critique of marx's 1857 introduction rafael echeverria

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Critique of Marx's 1857 IntroductionRafael Echeverria

To cite this Article Echeverria, Rafael(1978) 'Critique of Marx's 1857 Introduction', Economy and Society, 7: 4, 333 — 366To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/03085147800000001URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03085147800000001

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Volume 7 Number 4 November 1978

Con tents

Rafael Echevarria Critique of Marx's 1857 Introduction

Marie Lavigne Advanced socialist society

Grahame Thompson Capitalist profit calculation and inflation accounting

Re vie W article

John Mepham The Grundrisse: method or metaphysics?

Notes on Authors

Volume Index

Published quarterly for the Editors by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. London, Henley and Boston

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Talal Asad University of Hull

Terence J. Johnson University of Leicester

Ernesto Laclau University of Essex

Grahame Thompson Open University

Keith Tribe University of Keele

Harold Wolpe University of Essex

Sami Zubaida Birkbeck College, University of London

Claude Meillassoux Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris (Corresponding Member)

G. Carchedi University of Amsterdam (Corresponding Member)

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Economy and Society Vol 7 No 4 November 1978

Critique of Marx's 7857 lntroduc tion

Rafael Echeverria

1 . Definition of the problem

From its beginnings, the Marxist tradition of thought has had to confront the problem that Marx did not leave a clear and systematic exposition of his logic of investigation. Apart from a few passages in which Marx insisted upon the innovatory nature of his method, and those in which he indicated that this method was based on an inversion of the Hegelian dialectic, the necessary elements for an adequate characterisation of it were not given.

Marx himself was apparently aware of this gap, expressing his intention to write a work on the materialist dialectic. This project was first mentioned in a letter dated 14th January, 1858 to Engels, and reiterated eighteen years later in a letter to Dietzgen. In the latter Marx stated :

When I have shaken off the burden of my economic labours, I shall write a dialectic.'

Unfortunately, this project was never accomplished and its absence has given rise t o different and contradictory interpretations.

In recognising this problem, Lenin suggested an approach to its resolution :

If Marx did not leave behind him a 'Logic' (with a capital letter), he did leave the logic of Capital, and this ought to be utilized to the full in this q ~ e s t i o n . ~

According to Lenin, Marx's logic of investigation can be extracted from the logic exhibited and realised in Capital. Although this logic is not systematised, it can be found there, in the specific treatment of the object of analysis.

Lenin's suggestion entails two difficulties. The first of these, pointed out by Marx himself, is that the method of investigation is said to be distinct from the method of exposition. This means that if the exposition of Capital is to be used to specify the method of investigation which produces it, it is necessary to specify the existing relation between the logic of exposition realised in this


334 Rafael Echeverria

work anci the logic of investigation which, as Marx has warned us, is distinct from the former.

The second obstacle is to be found in the discovery of an Intro- duction written in 1857, which Marx intended to precede his major and still unwritten economic work. This text brings together related methodological considerations which appear to redeem the absence of an exposition of his logic of investigation. The discovery of this text has meant that the search for the logic of Capital has been subordinated to the formulations asserted there, and thus the problem has been defined in terms of determining the manner in which Marx fulfils in Capital the criteria advanced in the 1857 Introduction. Therefore, the reading of Capital has assumed the identity of the methodological criteria of both texts. As far as we know, there are no exceptions to this approach to the problem of Marx's logic of investigation. The r'857 Introduction has been elevated to the rank of an authority for decoding the logic of Capital from different political and theoretical positions, producing diverse interpretations. Althusser located the Introduction at the level of Marx's Discourse on et hod.^ In general, the content of this text has been treated uncritically as Marx's position on his logic of inve~tigation.~

Given the import of these interpretations, any attempt to decode Marx's logic of investigation requires a careful examination of the 1857 Introduction. One of the basic aims of this is to challenge the supposed identity of the criteria of the Introduction with those of Capital, and thus to demonstrate the profoundly problematic character of the Introduction. This Introduction was written before Marx's appropriation of Hegel,5 and this will prove to entail important effects. After a critical analysis of the 1857 Introduction, the distinction between the method of exposition and that of investigation will be tackled. Only then can Lenin's approach to the analysis of the logic of Capital be taken up.6

2. Critique of the 1857 Introduction

The Introduction was written between August and September of 1857, a period in which Marx proposed to develop systematically his analysis of capitalist society. It is not surprising that, as shown by the content of the Introduction, a main preoccupation was that of the method and order of analysis.

It must be made clear that Marx himself was not satisfied with what he had written in this text, as two years later he replaced the 1857 Introduction with the well-known 1859 Preface. In the Preface Marx criticised the Introduction recognising that it might generate some misunderstanding:


Critique of Marx's 1857 Introduction 335

I am omitting a general introduction which I had jotted down because on closer reflection any anticipation of results still to be proved appears t o me to be disturbing, and the reader who on the whole desires to follow me must be resolved to ascend from the particular to the general. ( M E S W , 180)

Although Marx's critique of his lntroduction is not generally considered, it, nevertheless, represents an important clue to the recognition of the problems contained in it. It is not a question of rejecting everything that is put forward in the 1857 Introduction, since in many respects the text illuminated some important aspects in connection with his logic of investigation. However, in order to recognise its effective contributions, specific deficiencies must also be identified.

2.1. Analysis o f the Introduction

In this section we will discuss the content of the 1857 Zntroduc- t ion according to its own order of exposition. This may prove to be hard t o follow. Nevertheless, it has the advantage of providing a more accurate reading from which t o develop our criticism. It is necessary to anticipate that we will pay special attention to Marx's use of the concepts of the abstract and the concrete, since we consider that they are central to his position and basic t o any assessment of this text.

The 1857 Introduction begins by indicating that

the object before us, to begin with, is material production. ( G , 83)

This first statement is open to two interpretations. On the one hand, it can be taken to mean that Marx considered 'material production' in itself to be the exclusive object of his analysis. In this case 'material production' is both the point of departure and the defined object of analysis. On the other hand, it could also suggest that, envisaging a wider object of analysis than 'material production', Marx considered that the explanation of this wider object should commence from the analysis of a restricted object, 'material production'. In this case, it does not necessarily follow that 'material production' must be the first term of analysis, since, in its turn, the analysis of 'material production' could well begin from an even more restricted object, an object which, while belonging t o material production is not, however, directly iden- tifiable with it. The difference between these two possible interpretations then, lies in the fact that in the second case, 'material production' as a first limited object of analysis, could in itself be analysed by starting from something different from itself. If this



is accepted, it means that while Marx posited material production as a restricted object from which the analysis must begin, none- theless, the problem of the actual starting point is still left to be decided. The development of Marx's argument permits the deduction that the initial statement is to be interpreted in the second sense for Marx is proposing the necessary recognition of the determinant nature of material production in history, and therefore, the necessity of considering it as the initial object of his study.

However, as an object of study, material production demands certain specifications. There are three alternative ways in which material production can be considered as an object of study:

(1) To define this object as production in general, (2) To examine the historical development of production, ( 3 ) To concentrate upon a particular stage in this development,

e.g. capitalist production, and its theoretical characterisation.

In the first section of the Introduction, Marx concentrated on dismissing the first option, i.e. the definition of 'production in general'. He does this by criticising the way in which political economy treats material production. His first critical observation affirms the necessity of conceiving production not as an individual activity, but in considering 'individuals producing in society' ( G ,

83), being, therefore, 'production by social individuals' ( G , 85). The isolated individual is not the 'natural individual' conceived by the economists. The fiction of the isolated individual is revealed through an examination of history, which proves that even this appearance is the product of highly developed social relations.

From this Marx deduced that production can only be referred to 'at a definite stage of social development' ( G , 85). 'Production in general', therefore, does not exist. This does not mean that a general concept of production is void of content and theoretically useless :

. . . all epochs of production have certain common traits, common characteristics. Production in general is an abstraction, but a rational abstraction in so far as it really brings out and fixes the common element and thus saves us repetition. ( G , 8 5 )

In this first reference to abstraction Marx indicates that, whereas production in general cannot be the object of study, the general concept of production is useful in its capacity to en- compass certain common characteristics of all modes of production, despite their particular deter~ninations. In this sense, the general concept of production constitutes a rational abstraction and has therefore a positive function, even though restricted to



merely avoid repetitions. It should be pointed out that the concept of abstraction used by Marx in this passage refers to a particular understanding of the construction of a concept, on the basis of general characteristics. The general concept of production is acceptable because it is sustained by the general character of certain features in all particular forms of production. This gives abstraction a markedly empiricist content, to the extent that it involves a simple generalisation from observable characteristics in reality.

