; after Heidegger, we know that there is noadaequatio rei et intellectus.

So it is certainly not because of a superiormethodology of economicsthat Marxian social theory

presents thischemicalfusion of fact and theory (or hypothesis) against themechanical

incongruence of bourgeois economic theory. But why, then, does Schumpeter believe that

when it comes to the analysis of capitalist industry and societyMarxs mixture [of facts

and theory] is a chemical onewhereas that of orthodox bourgeois economics is only

mechanical? The reason is that when Marx looks at capitalist society he looks at it from

the point of view of therelations of productionof its members and not from that of the

atomistic individual. If we take human beings not as social beings but as isolated

individuals and we then ascribe to them self-interests that are insatiable and also

absolutely incommunicable and incommensurable with one another, and if we thenassume that they initially possess given endowments which they are only able to

exchange with one another then it is entirely obvious that we will be able to come up

with a science of exchange (Hayekscatallactics) that will be the exact replica of

Newtonian mechanics in which there is a unique solution (Walrasian equilibrium) to all

the possible exchange ratios between all such individuals and their optimal

distribution of their original endowments to maximize their individual self-interests.

The peculiarity of this economic theory or economic science is thatit contains no history!No

historical factsare needed for this science because history is the record of metabolic

interaction of human beings not merelyinter se, between themselves as individuals or

groups, but also and above all with their physical environment, which is how theypro-

duce their needsand in so doing create and develop new ones, while all the time they

transform also their interpersonal relations in the process. In sharp contrast, there is no

metabolic interaction between the atomistic individuals of orthodox bourgeois

economic theory because there is nopro-ductionof needs on the part of these atomistic

individuals but only the simple pure exchange of given endowments an exchange

that exists only as a logico-mathematical equation and deduction and never involves

anyhistorical interactionbetween these individuals. There is no historical change in

neoclassical economic exchange: there is nohistoryin suchpure exchange.

History is not merely thehistoria rerum gestarum(the record of personal or institutional actions)

but rather it is the record of how human beings interact with one another and with their

physical environment: history is the record of humanmetabolic pro-duction. History is the

record of how human beings interact to fulfil and satisfy their changing needs by meta-

bolically interacting with their physical environment. It is this metabolic interaction

that forms the content of history. History is not just the record of human relations; it is

the record of social relations of pro-duction because not just the distribution of the

product but above allhowandwhatis pro-duced are essential to understanding human

history! It is thisimmanentismthat we are seeking to expound here by way of a critique


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of Schumpeters work so as to overcome the old antinomic dualism of materialism and

idealism.

But in this pro-duction of their needs, as a discrete albeit dependent aspect of it, the question

arises of how human beings may organize in such a manner that some exploit others in

the sense that the living activity of a section or class of human society is subordinated byanother section or class. In capitalism the specific form of subordination relates to the

exchange of dead labour with living labour, and specifically to the reality that such

exchange can occur only through political violence because no exchange of living with

dead labour could take place without such violence. It is over this discrete, distinct reality

of conflict and antagonism in the process of human metabolic production of their needs

that thedialectical methodcan be applied to assess the validity of socio-theoretical

accounts of this antagonism.

The peculiarity of the dialectical method, even and especially in its pre-Socraticorigins, is that it is a negative procedure that does not seek to establish the

truth as if the truth ec-sisted! If it did, there ould be no need for thevery concept of truth, as iet"sche established as early as #ies and Truth, but rather it seeks to establish a dialogue $hence dialectics% beteenopposing sides onto a common ground $thepolemos, or dispute% from hichthe dispute may be resolved or better super-seded& $'f& (iorgio 'olli, LaNascita della Filosofa&% The fact that dialectics is not a positive method but israther a negative one that eliminates aporetic concepts one that involvesonly a becoming, not a scienti)cprogressus is evinced by *egel+semphasis on the negation of the negation rather than, as is commonly anderroneously believed, on the seuence thesis-antithesis-synthesis! $'f&orberto obbio+s instructive Studi Hegeliani& Theodore .dorno+s Introductionto Negative Dialecticsis characteristically opaue but highlights this criticalrole of the *egelian method&% Still, *egel+s greatest intuition as the notion of

Au-hebung, hich rests on the convergenceof human needs theVersohnung- rather than on their irreconcilability&

