Some Materials on Dialectical Contradiction in Marx’s Works

[References are to the Marx Engels Collected Works,

volume number followed by page number]

 

Note: The translation Aveling-Moore translation of Capital, vol. I, which is followed in the Collected Works, vol. 35, is not adequate for philosophical study despite its charm. Some passages below have been translated again from the German edition, Marx Engels Werke, MEW.

 

On Hegel’s Philosophy of Right

 

Economic MSS of 1844

 

Theses of Feuerbach

 

The Holy Family

 

German Ideology

 

The Poverty of Philosophy

 

1857-8 Economic MSS (Grundrisse)

 

Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy

 

Critique of Political Economy, 1861- 63 Drafts [Sometimes called “Theories of Surplus Value”]

 

Capital, Vol. I.

The ellipse example, better translation. See 35:113:

 

We saw that the process of exchange of commodities includes relations that contradict and exclude one another. The development of the commodity does not overcome [aufheben] these contradictions, but creates a form within which they can move themselves. This is in general the method through which contradictions solve [lösen] themselves. It is a contradiction, for example that one body continuously fall into another, and just as constantly fly away from it. The ellipse is a form of movement in which this contradiction actualizes itself just as much as it solves [lösen] itself.

                       

 

 

 

 

 

The exchange of commodities cannot, as one has seen, take place without fulfilling contradictory conditions, which exclude one other. Its development which makes commodities appear as something with two aspects, use value and exchange value, does not make these contradictions disappear, but creates the form in which they can move themselves. This is in any case the only method for resolving real contradictions. It is, for example, a contradiction that a body fall constantly toward another, and also constantly fly away from it. The ellipse is one of the forms of movement by which this contradiction realizes itself and resolves itself at the same time. Marx, Le Capital,  J. Roy, translator, Livre I, Paris: Flammarion, 1985, p. 89;

 

Comments: (a) Note, but comparing with the improved translation, that the translation in the book is quite inadequate, in at least two ways: The phrase "develops a modus vivendi [manner of living]" is a gloss corresponding to nothing in the original text, and the phrase "a form in which they can exist side by side" does not mention motion, which is the key idea here. (b) Second, in the phrase "it is a contradiction to depict…" the words "to depict" do not occur in the original text, and seriously alter the point of the original, since they substitute for the contradiction in elliptical motion itself a contradiction in how it is described. (c) The book says that motion reconciles the two sides, but neither the German nor the French says that. It is plausible at least that solving or resolving a contradiction does not reconcile the two sides, since if they were reconciled there would be no more contradiction [not Hegel's view, however]. In the case of elliptical motion, the text says that motion does not overcome [aufheben, fait disparaître] the contradiction, but solves it [lösen, résoudre]. The difference seems to be this, that in an overcome contradiction, the two sides no longer contradict each other, but in the present case, the contradicition continues to exist and to have effects, i.e.,  influence the direction of motion.

 

Conclusion from this example: Marx maintains that their are contradictions in the physical world, not just in social relations.

 

 

The process of exchange produces a doubling of the commodity into commodity and money, an external opposition, in which they present their immanent opposition of use value and exchange value. In this opposition the commodity as use value confronts money as exchange value. On the other side [of the opposition of commodity and money] both sides of the opposition are commodities [since money is itself a commodity],  hence unites of use value and exchange value. But this unity of differences presents itself inverted at each pole and presents in that way the mutual relationship [of the two sides] at the same time. The commodity is really use value, [and] its value being appears only ideally in the price, which relates it to gold, gold which confronts as its real value form. Inversely, the material gold is valid only as the material of value, which is money. It [gold] is therefore really exchange value. Its use value appears only still ideally in the series of value expressions, in which it relates to the commodities that confront it as the surroundings of its real use form. These oppositional forms of commodities are the actual moving forms of their process of exchange.

 

The complex interactions here show among other things, the unity of opposites.

 

            The process of exchange of commodities is a unity of opposites.

 

"That the opposing processes [of buying and selling] which are independent of one another form an inner unity means just as much that their inner unity moves them into outer oppositions. The processes which are inwardly dependent and hence mutually supplementary, progress to externally independent processes up to a certain point and thus make themselves forcefully unified through a – crisis.  The immanent oppositions of the commodity of use value and [exchange] value, [the opposition] of private labor, which must be presented at the same time as immediately social labor, [the opposition] of particular concrete labor, which at the same time is valid only as abstract general labor, [the opposition] of the personification of things and the objectification of persons – this immanent contradiction preserves in the oppositions of the metamorphosis of commodities its developed forms of movement. These forms include therefore the possibility, but also only the possibility of crisis. The development of this possibility to actuality requires a whole surrounding [collection of] relationships which still do not exist at all from the standpoint of simple commodity circulation."

 

Points: Inner unity expressed in outer oppositions, oppositions of the commodity, lead to the possibility of crisis, although its actual occurrence facts that don't appear at this level of abstraction—commodity production in general, not specifically capitalist production. The oppositions of the commodity require certain kinds of movement.

·        35:144: MEW Bd. 23, S. 147

"This contradiction between the quantitative limits and the qualitative limitlessness of money drives the hoarder constantly back to the Sisyphus labor of accumulation.  It is with him as it is with the world conqueror, which with each new country conquers only a new limit."