Despite its positive function, the general concept of production, in its application to different stages of the evolution of production, must give way to the particular determinations proper to these stages. It is precisely these particular determinations which are theoretically important both in reference to the analysis of a determinate form of society and in the understanding of historical evolution. It should be indicated that Marx's treatment of the relation between the general and particular determinants in the Introduction differs from that presented later in Capital. In the Introduction Marx is inclined to separate the general and particular determinants, making them independent of each other. The particular is understood as that which is not accounted for by the general. In Capital, on the other hand, the particular is defined as the particular ordering of the basic and general elements of all processes of production. Every form of production must unify, in one way or another, the basic elements of the productive process and the particularity of every productive stage corresponds to particular forms of ordering general elements.

The specific manner in which this union is accomplished dis- tinguishes the different epochs of the structure of society from one another. (K , 11, 36-7)

Having argued that production in general has no real existence from a diachronic point of view, Marx then proceeds to demonstrate that it does not exist from a synchronic view point either. At each particular stage, production can only be recognised as a totality, or as a structured whole of particulars, but never in general. Production is particular synchronically insofar as it refers to particular branches of production: agriculture, cattle-raising, manufacture etc. However, this does not mean that production should be reduced t o its mere particular forms: '. . . production is not only particular production' ( G , 86). The branches of production are integrated in a structured totality, forming a social body and a social subject, active in the diverse branches.

After developing a critique of the use made by the economists


3 38 Rafael Echeverria

of the general concept of production, from which they derive certain general preconditions of all production, Marx concludes:

There are characteristics which all stages of production have in common, and which are established as general ones by the mind; but the so-called general preconditidns of all production are nothing more than these abstract moments with which no real historical stage of production can be grasped. (G, 88)

Despite Marx's acceptance of abstraction, he assigns it an insig- nificant role in its capacity for explanation of distinct historical stages.

In the second section of the Introduction Marx examines the relation between production, distribution, exchange and consumption, criticising both the political economists for separating these inadequately, and those he calls 'socialists, belletrists and prosaic economists', who consider these moments as identical. Once again, Marx's position is based on the concept of totality.

The conclusion we reach is not that production, distribution, exchange and consumption are identical, but that they all form the members of a totality, distinctions within a unity. Production predominates not only over itself, in the antithetical definition of production7, but over the other moments as well. ( G , 99)

Each moment leads to the next, but this does not impede recognition of the primacy of production. This reinforces the priority of production as the restricted object of study, even at the level of the economic structure itself.

In this second section there are two critical references to the concept of abstraction. The first refers to: 'humanity in the abstract' (G, 94), rejecting the false identity of production and consumption. The second emphasises the importance of the recognition of distribution within production, which, if over- looked, leaves an 'empty abstraction', a concept lacking sense.

The third section of the Introduction entitled 'The Method of Political Economy', is undeniably the most important, and it is within it that the deficiencies of the text are most apparent. Here Marx approaches two distinct questions. The first is his relation to the discussion of the two options left open for the determination of the restricted object of study after the dismissal of what has been referred to as 'production in general'. The second refers to the logic of investigation once the problem of the object of study has been resolved.

This section begins with a hypothetically constructed argument. When Marx confronts the object of study of political economy,



i.e. the politico-economic analysis of a determinate country, he indicates that appearances suggest the correct method consists in taking population as a point of departure, representing that real and concrete being the basis and the subject of the social act of all production. This is t o say that Marx locates himself within the. perspective of a defined object of study, examines the method of analysis imposed by appearance, indicating its point of departure. Having formulated this hypothetical argument, he then moves t o its critique.

The argument is as follows: although the population is a real concrete, it proves t o be an abstraction if, for example, the social classes of which it is composed are dispensed with. Social classes in their turn are demonstrated as 'an empty phrase' (note the previous allusion to 'empty abstractions') without consideration to their constituent elements: wage labour, capital, etc. These elements themselves are deficient without consideration of exchange, division of labour, prices, etc. Therefore, as a starting point, population 'would be a chaotic conception of the whole' (G, loo), demanding an analytical movement towards even more simple concepts

from the imagined concrete towards even thinner abstractions until I had arrived at the simplest determination. ( G , 100)

This would entail working back to the concept of the population

but this time not as a chaotic conception of the whole, but as a rich totality of many determinations and relations. (G, 100)

Marx argues that this two-way road is followed by the economists of the seventeenth century, in the origins of economic science. They began from the concrete whole, i.e. the population, only t o return to it. However, according to Marx, the initial endeavour is completely unnecessary and can only be justified as a search for a few abstract and general definitions, which once attained, permit the return. Therefore, despite appearances, correct scientific method should obviate the first endeavour and be directed from these abstract and general definitions towards the concrete:

The concrete is concrete because it is the concentration of many determinations, hence unity of the diverse. It appears in the process of thinking, therefore, as a process of concentration, as a result, not as a point of departure, even though it is the point of departure in reality and hence also the point of departure for observation and conception. (G, 101)

Marx indicates that this is the proper way t o reproduce the concrete in thought.



A close examination of Marx's argument is necessary. First, it must be recognised that the logical trajectory proposed in the Introduction is neither different, nor critical with respect to that followed by classical political economy. On the contrary, by criticising only the logic of investigation used in the origins of economic science in the seventeenth century, Marx proposed a direction which coincides with that of Smith and Ricardo. Smith initiates his analysis with the division of labour, and Ricardo with the examination of value or exchange value. Both starting points correspond to abstract and general determinants, exactly as Marx proposed and, therefore, his position is simply endorsing the methods of classical economy.

On the other hand, it is evident that the whole argument is based on the simultaneous and contradictory presence of two different concepts of abstraction. If the population is criticised as a starting point because it is abstract, it is not possible t o conclude that the analysis should be initiated from abstract and general definitions without a resulting introduction of a new and completely different concept of abstraction. This point has been generally ignored in the interpretations of this text, which vainly attempts to attain a consistency between two opposing concepts of abstraction. The 1857 Introduction is a text in transition between a conception of science with Feuerbachian undertones and a completely different conception, which will be inaugurated as a stable position in 1858. Yet, as a transitional text, the 1857 Introduction anticipates, albeit in a contradictory manner, some aspects of the later conception. Marx's defence of abstract and general definitions clearly indicates his shift towards the adoption of a position in which abstraction will be considered as an indis- pensable recourse for scientific work.

The 1857 Introduction illustrates Marx's move towards certain positions contained in Hegel, although Marx did not have access to the Science of Logic when writing it. This was sent to him in October, 1857, after he had finished the Introduction and there is only evidence of reappraisal at the beginning of 1858. Neverthe- less, Marx examined some of Hegel's arguments in the Introduc- tion and asserted that, despite questionable and mistaken conclusions, these possessed a certain merit. However, Hegel's influence is not limited t o explicit reference and it is even strongest when it is not openly acknowledged. One instance, as demonstrated by Carver, occurs in the final section of Marx's argument. When Marx refers to the concrete he is almost directly paraphrasing Hegel, who had written in the Science of Logic:

The concrete totality which makes the beginning contains as such within itself the beginning of the advance and develop-



ment. As concrete, it is differentiated within itself; but by reason of its first immediacy the first differentiated determination~ are in the first instance merely a diversity. The immediate, however, as self-related universality, as subject, is also the unity of these diverse determinations.

The differences notwithstanding, there is undoubtedly common ground between the positions held by Hegel and Marx. However, an important displacement between both arguments should be noted. Whereas Hegel makes allusion to the concrete totality, Marx refers only to the concrete. Marx discards the concrete as a starting point, i.e. population, indicating that this represents the terminal point of the analysis. Marx twice recognises that the population, as concrete reality, refers to the 'whole', asserting also that it represents the basis and the subject of the entire act of production. Its 'emptiness' as a starting point actually results because it expresses totality, this being the reason why it would be the terminal point of the analysis, in which it is revealed as a concentration of many determinations and a unity of diversity. However, the inadequacy of the population as a starting point in relation to the concrete totality does not allow the deduction that the starting point should not be concrete, and even less that it should be abstract. This could only be asserted via a reduction of the concrete totality t o every concrete, which is a legitimate procedure only from an idealist Hegelian standpoint. From a Hegelian point of view, the reduction of the concrete totality to the concrete is a function of the idealist premise that that which is concrete is the truth. The 1857 Introduction oscillates between a Feuerbachian and a Hegelian position, without being able to conciliate both epistemological perspectives. The population is first considered to be concrete because it is real in Feuerbachian terms; and then it is considered to be abstract because it is still theoretically indeter- mined, in Hegelian terms. This results in an impossible conciliation. The ambiguous presence of the concept of concrete totality in Marx's argument, clear in that of Hegel, impedes the distinction between the particular concrete and the concrete totality, as will be drawn later in his position, and this is the source of ambiguity in his argument. It will be superseded not by a mere superposition of the Feuerbachian and the Hegelian epistemological standpoints, but by a critical and rectificatory appropriation of Hegel, which will produce an original Marxist distinction between the concrete and the abstract.