/Interestingly, those philosophers for hom there is an un)llable hiatus orseparation $0lato+s chorismos% beteen ideal $good% and $bad% reality $ormere appearances and the real orld% are those ho seek the social synthesis the methe1is but purely as an ideal2 hereas those ho identify realityand appearance $take the good ith the bad% are those ho stress thedivergence of human needs, the inevitabilityand ineorabilityof antagonism e1istence as it is, esse est percipi& It all goes back to physis hethernature is fundamentally good or bad&3

The obvious danger in treating dialectics as a positive method is that some may

then mistake it for a positive science in the ay that 4ngels distorted it intheAnti-Duhring& The danger is that the dialectical method is abused to layclaim to a vie of human pra1is, of history, and of human society as if itrepresented a totality, one indivisible hole or an organism& This is apitfall that tempted not 5ust *egel ith his notion that the hole is greaterthan its parts, but also 6ar1 in his insistence on regarding the capitalistprocess of production as a hole $the title to 7olume 8 of !apital%, and thenespecially #ukacs in H!! an e1cessively *egelian derivation of his thoughtthat he did not recant even in the 9:;< 0reface& #ukacs thought that it as


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his confusion of alienation ith ob5ecti)cation that turned the notion oftotality into an eschatology, hen in fact his very theorisation of alienationand rei)cation as the inability to see the totality as against thefragmented and rei)ed form of alienated labour, and therefore the turningof dialectics into a method $cf& p&11vi%, as the real culprit& The distortionlies in treating the dialectical methodas a means of gaining access to

historical development as a totality because then e reduce the socialprocess and society to an identical sub5ect-ob5ect $#ukacs% or to anorganism $Schumpeter%, and cease to treat it as a living organism, that isto say, one that mutates and evolvesphysio-logically, ith the emphasis onthephysicalityof human needs& =ust as regrettable is the tendency to isolatethis method from political pra1is hich turns the real phenomena ofalienation and rei)cation 6ar1+s fetishism of commodities - from speci)chistorical forms of political violence into necessary illusions $#ukacs% thatarise directly from the mere rationali"ation of the social relations ofproduction as if indeed this rationali"ation could be based on any ob5ectiverationality independent of hat >eber styled as the rational organisation offree labour under the rigid discipline of the factory& .gain, >eber usesrational to describe the rigid discipline of the factory over free labour& ?et,as e argued in our >eberbuch, rationality consists of this rigid disciplineof the factory over free labour and therefore it is super@uous or pleonastic todescribe this as rational& ut if this ere so, then it is impossible to see hoe can dispel an illusion that is necessary or ho e can defeat anecessity that is illusory! The hole uestion of structure andsuperstructure hich obbio de)ned as the crucial concept in 6ar1ism $in"ramsci% - turns thus into the obscurest of veils and into the mostimpenetrable enigma one that threatens to 5ustify the mystiue of theleadership of the proletariat charged ith applying the dialectical methodto political reality so as to decipher its totality&

#ukacs re5ects the species as an abstraction eual to that of the individual, see*'', p9:8A

The individual can never become the measure of all things& Bor hen the individual confrontsreality he is faced by a comple1 of ready-made and unalterable ob5ectsCDnly the classcan react to the hole of reality in a practical revolutionary ay& $The Especies+ cannotdo this as it is no more than an individual that has been stylised and mythologised in aspirit of contemplation&% .nd the class, too, can only manage it hen it can seethrough the rei)ed ob5ectivity of the given orld to the process that is also its onfate&

*eidegger+s more circumscribed phenomenological version is limited to the

authentic $eigentlich% perception of everyday reality by the Da-seinas#uhandenheit, as against its rei)ed obverse, 7orhandenheit& In each case, thehistorical sub5ect capable of perceiving reality, hether sociological $#ukacs%or ontological $=aspers+s $m-greiendeor all-encompassing% orphenomenological $*eidegger%, in its %otalitatis e1alted against the partial,fragmented, inauthentic, rei)ed e1perience of the mass or the pettybourgeoisie or the mob in the everyday life imposed by capitalism and itstechnology $%ec&ni&%& The confusion of technology as a pro-duct ith theob-5ect is featured in *eidegger+s discussion of .ristotle $'athmar&s, pF99%&Bor *eidegger, only those ho accept the being of physis and physis as being