Comments: contradictions drive processes, limit (of one kind) can contradict limitlessness (of another kind).

·        35:145-150: Contradictions in money as a means of payment, in the credit system.

·        35:148: Debts and credits cancel each other, like positive and negative quantitative (compare with Kant). See improved translations page. Money as a means of payment contains an unmediated contradiction. This seems to imply that contradictions can sometimes be mediated. Presumably this can only be done under the "single essence" or "belonging together" conditions developed previously.  MEW Bd. 23, S. 152:

["Like the stag striding toward fresh water [Psalms, 42:1], his [the citizen's] soul strides toward money, the only riches in a crisis, [and] the opposition between the commodity and money, its value form, is increased to an absolute contradiction."]

Comments: (a) Contradiction is intensified opposition (b) contradictions come in degrees.

·        35:311: Resolution of an apparent contradiction, 0/0, by mediation.

·        35:313: Correctness of Hegel's law that quantitative changes pass over into qualitative ones. Footnote explicitly applies this to chemistry.

·        35:321: inner laws of capital compared to laws of motion of heavenly bodies.

Comments: The book often gives the word antagonism where it should have opposition. In this spot, however, antagonism is correct. Marx reserves this for relationship of exploitation, or more generally for the relationship between enemies.

·        35:361: There is a tendency to equilibrium between different spheres of production, since they have in inner relationship [innres Band]. This tendency is realized in a constant reaction against the upsetting of this equilibrium.

·        35:375n: Technology discloses man's mode of dealing with nature, and also discloses [enthüllen] social relations. Materialism includes the view that mental conceptions flow from social relations. The abstract materialism of natural scientists [e.g., Büchner] leaves out history, and is ideological.

·        35:409-10: Contradiction in the use of machinery in capitalist production: surplus value (hence profit) is only created by exploiting labor, but use of machinery saves labor, so allows less surplus value, so implies a fall in the rate of profit. This contradiction drives the capitalist to lengthen the working day.

·        35:444: Bourgeois economists deny the contradiction inherent in the use of machinery in capitalist production.

·        35:489-91: Capitalist production requires flexibility and a variety of skills in the work force. It also requires low wages. But the training and experience of the worker who can do many tasks and switch quickly among them requires a higher wage. The requirements of capitalist production are therefore an absolute contradiction.

·        35:562: Carey doesn't see Ricardo's economics as the ideal expression of the real contradictions of capitalism, but as the cause of those contractions in the real system.

·        35:592n: J. S. Mill at home in absurd contradictions, but at sea in Hegelian contradiction, the source of all dialectic.

·        35:635: That there are always more workers than are needed is a contradiction inherent in the movement of capital.

·        35:640: The antagonistic character of capitalist accumulation is sometimes recognized by economists, but confused with characteristics of earlier economic systems.

·        35:748-51: Immanent laws of capitalism lead to the expropriation of the expropriators, the negation of the negation.

·        37:188: Supply and demand only coincide rarely and by accident. Political economy assumes that they do coincide as an idealization.

MEW Bd. 25, S. 199.

"Since the inequalities [of supply and demand] of an opposite nature, and since they continuously follow one another, they equalize themselves through their opposite directions, and through their contradictions with one another."

·        37:189: MEW 25:200

"… that, when the whole of a larger or smaller time period is considered, supply and demand continuously coincide; but only as the average of the previous movement, and as continuous movement of their contradiction."

·        37:243: There is a contradiction between the production of surplus value and realization of that  value in the market. You can't make a profit if you can't sell the product, but the capitalists need to keep the buying power to a minimum, so that they can make more surplus value. The more that they make in this way, the less they can realize it in the market by selling it profitably.

MEW 25:255

"The inner contradiction seeks to equalize itself through the expansion of the external field of production." No mention here of resolution, only equalization.

MEW 25:255

"… exactly with that the contradiction between the conditions in which this surplus value is produced and the conditions in which it is realized." Contradictions can become more intense.

·        37:247:

MEW 25:259

"These two moments included in the accumulation process are, however, not only to be considered at rest next to one another, as Ricardo does; they included a contradiction, which announces itself in contradictory tendencies and phenomena. The conflicting agencies work against each other at the same time.".

Comments: —This is not a very accurate translation. (a) Moments in contradiction are active w. r. t. one another, work against each other; (b) contradictory tendencies express or show a contradiction, but don't constitute a contradiction?.

·        37:248-9: Capitalist system as a tendency toward the absolute development of the productive forces, but is also a barrier to that production. A capitalist you have to produce as if there were no limits, or you will lose out to the competition. There are limits, however. The real barrier to capital is capital itself. Capital needs superworkers to expand production and buy products, but needs restricted and limited workers to be paid low wages.

·        37:257: The law of the falling rate of profit produces antagonistic [feindlich] oppositions that lead to crises.

·        37:265: Expansion of the productive forces comes into contradiction with the conditions under which capital can increase its value, hence crisis.

·        37:482-3:The ultimate causes of a crisis is poverty and the restricted consumption of the masses, as opposed to the capitalist drive to develop productive forces.