This can be seen as the principal logical inconsistency of the 1857 Introduction, recognised by Marx in the 1859 Preface and rectified in Capital. In indicating in the Preface his decision to abandon the Introduction, on account of its disturbing effects and



in the necessity t o move 'from the particular t o the general', Marx distinguished the particular in the analysis of the concrete, moving away from his previous reduction of the concrete t o the concrete totality.

Captive in that logical inconsistency, Marx was forced t o confront the problem of the scientific basis of those abstract and general definitions which he saw as a fitting starting point for his analysis. Given his materialist premises, these constitute a problem which could remain unanswered. The solution presented in the Introduction is the assertion that the abstract and general are known to be the result of observation and conception, processes in which concrete reality now becomes a real starting point. This argument is based on the recognition of three different instances: observation, conception and thought, (the functions of thinking and comprehending within thought are distinguished later). Also in this argument Marx is looking t o Hegel since in the Logic of the ~ n c ~ c l o ~ a e d i a : Hegel had also distinguished between Sense, Con- ception and Thought. Whereas for Hegel this distinction is not problematic, t o the extent that he conceives of the concrete as the product of thought, it is problematic for Marx who asserts not only the independence of concrete reality with respect t o the activity of thought, but also the practical determination of thought. The affirmation that abstract and general definitions are the product of observation and conception, necessitates a relation of unproblematic continuity between conception and these abstract definitions. These are considered t o be directly based on the immediate, wherein the solution acquires empiricist roots, contrary to the position Marx was t o assume later. Concepts such as value, surplus value, abstract labour, etc., Marx later recognised as without direct references in the immediate, but rather to be in an initially negative relation to immediate referents. The empiricist basis of the solution offered ~ e r m i t s Marx to locate at the same level of abstraction, concepts that will later be considered as having a distinct theoretical status, such as value, price and money ( G , 100). Price and money will no longer be conceived as abstracts in contradistinction to value.

The rest of the third section suffers from the absence of an adequate distinction between the concrete particular and the concrete totality, and the presence of two contradictory concepts of abstraction without 'the more rigorous concept of abstraction used later by Marx. In most of this section Marx examines the problem of the relation between that which he calls simple and abstract categories and concrete categories. The problem of the determination of concrete reality and abstract definitions is also posed. Con- cepts such as exchange value, possession, and money are treated as



simple and abstract categories in an apparent identification of the dimension of simplicity with that of abstraction. This was later to be rectified with the recognition of simple concretes such as commodities. In the same way the simple and abstract are identified with the scientific category.

Marx then proceeds to examine the concept of labour as a simple, scientific category. Here he maintains that economic science is from its origins related to the capacity of the category of labour to express a simple abstraction detached from the particular and concrete aspects of labour. This is first achieved by the classical economists, particularly Smith and Ricardo. Nevertheless, Marx understood that the conditions of possibility for the emergence of this abstract category of labour should be sought in objective reality. These conditions are met with the development of capitalist relations of production, within which labour attains in practice a high degree of indifference to its qualitatively concrete content, and also achieves extensive mobility.

Hence, then, for the first time, the point of departure of modern economics, namely the abstraction of the category 'labour', 'labour as such', labour pure and simple, becomes true in practice. The simplest abstraction, then, which modern economics places as the head of its discussions, and which expresses an immeasurably ancient relation valid in all forms of society, nevertheless achieves practical truth as an abstraction only as a category of the most modern society. (G, 104-5)

This conclusion is of great importance within his general theory. At this stage, however, Marx's analysis lacks his later rigorous distinction between concrete labour and abstract labour, different t o that presented in the 18.57 Introduction and, which he will consider as one of his two most important scientific discoveries. Marx was later to affirm the importance of the concept of abstract work without underestimating the analytical importance of the concept of concrete labour (MESC, 180).

On the basis of this conclusion, Marx once more encountered the problem of the definition of his object of study, in the sense of opting for the historical sequence followed by production or concentrating on a particular stage. As we will recall, the first option, i.e. that of production in general, had already been dis- carded. His response to the remaining options will favour the necessity of concentrating upon the production of capitalist society. His basic argument is as follows:

Bourgeois society is the most developed and the most complex historic organization of production. The categories which express its relations, the comprehension of its structure, thereby



also allows insights into the structure and the relations of production of all the vanished social formations out of whose ruins and elements it built itself up, whose partly still un- conquered remnants are carried along with it, whose mere nuances have developed explicit significance within it, etc. Human anatomy contains the key to the anatomy of the ape. The intimation of higher development among subordinate animal species, however, can be understood only after the higher development is already known. The bourgeois economy supplies the key to the ancient, etc. ( G , 105).

Once Marx has decided with respect to the options opened in connection with the object of study, he must confront the problem of the order in which the categories necessary for the study of the said object should be placed. Once again, Marx relies on a hypothetically constructed argument in order to develop his response:

. . . nothing seems more natural than to begin with ground rent, with landed property, since this is bound up with the earth, the source of all production, and of all being, and with the first form of production of all more or less settled societies - agriculture. But nothing would be more erroneous. In all forms of society there is one specific kind of production which predominates over the rest, whose relations thus assign rank and influence to the others. It is a general illumination which bathes all the other colours and modifies their particularity. It is a particular ether which determines the specific gravity of every being which has materialized within it. . . . In bourgeois society . . . agriculture more and more becomes merely a branch of industry, and is entirely dominated by capital. Ground rent likewise. In all forms where landed property rules the natural relation is still predominant. In those where capital rules, the social, his- torically created element. Ground rent cannot be understood and is entirely dominated by capital. Ground rent likewise. In all forms where landed property rules the natural relation is still predominant. In those where capital rules, the social, his- torically created element. Ground rent cannot be understood without capital. But capital can certainly be understood without ground rent. Capital is the alldominating economic power of bourgeois society. It must form the starting point as well as the finishing point, and must be dealt with before landed property. ( G , 106-7)

At this stage Marx is able to outline the global project of his work, indicating that as a result of these conclusions the logical sequence of analysis to be:


Critique of Marx's 1857 introduction 345

(1) the general, abstract determination which obtain in more or less all forms of society, but in the above-explained sense. (2) The categories which make up the inner structure of bourgeois society and on which the fundamental classes rest. Capital, wage labour, landed property. Their inner relation. Town and country. The three great social classes. Exchange between them. Circulation. Credit system (private). ( 3 ) Con- centration of bourgeois society in the form of the state. Viewed in relation t o itself. The 'unproductive' classes. Taxes. State debt. Public credit. The population. The colonies. Emigration. (4) The international relation of production. International division of labour. International exchange. Export and import. Rate of exchange. (5 ) The world market and crises. (G , 108)

A demonstration has been attempted here of the deficiencies of Marx's argument in relation to the problem of method. In general terms it should be recognised that the 1857 Introduction is contradictory in that, on the one hand, it manifests traces of empiricism, whereas on the other, it attempts t o supersede these. This is clearly manifested in two different concepts of abstraction, through which Marx defines abstraction as a theoretical deficiency at the same time as affirming that this deficiency can be superseded through abstraction itself.

The project of a logical sequence of analysis which results from this position expresses the problematic nature of the standpoint on which it is based. The plan proposed recognises at least two important problems. Firstly, it offers a flawed solution with respect to the starting point of systematic exposition. Secondly, it establishes an inadequate logical relation between capital, wage- labour and landed property, which are considered as independent units of analysis, to be treated consequatively. The best way of clarifying these two problems consists in confronting their projects of resolution in the 1857 Introduction with their actual theoretical resolution, effected in Capital, and with Marx's later commentaries on the method followed therein.