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go beyond the domination of sub5ectivity by technical means 'athmar&s,ppFG9-F2 see also the blatant elitism of the (inuhrungdiscussed by(oldmann& .t a political level, the inauthentic perception of rei)ed socialreality leads to hat #ukacs called the false consciousness of the proletariathich therefore reuires leadership by the #eninist 0arty to be guided backinto totality& Df course, #ukacs+s #eninist vision of totality suHers the same

elitist fate!3

The notion of totality ill play the most prominent role in all social theoryaround the turn of the century as an attempt to overcome thedichotomy or separation of Sub5ect and Db5ect formalised for modernmetaphysics by escartes ith his distinction of res cogitans$soul% andres etensa$body%& Df course, in our classi)cation, this is a reciprocalaction hose comprehension leads to the notion of organic totality&

The ay out of this seemingly insuperable opposition antinomy,apory, dichotomy beteen Sub5ect and Db5ect is uite obviouslythrough its historicisation, in the manner indicated by *egel and then#ukacs, that is, through the category of labour hich is the actionthat intervenes to mediate and historicise the )1edness of Sub5ect anDb5ect& ut this history cannot be comprehended ideally orconceptually by means of the dialectical method hich is thedelusion that #ukacs fell into in *''& .s e have seen, the dialecticalmethod is not a positive tool for predicting the future or guiding pra1is,but it is instead a purely negative critical tool& #ukacs+s *egelianprivileging of the proletariat as the identical sub5ect-ob5ect of historyhas three sourcesA Schopenhauer+s critiue of Jant, *egel+s dialecticalidealism, and 6ar1+s %heses on Feuerbach$especially the )rst, seep&9


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evolution% " becomes 3) as 3ohm93awer' intuited and 3obbio has e1plained (cf.*a )obbes a

Mar!).

Dialectics cannot be used as apositivemethod to determine or to predict human historical events:

it can only be used negatively as acriticaltool to assess the historical validity of a given

socio-theoretical hypothesis. In a nutshell, the dialectical method may be dissected into

three principles, as Engels did inAnti-Duhring.Thefirst principle, which says that

quantitative increments lead to qualitative change, is a banality when it is not a tautology

(incidentally, Schumpeter uses this approach at pp.220ff ofBusiness Cyclesto describe

innovations, although he too points out the simplicity of this distinction).

The second isthe principle of reciprocal action which means that when two factors are in

opposition, they interact with each other. Hence, it is incorrect to say that nature is

what conditions human beings, or the opposite, because clearly the two must interact

indeed it is not possible to conceive of human beings without nature and even vice

versa because the concept of nature implies a non-nature which is clearly human

being. This principle is analytically valid because it serves to distinguish for analytical

purposes between different factors of human reality, but it is historically inapplicable if it

is considered purely from the standpoint of ontological analysis, because then its

conceptual framework becomes thoroughly ahistorical and indeed as banal as the first

component of the dialectical method! Any historical and socio-theoretical analysis that

identifies conflicts that cannot be resolved turns quite evidently into an ahistorical

hypostasis; in other words, it turns a problem of human agency into an ontological entity.

This is why onlythe third principleof the Hegelian-Marxian dialectical method,the principle of the

negation of the negation, is valid both for analytical and historical purposes because it

reminds us that all analyses of antithetical and conflicting historical concepts must

include at the very least the possibility of the historical resolution, of the over-coming and

the super-session of any antagonism and conflict that may be the object of that historical

or socio-theoretical analysis. The problem with interpreting the dialectic in the sequence

thesis-antithesis-synthesisis quite simply that here thesyn-thesisis meant to preserve

both the thesis and the anti-thesis. Yet, as Gramsci vehemently argued, the antithesis does

notpreservebut rather it firstnegates and thendissolves(Auf-heben) the thesis which is

why Hegel and Marx preferred to speak ofthe negation of the negation(in which no part

of the thesis is preserved, precisely because it is negated by the anti-thesis) as the

supersessionof the conflict between thesis and antithesis. Here the moment of antithesis,

the antagonism as negation, must contain (hold and refrain at the same time, see Cacciari,Il Potere che Frenaon this notion ofcatechon, containment) the moment of supersession

of the antagonism the negation of the negation.

Bobbio on Marxian dialectics:

5i fronte a due enti in contrasto% il metodo della com90>?@2

penetraione de#li opposti% o me#lio dellAa+ione reciproca%

conduce a mantenere entrambi i termini del contrasto e a


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considerarli come condiionantisi a vicenda; al contrario% il

metodo della nega+ione della nega+ioneconduce a considerare

il primo eliminato in un primo tempo dal secondo, e il

secondo eliminato in un secondo momento da un ter+o termine#

*l primo metodo viene applicato a eventi simultanei% il

secondo% a eventi che si dispie#ano nel tempo8 perciB questAultimo

un metodo per la comprensione della storia (vuoi della

storia della natura% vuoi della storia dellAuomo)% (pp.>??9@)

ostrumento di questa comprensione unitaria era la./012

dialetticacome rileva+ione delle opposi+ioni eloro risolu+ione#

$olo che la unitD concreta nello studio dello svol#imento

storico #li era apparsa come il risultato della sintesi

degli opposti(negazione della negazione)% donde la cate#oria

del corso storico dellAumanitD il divenire; nello studioscientifico della realtD% lAunitD concreta #li apparve come il

risultato di una interrelaione de#li enti che lAintelletto

astratto ha erroneamente isolati #li uni da#li altri ( aione

reciproca ) % donde la cate#oria unitaria della totalit organica.ome il divenire3 composto di diversi momentiin opposi+ione,

cos4 la totalit organica3 composta di diversi enti

in opposi+ione#a dialettica, come metodo di risolu+ione

delle opposi+ioni, si presenta l5 come sintesidegli opposti,

qua come azione reciproca#Il divenire, in altre parole, 3 il

risultato di successive nega+ioni, o se si vuole di un continuo

superamento 6 il ter+o termine 7 & la totalit organica3 il

risultato di un intrecciarsi delle reciproche rela+ioni degli

enti, o, se si vuole, di una integra+ione 6 che non risolve i

due termini in un terzo ), (*a )obbes a Mar!% pp.>@E9,).

Notice how in the quotation above Bobbio makes two mis-statements. The first is when he says

that the negation of the negation contains two moments wherebyin the first momentthe

negation eliminates the thesis, andin the second momentthe negation of the negation

eliminates the negation. This is entirely misleading because the negation of thenegation is, yes, a separate moment from the negation, and the negation is in turn a

distinct moment of the thesis. But these moments are separate and distinct only as

dialectical moments, only as aspects of the antagonism, certainly not as

chronological moments! This means that the negation of the negation is anecessary dia-

logical momentof the negation and the negation is a moment of the thesis: but these are

notchrono-logical momentsthat are separate in time! What is chrono-logical is only the

necessaryextrinsicationof the antagonism contained in the thesis in historical time. But

the thesis, its negation and the negation of the negation aredialectical aspectsof the one

antagonism whose resolution (as Bobbio calls it; we prefer the term supersession)

must take place historically if the antagonism in question is indeed historical and not

ontological: they are not moments in achrono-logicalsense as Bobbios explicationwould lead us to believe.

The second error is that whereby Bobbio confusesthe synthesis of oppositeswiththe negation of

the negation. As we saw above, and as Bobbio himself noted in a later review of

Gramscis use of the dialectic (cf. Nota sulla dialettica in Gramsci, inGramsci e la

Concezione della Societa Civile) with the analytical acuity that was always his great

attribute as a thinker, this identification ofsynthesisandnegation of the negationis quite


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incorrect because, although both involve a form ofhistorical becoming(Italian,divenire),

only the latter the negation of the negation specifies that the thesis is notpreservedby

the antithesis but that both are entirelysuperseded! The notion of syn-thesis instead, as

the very name suggests, involves the preservation of the thesis in the antithesis as syn-

chronic and therefore ahistorical or ana-lytical moments. This is a point to which

Gramsci held fast (cf. theQuadernion Il Materialismo Storico) and it is in relation toGramscis interpretation of the dialectical method that Bobbio finally hits the mark where

earlier (inDa Hobbes a Marx) he had failed to do so.

As Adorno most adroitly insists (in Lectures 1. pp6-7), the antithesis and its negation arealready

containedin the thesis this is why the thesiscontainsits antagonism -, but are not

containedbyit because theyexplodethe thesis which is what is meant by contra-

diction intended historically as the ex-plosion of the thesis or the historical

extrinsication of the antithesis contained in the thesis and its resolution in its negation,

that is, the supersession of both thesis and the antithesis contained in it. This is not a

triadic movement of thesis-antithesis-synthesis. There is no syn-thesis because theantagonism contained in the thesis (which is a unity of concept and object), which

generates the antithesis, does not preserve the thesis and the antithesis (as the syncretism

of synthesis implies) but rather explodes both (they can no longercontainin

themselves the antagonismcontained bythemselves) and is resolved in the negation of the

negation.