Before starting this analysis a brief reference should be made to the fourth and last section of the Introduction. This consists of a list of themes and problems (with brief commentaries) which refer to the role of war; the relation between the real and the ideal type of historiography hitherto developed; the materialist nature of Marx's theory; the dialectical relation of the concepts of the forces and relations of production; the relation between the development of material production and artistic production; the necessary and contingent nature of historical development, etc. The last point of the list is the following:



(8) The point of departure obviously from the natural charac- teristic; subjectively and objectively. Tribes, races, etc. ( G , 110)

It is undeniable that this point of departure does not refer either to the problem of the logic of investigation, which Marx had considered to be resolved through abstract and general determinants, or to the initial object of study, which he defined as capitalist production, and even less to the process of production of the fundamental scientific categories which he had indicated as emerging from the observation and conception of objective reality in the more developed societies. He is dealing, therefore, with a point of departure somewhat different from those mentioned above. This is none other than the global object of study through which Marx defines his theoretical activity: history. The themes mentioned by Marx in this fourth section emphasise that his ultimate concern was not limited to the explanation of capitalist society, but to the explanation of all historical development, which through the necessity of starting from its most developed stage, has its real point of departure in those natural characteristics which relate to the first tribes and races.

2.2 The 1857 Introduction and 1859 Preface

Considering what has been said above, it is not surprising that when Marx perceived the deficiencies of the 1857 Introduction and replaced it with the 1859 Preface, he decided to present there the basic conceptual s t w w e of his theory of history. His aim was to emphasise that his theoretical endeavour was not only restricted to the particular results of a determinate historical stage. These results represent only the completion of the initial stage of a more ambitious project.

Although Marx replaced the Introduction with the Preface, the content of the Preface was not the same as that of the Introduc- tion. This leaves unresolved an important aspect in the relation between the two texts. Having specified their negative relation (the reason behind their replacement), it is still necessary to establish their positive relation, in which two different contents, referring to different problems, have both been considered as alternative introductory texts through which the analysis of capitalist production is situated.

It has been demonstrated that both texts fulfil the objective of locating history as the final object of analysis, although they do so in different ways. Curiously, although the Introduction was written first, its contents presuppose those of the Preface. But, on a closer consideration, this proves to be reasonable. Marx's exposi-



tion in the Preface is not the result of conclusions he had reached during that period, but of those of the 1840s. At that time, with his break with Feuerbach, he came t o the position that history, its different stages and developments, needed to be understood through an analysis of the forms of production, the specification of. the nature of the diverse modes of production, and the con- tradictions developed within them. These refer t o the examination of the relation between the forces of production and the relations of production, also expressed as relations of property. The totality of the structure of society and forms of consciousness are based on and determined by the predominant mode of production. This is the conclusion developed in the 1859 Preface.

Whilst the 1857 Introduction starts from this conclusion, stating that material production constitutes the initial object of analysis, it does not develop this argument. Its fourth and last section brings together many of the problems generated from this premise, problems which Marx examines and explains in the Preface. There- fore, this fourth section results from the absence of a sufficient explanation in connection with the initial premise. This explanation is the theoretical core of the 1859 Preface.

By taking the primacy of production in history as a premise and point of departure, the Irztroduction discusses other problems. These refer to the alternative method of analysis through which material production can be studied. The Introduction is the first text in which Marx formulates the problems of the logic of investigation, an issue which is not present in his earlier writings. The German Ideology, for example, is not only deficient on account of some important conceptual weaknesses (absence of the concepts of relations of production. and of private property of the means of production1 O ), but also because of a logical disorienta- tion. This work is based on the assumption that it is possible to adopt the approach of 'production in general' for the study of history. The 1857 Introduction shows that this is mistaken. Its importance as a text resides in the understanding of different logical alternatives which are examined in order to discard two of them and to accept a very determinate logic of investigation. Marx argues that production cannot be conceived in general (the view taken in The German Ideology), nor is it possible to start the analysis from the first stages of production. Capitalist production must be taken as the first object of study and from there t o proceed t o the explanation of past historical periods. This is argued to be so since such an understanding provides the basic theoretical structure necessary for the analysis of previous modes of production.

This shows that the synthesis provided in the Preface does not



represent Marx's complete position in relation to the problems of history as the final object of analysis. The contribution of the 1857 Introduction is not picked up in the Preface t o the extent that, in this later work, the problem of the logical alternatives for the study of history is absent. Only a combined examination of both texts provides Marx's position on the problem of history as his object of study. This also demonstrates that Marx was only able t o fulfil the first stage of his final objective. His logical design for the study of history was only completed for the stage of capitalist production and even restricted t o the level of development it had reached at that time.

The partial fulfilment of Marx's global object of study does not mean that his contribution should be reduced to the analysis of capitalist production. It also involves the bases from which other historical stages should be studied. These bases result from the combination of the conclusion synthesised in the 1859 Preface with those of the 1857 Introduction on the logical foundations for a global scientific explanation of history. Marx's contribution to the study of history is incomplete unless both texts are taken into account. However, in order t o incorporate the contributions made by the 1857 Introduction, its logical deficiencies must be clearly located.

Engels correctly indicated the necessity of considering two central discoveries in his account of Marx's theoretical work (MESW, 370-74). First, 'a whole conception of the world history'; secondly,

the demonstration how, within present society and under the existing capitalist mode of production, the exploitation of the worker by the capitalist takes place.

Although these two dimensions of Marx's theory should be recognised, they are of quite different character. It is evident that if Marx had achieved the first, the second would not have been necessary, since it would have been assimilated within the 'whole conception of history', from which it is a part. If it is valid t o mention both, this is because the first was not actually fulfilled. Marx having provided the bases from which it should be accomplished. Marx's conception of history does not constitute the specific explanation of history. The latter is still t o be done.

What has been said also explains why Marx did not define himself as an economist. Although he appropriated many of the theoretical developments effected by political economy and considered that he had resolved many of the problems this left unanswered, Marx's object of study goes beyond the boundaries of economic science. This is due t o the fact that when analysing capitalist



economy, this is only a restricted aspect of a broader concern which extends to the whole of capitalist society as well as to other historical stages. This dimension of his theoretical undertaking enables Marx to recognise the historical and, therefore, transitory nature of the capitalist relations of production. Unlike political economy, Marx can recognise that previous societies are based on specific historical forms which cannot be accounted for as mere imperfections in relation to capitalist categories. In the same way, he is able to assert the historical and unnatural character of these later categories.

The recognition of the inadequacy in defining Marx as an economist has often produced an alternative procedure to account for his theoretical contribution. Accepting that the definition of economist is restricted, an attempt is made to supersede this re- striction by adding new theoretical perspectives to it. Thus, Marx is also depicted as being an historian, a sociologist, a philosopher, etc. and when the list does not seem to exhaust the character of his undertaking, he has even been described as a prophet.' ' How- ever, this procedure is deficient in its partialisation of dimensions inextricably related within his thought. Marx's essential difference with the political economists is that of a difference of object. It is because his object is history, that a multiplicity of dimensions (which traditional social sciences tend to isolate as autonomous disciplines) are incorporated within his conception.

The broadening of the object of study of political economy, i.e. capitalist economy, in the posing of history as Marx's object, is confirmed by his study of early societies, once he had finished his analysis of capitalist production, as shown in his last manuscripts.

2.3 Problems o f the Introduction and their resolution

The project of logical sequence presented at the end of the third section of the Introduction has been said to contain at least two important failings later rectified by Marx. These are:

(1) an inadequate resolution of the problem of the point of departure for his systematic exposition, and

(2) an inadequate logical relation between capital, wage labour and landed property. Marx's attempt to resolve these two problems and the analysis of his definitive solutions will now be examined.

It should be taken into account that when Marx finished the Introduction in the middle of September, 1857 he did not begin writing the projected work which this text was intended to intro- duce. A year intervened during which Marx wrote the Grundrisse,



a collection of manuscripts in which he resolved important theoretical problems. Marx never intended to publish these manuscripts, which do not represent a systematic exposition of his positions, and amidst which can be found criticism, positive theoretical analysis and projects of his future work.