Fevertheless% what * intend to present to you as ne#ative dialecticspossesses somethin# quite crucially related to the concept of dialectics[6]

in #eneral 9 and this is somethin# * wish to clarify at the outset. It is

that the concept of contradiction will play a central role here% moreparticularly% the contradiction in things themselves% contradiction in

the concept% not contradiction bet"een concepts.

Adorno should specify that there is contradictioninthe concept, not contradictionbetweenthem

only because there is antagonism in the object. This is so because the concept cannot

be isolated from its object: the contradiction that negative dialectics addresses is in the

concept; but this is only because, most importantly, there is antagonism in the object

or the historical reality that the concept seeks to describe.

Moreover, there is no synthesis because the negation of the negation is not a positive it is not a

Hegelian reconciliation but a real obliteration, overcoming and supersession of the

antagonism implicit in the thesis both as concept (ideology) and as real object

(antagonism).

[17] And this is why I would say in general that the thesis that the negation o the negation is !ositi"e, an

air#ation, cannot be sustained$ The negation of the negation does notresult in a positive, or notautomatically#

Care must be taken to remember thatthe dialectical method may be applied only to historically

antagonistic relations: - only to concepts that apply to historical realities that contain

antagonism thatexplodesthe concepts, which cannot be containedbythem although it is

containedinthem, and that lead to thesupersessionof the historical reality described by


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the concepts. The dialectical method does not apply to concepts as concepts that can be

described by the second distinction made by Bobbio above, which has a purely analytical

role but not a historical one.

For example, the notion of competition, as we discussed earlier in our study, contains the

notion of monopoly (the aim of competition is to eliminate all other competitors). Thismeans that the extrinsication of competition its practical historical unfolding will lead

to its negation monopoly. But monopoly still contains in itself the historical

antagonism that brought about the original state of competition. It is not until this

original state is entirely destroyed and obliterated by the negation of the negation that

competition is finally abolished or superseded. But this supersession of competition is not

a reality that must occur because it somehow contains a dialectical contradiction! All

it may be said to contain is antagonism: but whether or not this antagonism results in a

specific historical development is something that no dialectical method can

positively predict!

Adorno uses the example of concept and object which like those of nature and society,nature and history, body and mind - are not dialectical but are ontological and

subject only either to formalism (antinomies, apories as in Kant) or to reciprocal action

(organic totality). These concepts give rise either to formalism (Platonic, Kantian, with its

chorismos) or to the notion of organic totality (amethexisseen only as ahistorical

organic totality) both of which are hypostases, static and immutable concepts, and are

therefore amenable to dialectical critique which unmasks their separation, their

chorismos, and reminds us that the two opposites are so only because they are not

applied metabolically and historically we could say, concretely - and are instead

exasperated as antinomic dichotomies. Seen formalistically or reciprocally there appears

to be no dialectical relationbetweenthem; but once we examine thecontentof each

concept and seek to apply it historically we find its opposite is already contained in it.

Only when these concepts are applied historically and metabolically can they contain

actual antagonism and in this sense contain also acontra-dictionwithin the thesis

amenable to dialectical critique. So long as we consider the concepts of economics and

sociology, of nature and society or of body and mind, there is no contradiction except for

the fact that they are hypostatic and aporetic they are antinomic. It is only once we

apply them to historical situations that they becomeantagonisticin their use, as a

matter of praxis, and then theircontra-dictioncomes to the fore. This is what Adorno hints

at in this passage in which the historical metabolic dimension is specified by reference to

the confrontation of concepts with objects:

*nstead% the ne#ativity * am spea'in# about contains a pointer to what -e#el calls determinatene#ation. *n other words%

ne#ativity of this 'ind is made concrete0historical and metabolic2 and #oes beyond merestandpoint philosophy0formalism% or#anicism2 by confrontin# concepts with their 0historical2 obGects and% conversely% obGects with their

concepts. "dorno% p.>?

Indeed, as Adorno has contended, the hypostatisation of dialectical concepts their positivity,

immutability or closedness - is a flaw that afflicts also Hegels phenomenology or

objective idealism, despite its undoubtedly revolutionary role in inspiring the later

development of the dialectical method as a critical tool by Marx.


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0,?2 This% then% is the model of that positive ne#ativity8 the negation of the negation as a ne" positivethat appears in

-e#elian philosophy as a new model. *ncidentally% it should be pointed out that one of the very stri'in# features of

-e#elAs philosophy% one whose si#nificance has not been sufficiently appreciated% is its dynamic nature. 3y this * meanthat it does not re#ard its cate#ories as fi1ed% but instead thin's of them as having emerged historically and therefore as

capable of change. +ven so% in reality its conceptual apparatus contains much more that is immutable% incomparably

more that is constant% than it lets on. "nd these constants come to the surface to a certain de#ree a#ainst the intentions

of this philosophyH. ("dorno%ecturespp.,?97)

Ior it is precisely this Ahavin# somethin#A% havin# it as

somethin# fi1ed% #iven and unquestioned on which one can comfortably

rely 9 it is this that thou#ht should actually resist. "nd the very

thin# that appears as a flaw in a philosophy that does not have this

quality is in truth the medium in which philosophical ideas that are

worthy of the name can thriveH.p.>?0"dorno/sectures on $egative *ialectics2

(Adornos Introduction toNegative Dialecticssuperbly describes the need for the dialectical

method to embrace the object materially, as history, asphysis in other words, to

include thatmetabolic interactionthat is our focus in this work. This is a point that

Merleau-PontysPhenomenology of Perceptionand the rest of his work cf. the English

collectionThe Merleau-Ponty Reader highlights masterfully. See also our discussion of

Colletti just below and our The Philosophy of the Flesh on scribd.com.)

The later chapter in AdornosNegative Dialecticson Concept and Categories discusses the

importance of the negative use of dialectics. On Marxs naturalism see A. Schmidt,

Marxs Concept of Nature, and C. Luporini,Dialettica e Materialismo. Marxs insistence on

method and particularly on organic totality as a conciliation of the nature/society

dichotomy is noted by Schmidt (pp.40ff) but without pointing out its defects

positivity as against negativity of the dialectic which then cannot be seen as

method but at most as a critical tool. Schmidt correctly distinguishes between Marxs

emphasis on the historical development of science as reflecting human interests and

needs and Engelss quite erroneous application of the dialectical method to the

development of nature itself (!) as in the case of the cell as the being-in-itself of the

organism. It is one thing to apply the dialectical method negatively, it is another to apply

it positively as often does Marx with the reciprocal action to claim a superior

com-prehension of historical development as organic totality; and then it is quite

another to transfer, as Engels does, this dialectical analysis and critique to the very

internal development not of the science of nature but of nature itself! It is one

thing to claim that human science (of nature or of history) develops dialectically, and

quite another to opine that nature itself (whatever that is!) obeys dialectical laws!

Schmidt distinguishes between the Marxian application of dialectics to a unified natural-historicalrealm whereby the two condition each other and the Engelsian application of the

dialectical method to nature and history as separate spheres such that the dialectical

method is abstracted from them and acquires a life of its own (pp.50ff). At p.54, Schmidt

concludes:


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Schmidt is entirely right here. Yet, whilst he does chastise the Engelsian abuse of dialectics as a

cosmic positive principle (p.53), we cannot agree with his attempt to minimise or

obfuscate Marxs own mistaken use of reciprocal action as a positive method of

understanding reality even in the Marxian distinction between investigation and

presentation. Dialectics may be used only negatively, to sift out hypostases in

historical explanations including scientific methods as objective procedures to find

out scientific laws. Schmidt believes that dialectical contradictions arise in human

history which is right so long as we see these contradictions as dia-logic tools toguide our praxis in anegativesense with regard to the interpretation of history that is,

to correct hypostases and eliminate antinomies and apories (as applied to concepts and

categories, says Adorno) -, but not as intrinsic to human history except in the sense of

antagonism. History contains antagonisms, but not dialectical contradictions.

This is a point that applies most eminently to Lukacss own conception of the dialectical

method. And in fact, Schmidt does not fail to advert to Lukacs in his own historical

interpretation of this positive dialectical method, in direct contrast to Engelss

extension of the dialectical method to nature (p.55):


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In the passage cited by Schmidt above Lukacs specifically refers to the reciprocal action of

subject and object which means that he was referring to historical reality, which was

the only reality possible for Lukacs and his identical subject-object in HCC, (an

attempt to put-Hegel Hegel, p.xxiii) and not also to pre-human and extra-human

nature as Schmidt believes, because such an a-historical notion is inadmissible toLukacs! Schmidt misconstrues the Lukacsian interpretation of the dialectic in that he

seems to believe that whilst the third law (contradiction) cannot be applied to nature,

at least the second law the law of reciprocal action - can be so applied: but Lukacs

is identifying nature with its human construct, history.