During this year Marx modified the original project of the Intro- duction. The first modification is found in the second notebook of the Grundrisse, written in November, 1857. Marx wrote:

In this first section, where exchange values, money, prices are looked at, commodities always appear as already present. . . . The internal structure of production therefore forms the second section; the concentration of the whole in the state in the third;. . . ( G , 227)

continuing to detail the already known project of the Introduction. This was the first indication that Marx was again preoccupied with the problem of the point of departure of exposition. In this period Marx was moving towards the initiation of an analysis of the concept of value and recognised the presence of the commodity within its treatment. This position tends to coincide with Ricardo's starting point. It is later reiterated in the same notebook:

It is commodities (whether in their particular form, or in the general form of money) which form the presupposition of circulation; they are the realization of a definite labour time and, as such, values; their presupposition, therefore, is both the production of commodities by labour and their production as exchange values. This is their point of departure, and through its own motion it goes back into exchange-value - creating production as its result. We have therefore reached the point of departure again, production which posits, creates exchange values; but this time, production which presupposes circulation asa developed moment and which appears as a constant process, which posits circulation and constantly returns from it into itself in order to posit it anew. ( G , 25 5)

Marx was aware that the explanation of capitalist production is founded in the explanation of capital. In the Introduction he had already recognised that the historical conditions which made economic science possible are found in the practical character of abstract labour, established by the capitalist relations of production. The result of these two conclusions is that in the Introduc- tion Marx tended to assimilate ambiguously the problem of the practical determination of economic thought within the problem of the logic of investigation of the analysis of capitalist economy. Nevertheless, Marx later proved these two problems to be distinct


Critiaue of Marx's 1857 Introduction 351

and showed that capital is not reached through the abstract concept of labour. He recognised that this was only possible through value :

To develop the concept of capital it is necessary to begin not with labour but with value, and precisely, with exchange value in an already developed movement of circulation. It is just as impossible to make the transition directly from labour to capital as it is to go from the different human races directly to the banker, or from nature to the steam engine. ( G , 259)

Although value is maintained as an adequate starting point, the initial criterion of starting the analysis from abstract and general definitions begins to show its weakness. Marx came to the position that not all of these, at least not labour in itself, could be the necessary starting points that could lead to the more concrete concepts that he has to explain. The concept of the division of labour suffered the same fate. Nevertheless, Marx continued to maintain the necessity of an abstract point of departure and when he affirms the importance of value, despite the fact that the concept of commodity tends to move in, it is still to value that Marx is giving logical priority.

The decision to abandon the possibility of a starting point based on labour and his option for value entailed the transference of the level at which analysis is initiated from production to circulation. It also became necessary to distinguish the problem of the order of determination of the different moments which compose the economic totality from the problem of the logical order of the analysis of that totality. Without denying that production is the determinant instance of circulation, exchange and distribution, the explanation of production requires an analysis that starts from the level of circulation in order to return, once production is explained, to the sphere of circulation.

In that same notebook of the Grundrzsse, Marx returns to for- mulate new outlines of logical sequence in his work. ( G , 264 and 275). Both projects omit the problem of the point of departure, starting with an extended breakdown of the analysis of capital and its logical sequence. In the first of these projects, since the second refers to the particular structure for the analysis of capital without extending to later themes, Marx continues to maintain the need for an independent analysis of the three elements on which the social classes of capitalist society are based: capital itself, landed property and wage labour. At this moment, however, the order of consecutive treatment is no longer as proposed in the Introduction. Landed property is located in second place and wage labour in the last. The structure of extended analysis proposed for capital in-



dicated that it should be studied first as a general concept, next in its particularities, and finally with the analysis of individual capitals.

Marx introduces a new modification in his letter to Lassalle dated 22nd February, 1858. This was the incorporation of the first and most abstract section within the general concept of capital.

The whole work is divided into six books. (1) Capital (contains some introductory chapters). (2) Landed property. (3) Wage Labour. (4) The State. ( 5 ) International Trade. ( 6 ) World Market. ( M ESC, 96)

This plan was described in more detail in a letter to Engels dated 2nd April of the same year. After reiterating what he had outlined to Lassalle, Marx elaborated :

I. Capital contains four sections: (a) Capital in general (this is the subject-matter o f the first part). (b) Competition . . . (C) Credit . . . (d) Share Capital. . .

Marx continues to detail the first of these sections: I . Capital. First section: Capital in general . . . ( 1 ) Value . . (2) Money . . . (3) Capital. (MESC, 97-101).

This illustrates Marx's extension of the scope of capital towards the origins of his exposition, although it is not defined as the chosen point of departure. Marx is still situating the concept of value, as the starting term of his equation, within the bracket of the general concept of capital. However, beyond the change in the structure of his project, the letter to Engels reveals Marx's reappraisal of his original contention of the necessity of starting his analysis from an abstraction:

The most abstract definitions, when more carefully examined, always point to a further definite concrete basis (of course - since they have been abstracted from it in this particular form) (MESC, 99, our emphasis).

Although he recognises the problem of the relation between the abstract and the concrete, the terms within which the problem is located do not clearly distinguish the determination of the abstract by the concrete from the logical order of these moments in the sequence of the analysis.

In June, 1858, in the seventh notebook of the Grundrisse, Marx wrote:

The first category in which bourgeois wealth presents itself is



that of the commodity. The commodity appears as the unity of two aspects. I t is use value, i.e. object of the satisfaction of any system whatever of human needs. This is its material side, which the most disparate epochs of production may have in common, and whose examination therefore lies beyond political economy. . . . Now how does use value become transformed into commodity? Vehicle of exchange value. Although directly united in the commodity, use value and exchange value just as directly split apart. Not only does the exchange value not appear as determined by the use value, but rather, furthermore, the commodity only becomes a commodity, only realizes itself as exchange value, in so far as its owner does not relate to it as use value. He appropriates use values only through their sale, their exchange for other commodities. Appropriation through sale is the fundamental form of the social system of production, of which exchange value of the commodity is presupposed, not for its owner, but rather for the society generally. ( G , 881-2)

Then Marx opens a bracket which he will not close because he abandons the text. The Grundrisse end with the discovery of the commodity as the point of departure for his systematic exposition. The commodity became the first category in Marx's analysis, pre- ceding value in the logic of exposition, this latter being expressed by exchange value as 'the simplest and most abstract expression'. Marx was now able to initiate his projected work, returning to it between September and October of 1858, after two months of ill health. He began to write his A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, published early in 1859. Both in this work and later in Capital, in which the first is further elaborated, the commodity became the point of departure for his exposition.

The discovery of June, 1858 was communicated in a letter written t o Engels on 29th December of that year:

. . . the first part has grown bigger, since the first two chapters, of which the first: The Commodity, has not been written in rough draft, and the second: Money or Simple Circulation, is only in quite short outline; the first part has been argued more elaborately than I originally intended.'

This was reiterated in Marx's letter t o Engels ( 1 3 th-15 th January, 1859) and to Weydemeyer (1st February).

The history of the resolution of the problem of the point of departure is not completed in 1858, since Marx introduced several modifications after his affirmation of the commodity as the initial term of his exposition. The first of these is located in the first edition of the first volume of Capital of 1867. In 1872, in the



second German edition of the same volume, Marx again modified the first part, which he always considered to be the most complex. Therefore, in accordance with the order of investigation, the point of departure of his exposition, and the treatment of its related problems, were the last to attain resolution. Marx recognised this displacement between the order of investigation and the order of exposition in a letter to Sigmund Schott in November, 1877:

Confidentially, I indeed began 'Capital' in exactly the opposite sequence (beginning with the third and historical part) to which it was shbmitted to the public, only with the qualification that the 1st volume, which was started last, was prepared for print- ing straight away whilst the others remained in the rough form which all research has at the beginning. . . . l

The adoption of the commodity as the point of departure presents various problems relating to its implications in the process of theoretical production. Some of these will be dealt with later, but at this stage it is necessary to clarify that this point of departure (1) was reached after completion of the 185 7 Introduction, and (2) represented a marked change in Marx's previous position with respect to the initial term of his exposition.