Again, Schmidt clearly maintains that there is such a thing as a dialectics of nature, as well as a

pre-human and extra-human nature that does obey the second law of dialectics

that of reciprocal action which is nonsense, whereas human history or society is

subject to all three laws. And indeed even Lukacs denies this, as we have seen, - but

only because he insists on the (equally Manichaean) distinction of history and naturein Marx whereby nature is a human construct not just conceptually but also as the

product of human objectification a Hegelian subversion of Marx to which Schmidt

rightly objects (at pp.77-8).


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Schmidts work was published before Lukacss 1967 Preface where he accepts this criticism, andCollettis. What neither Schmidt nor Lukacs do is allow for the category ofhuman needs

that are meta-bolic in that they are the pro-duct of human objectification as metabolic

interaction between humans and their physical environment (avoid the term nature

which separates the environment from humans rather than uniting the two immanently

so that the two are distinct but not opposing). There is no antagonism and therefore no

dialectic between humans and their physical environment: but antagonism is mediated

nevertheless by human needs that involve the environment.

All great Marxist theoreticians Lukacs, Colletti, Schmidt incorrectly pinpoint this immanent

identification of human being and its physical environment through the notion of human

needs as well as labour as living activity or objectification precisely because they insist onthis equivocal word nature with its ontological overtones (something that Heidegger

wisely avoids, preferring physis, Pathmarks, p.183).

Lukacs:

*t is true that the attempt is made to e1plain all ideolo#ical phenomena by reference to their basis in economics but%

despite this% the purview of economics is narrowed down because its basic !ar1ist cate#ory% labor as the

mediator of the metabolic interaction between society and nature% is missin#H*t is self9evident that this means the disappearance of the ontological ob8ectivity of natureupon which this process of

chan#e is based% (-CC% p.1vii).

Here we can see most clearly how easily metabolic interaction between human being and its

environment is quickly confused withthe ontological objectivity of nature, which then

again can be unified or synthesised with society through the dialectic of

reciprocal action leading to a static organic totality something that Lucio Colletti

punctually does in the Preface to the Italian edition of Schmidts work where he praises

the authors insistence on the phrase dialectical materialism (in opposition to the

Engelsian, then Stalinist,Diamat).

Indeed it is this notion of totality that Lukacs defends as the still valid most important

contribution of HCC It is undoubtedly one of the great achievements of HCC to have


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reinstated the category of totality in the central position it had occupied throughout

Marxs works, though this was done at the expense of economics: -

It is not the primacy of economic motives in historical explanation that constitutes the decisive

difference between Marxism and bourgeois science, but the point of view of totality, he

had written in HCC. And specifically the adoption of the dialectical method was the

scientific way of reaching that point of view. (P.xx HCC)

This Manichaean view of the law of reciprocal action as a method to which nature is

subjected is revealed unequivocally by Schmidt in this statementat p.55:

In other words, only the law of reciprocal action may be applied to nature-in-itself, whereasthe law of negation of the negation can be applied only to human society. Note that

Schmidt seems to object to the interpretation of the dialectic as a purely objective

domain of prehuman and extrahuman nature, but has no objection to Engelss

presentation of the dialectical method as laws, presumably because he approves of

Marxs use of these laws to the unified (reciprocal action) field of nature and history.

At p.56:

Although the Marxian premise of a unity or organic totality of the interaction of nature and

society serves to minimise the damage of the positive use of dialectics whether in its

investigative or explicatory role, the fact remains that dialectics cannot be used either to

investigate or to explain anything at all! It is not a positive method full stop!

At p.57. Clearly here Schmidt elevates what can only be a negative use of dialectics, itsdia-logic

character, to an actualpositiverole as a process that determineshuman history in general

something that is quite inadmissible because it hypostatizes human history into a

fixed or reified or at least determinable process.


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[Colletti on unity of Marxian method.]But alas these are flaws that have afflicted theoretical

Marxism as well. As an illustration, we can allude to Lucio Collettis remarks inIdeologia e

Societa(at p.16ff) where he discusses Schumpeters quotation above concerning Marxs

ability to combine economic facts and theory in one indissolubly unifiedsynthesis. At

first, Colletti agrees with us that this chemical mixture is due precisely to the strictconnection in Marxian economic theory between the interpersonal human side and the

relation of human beings as a species to their physical environment, in such a way that

economics is never seen as a question of mere (universal, eternal) exchange but is

indeed treated as a theorisation of the satisfaction and creation of physiological human

needs in which pro-duction not exchange! is the essential aspect. It is from the

perspective ofthe production of human needsthat any distinction between theory and

fact, between economics and sociology, nature and history and most

important for Marxist theory structure and superstructure becomes illusory.