The first statement has already been demonstrated here. With reference to the second it should be understood that the commodity as a point of departure rectifies the proposal that the analysis should be based on abstract and general concepts. In his exposition Marx considered the commodity as concrete. The concrete nature of the commodity is clearly defined by Marx when referring to it in his systematic works. In the first lines of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Marx points out that the commodity:

in the language of the English economists, is 'any thing necessary, useful or pleasant in life', an object of human wants, a means of existence in the widest sense of term. ( C C P E , 27)

The first lines of Capital reiterate the same position: A commodity is, in the first place, an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another. ( K , I, 43)

Marx clearly reiterates the concrete nature of the commodity as a point of departure in the Notes on Adolph Wagner, written in 1879-80. The following are some of the passages in which this concrete nature is affirmed:

neither 'value', nor 'exchange value' are my subjects, but the commodity. (NAW, 183)



According t o Herr Wagner, use value and exchange value are to be derived at once from the concept o f value, not as with me, from a concretum (Konkretum), the commodity. . . . (NAW, 189)

In the first place I do not start out from 'concepts', and do not have 'to divide' these in any way. What I start out from is the simplest form in which the labour-product is presented in con- temporary society, and this is the 'commodity' . I analyse it, and right from the beginning, in the form in which it appears. (NAW, 198)

. . . I d o not divide value into use-value and exchange value as antitheses into which the abstraction 'value' splits, rather (I divide) the concrete social form of the labour-product. (NAW ,

198)

. . . the 'commodity' - the simplest economic concretum. . . . ( N A W , 199)

The commodity is concrete, but also a simple concrete. In distinction to the position assumed in the Introduction, the identity between the abstract and the simple is broken. However, this invalidates the unity of the argument proposed in the Introduction for the point of departure. Marx still asserts that concrete totality, by being the concentration and unity of various determinations, could not constitute the starting point of analysis. He still asserts the need of abstraction to effect the explanation of concrete totality. However, it is not deduced from this that the point of departure ought to be abstract. The same abstract concepts of which science must make use need to be sustained in the concrete and derived from it. If concrete totality emerges, from the point of view of scientific knowledge, from abstract determinations, these in turn require concrete conditions from which they may be extracted. Marx had previously understood that abstract concepts are determined by concrete historical conditions. Up to now, however, this had only been recognised from the point of view of the practical determination of scientific categories. Now it was also seen as a logical exigency of analysis. The global process of the logic of exposition cannot be affirmed only on the recognition of the concrete determination of the abstract concepts. It must reproduce this recognition in a specific logical sequence, sustaining the abstract concepts in that concrete reality, which makes them possible. Hegel, recognising this relation, inverted its terms and attributed t o the concept derived from concrete reality the character of the historical and logical determinant instance. Such an interpretation is based on the recognition that the process of



knowledge is capable of reproducing concrete reality within thought. This is the inversion that Marx must reverse. To do this it is not sufficient to affirm the independence of concrete reality from the process which is able to know it. Neither is it enough to assert the determination of theoretical knowledge with respect to concrete reality. It is necessary that the logic of thought should be capable of expressing the priority of the concrete with respect to those variants of thought which do not find a direct reference in reality. This logical priority is affirmed in a determinate sequence between concrete and abstract concepts.'

The rectification introduced by Marx after 1857 does not entail the adoption and return to the point of departure criticised in the hypothetically constructed argument offered in the Introduction, i.e. the population. As concrete reality, the population is expres- sive of a concrete totality and, as such, can only be the point of termination for a theoretical process. Neither is it possible, however, to depart from abstract and general determinate which, as Marx maintained in 1857, should belong to every form of society. The disjunction is no longer between concrete totality and abstract generality. The commodity as a point of departure is a concrete unit of a particular stage of production, i.e. capitalism. As such, as an economic constituent of a particular society, it does not belong to all forms of society. This does not mean that the commodity is exclusive to the capitalist mode of production and, thus, nonexistent in previous modes of production, but, as Marx himself argues in the Introduction with reference to money, in these less developed modes of production the commodity has not attained its full development (intensive and extensive) and did not represent the basic unit of production in these societies. This particular character of the commodity is recognised by Marx in the opening sentence of Capital :

The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as 'an immense accumulation of commodities', its unit being a single commodity. Our investigation must therefore begin with the analysis of a commodity. (K, 1,43)

The point of departure is therefore the concrete economic unit of a particular mode of production. It is the simple and particular concrete expression (in opposition to the concrete totality) of a particular phase (in opposition to belonging to all forms of society). It is also in this sense that the 1859 Preface, in rectification of the Introduction, establishes the need to ascend from the particular to the general, from the concrete unit to the concrete totality, via the necessary course of abstraction.



Surprisingly, the delayed resolution of the problem of the point of departure has remained unnoticed in the analyses of Marx's thought. Jindrich Zeleny, who offers an interesting study of the logical structure of Capital, points out:

Throughout all the changes of plan for his work Marx maintains the solution made in the first years of his economic studies, that is, that the secret of the capitalist production of commodities is contained in the identification of the commodity as a speci- fically economic form.'

This position results from the failure to recognise the problematic nature of the Introduction and the later rectification made by Marx of the solutions offered there. Hence, whilst Zeleny is obliged to recognise the concrete nature of the commodity, he confuses this aspect with its capacity to take on an abstract dimension. This is expressed as follows :

In the intellectual reproduction of a complex reality rich in determination Marx does not depart from the analysis of concrete abstractions, but from another simple reality which, from the point of view of everything later developed, is abstract.

With this reduction of the concrete to the abstract Zeleny accepts the flawed formulation of the Introduction in the sense that Marx effects 'an elevation from the abstract to the concrete'.16 With this, the previous important recognition that the commodity is concrete, is completely dissolved.

For Marx, objects of knowledge of social reality are objects constituted by social practice. It is their capacity to embody and express determinate social relations that defines the objects of Marxist analysis. Commodity, money, capital, etc., are not things- in-themselves, but practically constituted objects. Commodity is not a mere thing with an external existence which can be perceived in itself or apprehended as the result of simple and direct observation (apart from being perception and observation, one of the different possible ways of sensible apprehension). The form of commodity is given by determinate social relations of exchange which constitute determinate things into commodities. The same can be said in connection with capital, which Marx defines not only as the expression of material elements, but also as a social relation. This is the nature of the social objects. It is within this framework that Marx introduces his distinction between the concrete and the abstract. While the concrete alludes to real objects constituted by social practice, the abstract refers to objects which, not being alien to that practice and in that sense being real, are only recognised



through scientific practice. The distinction between the concrete and the abstract is correlative with the terms spontaneous consciousness and science. The bearers of spontaneous consciousness are the individuals, not as indeterminate subjects, but as agents of a determinate practice. Abstraction is defined as an adequate recourse of the knowledge of the real, first in its capacity to be derived from the objects constituted by social practice and directly expressed in the consciousness generated by such practice. Second, in its capacity to reproduce the concrete in thought, to explain its actual movements, which the spontaneous consciousness cannot account for. However, one of the main features of the Marxist concept of the abstract is the assertion that abstraction, as an operation of scientific practice, produces abstract concepts or again abstractions, this time as the results of such operation, which have a problematic relationship with the concrete (and its correlative, the spontaneous consciousness). It is this problematic distance between the appearance of the movement of social practice and its essence which justifies the necessity of scientific practice.

It is important to distinguish this theory of abstraction from the concepts of abstraction used by empiricist philosophy. Asserting observations as the basic recourse to establish the validity of the supposed scientific results, empiricism oscillates between two different concepts of abstraction. On the one hand, following Hume's position, abstraction is negated as a recourse for knowledge; on the other, developing Locke's standpoint, every concept is defined as abstract, different layers of abstraction being postu- lated according to the corresponding levels of generalisation of the concepts with regard to what is directly observed. In Marx's case, the process of scientific knowledge is considered to have some break points within itself, some concepts cannot be accounted for by means of an alleged generalisation, and the categories of the concrete and the abstract express such discontinuities.17

It could be argued that, despite the fact that Marx considered the commodity as a concrete point of departure, this could not be so. This criticism could be made from different positions. One of them consists of arguing that Marx could not start with a real and concrete commodity but, of necessity, with the concept of the commodity in that the concept is distinct from that which it designates and cannot be considered as concrete. Apparently Marx did not deny the distinction between the concept and that which it designated, but this distinction can only be established as an impugnative weapon in the sense that it expresses a problem of knowledge which accounts for a problematic distance between the concept and the 'thing-in-itself'. This problematic distance, affirmed in principle, represents the essence of Kant's philosophy and is one



of the expressions of his philosophical dualism. This is completely alien to Marx's position. Without denying the possibility of a problematic distance between determinate concepts and reality, Marx rejects the assertion of a problem in principle and asserts the full capacity of thought to apprehend reality. The distance between thought and reality can be resolved first theoretically and then practically. The problem of the truth of knowledge held no sense whatsoever for Marx as a problem prior and independent to the act of knowing itself. It is on this basis that the distinction may be made between concrete and abstract concepts. These do not refer to the problem of truth. The distinction is made within the process of true knowledge. Whilst the first refer to a direct apprehension of immediate reality, the second alludes to a necessary recourse of knowledge in problematic relation to concrete and immediate reality; but the process of knowledge itself confers validity upon them and reveals the manner in which concrete reality confirms them. In this sense, they represent a necessary supersession of the immediate, of appearances, yet denote the essence of this same reality. Without them, not only would immediate reality be inadequately known, but the scientific endeavour itself would remain unjustified.

The importance of having a concrete point of departure, in Marx's terms, is given as a way of initiating the analysis from the firmest possible base. If, as Wagner suggested,18 Marx had started from the abstract concept of value, all his subsequent theoretical development would have remained subject to the discussion of such an initial concept. This seems to explain Marx's concern to oppose Wagner's interpretation and to emphasise the concrete character of his starting point. The abstract concept of value that Marx undoubtedly uses, finds its basis in the analysis of concrete reality from which it has been derived. This is an important position in Marx's logic of investigation. If this were not the case, science becomes inevitably suspended in mid-air, as Marx was to criticise in Ricardo. Rectifying the logical project proposed in the 1857 Introduction, Marx simultaneously breaks with the logical design followed by classical economy, which appeared to be vindicated in that text.

Having affirmed the concrete character of his point of departure, it is necessary to pose the problem of the transition from that concrete to the abstract. This again brings us his discovery of commodity as an adequate starting point. It is important to examine the way this was accomplished. Marx does not proceed with the application of certain methodological criteria capable of indicating that the commodity is an adequate starting point. Conscious of the fact that this concrete is necessary, the particular resolution of



the problem and, therefore, the choice of the commodity is affirmed in the nature of the object, for which it must serve as the starting point of analysis. If the commodity is shown to be adequate, this is due to the fact that, being concrete, it is able to extend to basic abstract categories, through which the movement of capitalist production can be theoretically reconstructed. Thus, the methodological justification of this point of departure rests in its particular capacity to allow a necessary opening from the con- crtte to the abstract, given a determinate object of study.

This itself, representing the principal theoretical advantage of the commodity, is simultaneously the reason for multiple difficulties, although the commodity is concrete, and was chosen for precisely this reason, at the same time it proves to be abstract, thus confirming it as the correct choice. The simultaneously abstract and concrete nature of the commodity is one of the most important aspects of what Marx calls 'the fetishism of commodities'. The importance of its discovery is that, through its concrete nature, the commodity leads to the abstract concepts necessary to explain capitalist production.19

As has been pointed out, Marx examines in the final paragraph of the Grundrisse, the two aspects of the commodity (use value and exchange value) and concludes precisely that it could attain the level of abstraction to the extent that 'exchange value appears as the simplest, most abstract expression'. The concept of exchange value refers to the concept of value and this to the concept of abstract labour. With this Marx shows that the two aspects of the commodity are in correspondence, respectively, with concrete labour and abstract labour, enabling the strict theoretical correspondence between value and labour, the equivalence between both terms, in which not only value, but also labour is considered as an abstract concept. There is an explanation to this relation between value and abstract social labour just after the beginning of the analysis of the commodity in the first pages of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (pp. 30-1). The possibility of this transition from concrete to abstract presented by his chosen starting point leads Marx to maintain that:

A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and easily understood. Its analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theo- logical niceties. (K, I, 76)

This had also previously led him to state that a commodity is 'a concrete and at the same time an abstract thing' (CCPE. 42).

Despite the difficulties imposed by this problem, which have been treated in detail elsewhere,20 Marx considered that it con-


Critique of Marx's 1857 Introduction 36 1

tained one of his most important scientific accomplishments. In a letter to Engels dated 22nd June, 1867 he wrote:

the simplest commodity form, in which its value is not yet expressed as a relation to all other commodities but only as something differentiated from the natural form of the commodity itself contains the whole secret of the money form and with it, in embryo, of all the bourgeois forms of the product of l'zbour. (MESC, 177)

On 24th August of that same year Marx commented to Engels:

The best poincs in my book are: (1) the two-fold character of labour, according to whether it is expressed in use value or exchange value. (All understanding of facts depends upon this). It is emphasised immediately, in thefirst chapter; (2) . . . (MESC, 180)

In a letter to Engels of 8th January, 1868 Marx indicated:

. . . the three fundamentally new elements of the book: (1) . . . (2) That the economists, without exception, have missed the simple point that if the commodity has a double character - use value and exchange value - then the labour represented by the commodity must also have a two-fold character, while the mere analysis of labour as such, as in Smith, Ricardo, etc., is bound to come up everywhere against inexplicable problems. This is, in fact, the whole secret of the critical conception. ( 3 ) . . . (MESC, 186)

These explanations clearly demonstrate the profound alterna- tion made by Marx to the point of departure of his systematic exposition given in the 1857 Introduction. The next problem to be examined refers to the logical order proposed for the treatment of capital, wage labour and landed property. In this respect, it has already been shown that between the end of 1857 and the beginning of 1858 Marx located the first section of the project proposed in the Introduction within the analysis of capital. During this period, however, Marx still maintained the necessity of treating capital and then wage labour and landed property independently, although this inverted the order of the last two terms proposed in the Introduction.

It is known that Marx's approach to the analysis of these three categories in Capital was substantially diffeient from that which he had proposed in the 1850's. In this work, as its title suggests, the analysis of wage labour and landed property are effected as an integral part of his global analysis of capital and, therefore, within it. The analysis of capital, in consequence, not only comprehends



the introductory section proposed in 1857, but is also identified with the complete analysis of capitalist production.

It is difficult to ascertain the exact moment in which Marx identified the general analysis of capital with that of capitalist production as a whole and the particular reasons which brought about this change. Ro~dolsky ,~ l who examined this problem - drawing also on the interpretations of H. Grosmann and F. Behrens - dated the modification between 1865-66, also indicating that Mai-X had begun to show a movement in the direction of this change in his letter to Engels of 15th August, 1863. However, even Rosdolsky had doubts on the interpretation of this letter, since it only expresses Marx's awareness that he had made a profound alteration writing Capital. This change could refer as much to the results of political economy as to his original plan of work. If it referred to the latter, it would not necessarily affect the logical sequence in the treatment of the three categories mentioned. It is also known that at this point other important modifications were introduced with respect to the original project.

In all events, by 1866 Marx had already decided to concede capital the totalising character conferred upon it in Capital. Marx stated his definitive structure in a letter to Kugelman dated 13th October of that year.

The whole work is divided as follows: Book I. The Production Process of Capital. Book 11. Circulation Process of Capital. Book 111. Form of the Process as a Whole. Book IV. Contribution to the History of Economic Theory. (Vygodski, 1974, p. 119.)

Although it is neither possible to ascertain the time of this modification, nor to be precise about Marx's particular reasons for effecting it, its character may be evaluated. There is basic agree- ment here with Grossman, who noted that, whereas in 1857 the project adopted a more empirical, and thus vulgar perspective, to the extent that it was largely influenced by the expressions of immediate reality, conferring upon its forms an independent nature, the later project demonstrates a greater distance with respect to phenomena, with the domination of an essential dimension which results in the totalising nature of the analysis of capital. It should also be recognised that this is consistent with the direction registered in the transformation of Marx's concept of science, particularly after the re-appropriation of Hegel in 1858.

The necessary analysis of capital causes Marx to treat within it wage labour and landed property. This is so because there can be no fully developed capital without wage labour, and because capital determines the specific nature of landed property in capita-


Critiaue of Marx's 1857 Introduction 363

list society. Marx realised that capital constitutes a social relation which must consider wage labour as one aspect of its own character. Unless the specific form of appropriation and subjection of labour by the objective conditions of production in the capital form is considered, the concept of capital itself cannot be adequately dis- entangled. Moreover, this relation expresses within it the distinction between constant and variable capital. This discovery is central t o Marx's contribution. Behrens is correct when he indicates that the first 1857 plan is developed from exterior viewpoints, in accordance with previous economic tradition. This was also clearly expressed in relation to other aspects in the Introduction. Although Rosdolsky's analysis is interesting, his principal deficiency lies in his failure to consider, even after having posed the problem, the debatable and problematic nature of the 1857 I n t r o d u c t i ~ n . ~ ~

3. Method of investigation and method of exposition

In this attempt to examine the problematic aspects of the 1857 Introduction, it has also been found that the existing order of the resolution of theoretical problems does not correspond with the order presented in Capital. For example, the resolution of the problem of the point of departure was arrived at after the theoretical resolution of the character of surplus value, which constitutes the central theoretical nucleus of Marx's conception of capitalist production. Whereas the first was only resolved at the end of Grundrisse, the second was already developed within this text. However, form the point of view of the exposition, it is evident that the analysis of the commodity should be treated first. These displacements in the sequence of discoveries with respect to the logical order in which they should be placed, is manifest in various other problems and forced Marx's recognition of the differences between the order of investigation and the order of exposition. This recognition, absent in the 1857 Introduction, clearly emerged, as was foreseeable, in A Contribution t o the Critique of Political Economy, expressed as follows:

. . . the historical progress of all sciences leads only through a multitude of contradictory moves to the real point of departure. Science, unlike other architects, builds not only castles in the air, but may construct separate habitable storeys of the building before laying the foundation stone. (CCPE, 57)

The full significance of this assertion is made clear by Marx's arduous progression towards the resolution of the problem of the point of departure for his exposition.