Colletti perceives the essential role ofproduction, ofmetabolic interaction, to the theorisation of

capitalism. But then he immediately falls victim to the confusion of dialecticalsynthesis that is to say, the interpretation of Marxian dialectics as the synthesis of

thesis and antithesis, instead of as the negation of the negation - with the notion of

organic totality, of unity, of the whole which is a trap into which much of what

we call theoretical Marxism has fallen in the past.

$i comprende H. come questa unitadi economiaesociologia% di naturaestoriain !ar1 non si#nifichiidentita/ dei due termini; come essa cioe/ non comporti ne/ una riduione della societa/ alla natura

ne/ una riduione della natura alla societa/8 non una riduione della societa/ umana al formicaio%

ne/ una riduione della vita umana a quella filosofica. !a si comprende anche per converso come

l/elusione di queste due antitesi unilateraliavven#a proprio in fora della loro composizione

organica% da parte di !ar1% e% quindi della loro riunificaione in un tuttoche e/% si/% totalita%

ma de-.192terminata; che e/ si/ sintesima di distinti; che e/ si/ unita% ma di eterogenei. 5ove e/

facile vedereH cio/ che !ar1 deve a -e#el e come% d/altra parte% e#li ne stia al tempo stesso

lontano%(IeS,pp.17-8).

Here Colletti confuses both the notion of negation, which he wrongly substitutes with

synthesis; and he confuses also the last two aspects of Marxian dialectics, one valid and

the other invalid, which, as we emphasised above, must be kept separate: he is quite

correct in insisting on the primacy of the process ofpro-ductionin the sense of metabolic

interaction that we have outlined in this work as the locus of political antagonism in

capitalism. This is essential to the notion of metabolic interaction or production as a

becoming (Bobbiosdivenire), that is, as a historical process of human objectification

that can be accompanied by historical forms of antagonism.

But then, as we are arguing, Collettihypostatisesthis historical antagonism by insisting on the

separate antithetical analytical categories or entities of nature and history and their

reunification or synthesis only from the theoretical perspective of an organic

totality or whole just like Schumpeters vision of the social process as one individible

whole or Lukacss notion of totality. The problem with this notion of totality, as

Bobbio splendidly explains, is that it depends on astaticantithetical opposition

(economics/sociology, society/nature, nature/history) that does not resolve the two


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[opposing] terms [thesis and antithesis] into a third, that is, into the negation of the

negation which is the supersession of this antithetical antagonism through its historical

extrinsication. Consequently, any theory that represents social reality as an organic

totality, as a fixed or positive entity, is not dialectical in that it does not allow for

thesupersession(HegelsAufhebung) of the social antagonism it seeks to theorise. To refer

to a dualism of society and nature, for instance, is to posit an antithesis that cannotbe superseded for the simple reason that neither society nor natureas conceptswill

ever be able to be negated. In reality, the two terms are not antithetical at all because

there is no antagonism, nocontra-dictionwithinthem that can be resolved historically.

Colletti relies on Dobb,Political Economy and Capitalism, who also stresses the limitation of

neoclassical theory to the sphere of exchange. Unlike Colletti, however, Dobb does not see

themetabolicside of capitalist production, and refers instead to the emargination by

bourgeois theory of all institutional and historical factors that is, its restriction of

economic theory to inter-personal relations and not to political elements or

superstructural ones. Because Dobb was a firm believer in the labour theory of value,to his mind the central antagonism of capitalism lies inthe unequal distribution of income

which is due to superstructural institutional factors. It is obvious how the labour

theory of value, by insisting on the existence of a Law of Value that determines prices

scientifically, removes the focus from the sphere of metabolic production whence is

derived its artificial separation of what it sees as thesuperstructuralaspects of capitalism

from its presumably strictlyeconomicorstructuralaspects. The same applies to Lenins

remarks [Philos.Notebooks] about skeleton and flesh-and-blood analysis. (See also

quotations from Friends of the People in Schmidt, pp42ff.)

Schumpeter and Marxist Dialectics - by Joseph BelbrunoSchumpeterbuch2

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