Based on his own theoretical research towards the explanation



of capitalist production, Marx asserts that the order of the effective process of investigation did not necessarily correspond to the logical order demanded by these results. The movement of investigation is not equivalent to the logic of investigation. The latter needs to be constituted at a later stage, after disposing of its com- ponents. Marx recognised this in 1873 :

Of course the method of presentation must differ in form from that of inquiry. The latter has to appropriate the material in detail, to analyse its different forms of development, to trace out their inner connexions. Only after this work is done, can the actual movement be adequately described. (K, I, 28)

Therefore, the adequate logic of investigation of a determinate object of study is only realised at a later stage of the investigation and must express itself in the logic of exposition. It follows that the logic of exposition is the perfected and superior expression of the logic of the whole investigation.

Ilienkov is correct when he indicates:

the 'process of exposition' in Capital is only the rectified process o f investigation, not arbitrarily but in a strict correspondence to the exigiencies of the laws dictated by the process of investigation itself. But, in another way, the process of exposition is purged, in this case, of all accesory moments: it responds rigorously to the objective laws of investigation. (Ilienkov, 1971, p. 57.)

Althusser adopts the same position when he states:

The 'mode of investigation' is Marx's several years long concrete investigation into the existing documents and the facts they witness to: this investigation followed paths which disappear in their result, the knowledge of its object, the capitalist mode of production. The protocols of Marx's investigation are contained in part in his notebooks. But in Capital we find something quite different from the complex and varied procedures, the 'trials and errors' that every investigation contains and which express the peculiar logic of the process of the inventor's discovery at the level of his theoretical practice. In Capital we find a systematic presentation, an apodictic arrangement of the concepts in the form of that type of demonstrational discourse that Marx calls analysis. (Althusser and Balibar, 1975, p. 50.)

Despite the emphasis which both Ilienkov and Althusser place on the 'dispensation of accessory moments' or the 'paths which disappear', and therefore, the suppression of certain previously developed elements, and their cursory reference to the changes of order of the results obtained, they both rightly recognise that



Marx's logic of exposition constitutes the superior expression of his logic of investigation. The analysis is only rightly constituted through this rectified logic, giving consistency to each result and producing a smooth emergence of each new category. Without this last order, the analysis would be deficient.

In this way, Marx's distinction between the method of exposition and the method of investigation does not represent an obstacle to the deciphering of his logic of investigation on the basis of the exposition of Capital, i.e. the path proposed by Lenin. The conditions have now been given for the avoidance of a mistaken reading of Capital based on the deficiencies of the 1857 Introduction.

Notes 1. In Hook (1971) p. 61. 2 . See Lenin (1973) p. 361. 3. In Althusser and Balibar (1975) p. 86. 4. Cf. for instance Lukdcs (1971) pp. 5-15; Hook (1971) p. 63; Althusser and Balibar (1975) pp. 40-56; Colletti (1973) pp. 113-38; Mandel (1975) p. 14; Vygodski ((1974) p. 121; Della Volpe (1969) pp. 190-99; Kosik (1967) p. 48; Zeleny (1974) p. 55); Ilienkov (1971) pp. 33f; Rosdolsky (1976) pp. 54-7; Henry (1976) pp. 435-79; Luporini (1971) and (1975) pp. 300-1; Rovatti (1973) pp. 101-20; Carver (1975); Cutler, Hindess, Hirst and Hussain (1977) pp. 107-24. 5. The importance of Marx's second appropriation of Hegel in 1857-58 has been discussed in my doctoral thesis (1978) Ch. 3. 6. An analysis of the logic of Capital has been developed in Echeverria (1978) Ch. 5. The conclusions there drawn are complemented by my study of the methodological criticism of political economy that Marx develops in Theories o f Surplus Value in Ch. 6. 7. By 'antithetical definition of production' Marx understands production as different from the moment of distribution, exchange and consumption, as contrasted with a more general concept of production that embraces all these moments. It is the primacy given to this first definition of production that enables a transition to be made to the concept of production as a totality. 8. This point has been discussed in Echeverria (1978) Ch. 7.4. 9 . SeeHege1(1975)p.29. 10. See Echeverria (1978) Ch. 3.2.1. 11. See Schumpeter (1962). 12. Carver (1975) p. 32. 13. Vygodski (1974) pp. 118-9. 14. Echeverria (1978) Ch. 7.4. 15. Zeleny (1974) p. 55. 16. Zeleny ibid. 17. See Echeverria (1978) Ch. 5.3.1, 5.3.3, and Ch. 7.4. 18. See Notes o n Wagner pp. 183,189, 198. 19. See Echeverria (1978) Ch. 5.3.1.


Rafael Echeverria

20. Echeverria ibid. 21. Rosdolsky (1976) pp. 5 1-4. 22. Rosdolsky, when dealing with the logical sequence of Marx's project in the 185 7 I n t r o d u c t i o n , is led t o ask: should one not conclude that there is a certain lack of consequence or failure of methodological maturity in the original plan? His answer is in the negative (1976) p. 57.

References Althusser, L. and Balibar, E. (1975) Reading Capital. London: New Left Books. Carver, T. (1975) Karl Marx: Texts on Method. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Colletti, L. (1973) Marxism and Hegel. London: New Left Books. Cutler, A., Hindess, B., Hirst, P. Q., and Hussain, A. (1977) Marx's Capital and Capitalism Today Vol. I. Routledge and Kegan Paul: London. Della Volpe, G. (1969) Logica come scienza storica. Rome: Editori Riuniti. Echeverria, R. (1978) Marx's Concept of Science. University of London, PhD thesis (unpublished). Hegel, G. W. F. (1975) Hegel's Logic. London: Oxford University Press. Henry, M. (1976) Marx Vol. I. Paris: Gallimard. Hook, S. (1971) From Hegel t o Marx. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Ilienkov, E. (1971) 'La dialtctica de 10 abstract0 y 10 concreto en "El capital" de Marx'; Communicacibn 9 , Problemas actuales de la dialictica, Madrid: Alberto Corazbn. Kosik, K. (1967) Dialectica de 10 con- -

creto. Mexico: Grijalbo.

Lenin, V. I. (1973) 'Philosophical Note- bookc' in H. Selsam. H. Martel (eds.) Reader in Marxist Philosophy. New York: International Publishers. Luporini, C. (1971) 'El circulo concreto- abstracto-concreto'; Comrnunicacion 9 , Problemas actuales de la dialectica. Madrid: Alberto Corazbn. Luporini, C. (1975) 'Reality and His- toricity: Economy and Dialectics in Marxism'; Economy and Society Vol. 4 nos. 2 and 3. Lukacs, G. (197 1) History and Class Con- sciousness. London: Merlin Press. Mandel, E. (1975) Late Capitalism. London: New Left Books. Rosdolsky, R. (1976) La genese du Capital' chez Karl Marx. Paris: Maspero.

Rovatti, P. A. (1973) Critica e scienti- ficita in Marx. Milan: Feltrinelli. Schumpeter, J. (1962) Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. New York: Harper Torchbooks. Vygodski, V. S. (1974) The S t o y of a Great Discovery. Tunbridge Wells: Abacus Press. Zeleny, J. (1974) La estructura ldgica de 'El Capital' de Marx. Barcelona: Grijalbo.

Abbreviations: The following abbreviations are used throughout this work: G - Karl Marx, Grundrisse, Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy,

Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1973. CCPE - A Contribution t o t e Crrtrque of'Politica1 Economy, London, Lawrence

& Wishart, 1971. K,I - Capital, Vol. 1, London, Lawrence & Wishart, 1974. K,II - Capital, Vol. 2 , London, Lawrence & Wishart, 1971. NAW - 'Notes on Adolph Wagner', in T. Carver, Karl Marx: Texts on Method,

Oxford. Basil Blackwell. 1975. MESW - Karl ~ H r x & ~rederick Engels, Selected Works (one volume), London,

Lawrence & Wishart, 1968. MESC - Selected Correspondence, Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1975.


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