1993 article, which was originally published in Marx’s method in ‘Capital’: a re-examination, edited by Fred Moseley, Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, pp. 89–113.
(For its abstract see the Abstracts of all chapters, p. 3.)
Contents
Introduction
1 Systematic dialectic
2 Marx’s method in Capital
2.1 Kinds of interpretation
2.2 Systematic dialectic in Capital?
3 The starting point of Capital and the theory of value
3.1 A systematic starting point
3.2 Abstract labour and value
A Abstract labour
B Value
3.3 Embodiment: more than a metaphor?
3.4 Value-form and value form
4 Labour-embodied versus abstract-labour theory of value: some current controversies
4.1 Interpretations of Marx’s theory of value
4.2 Labour-embodied theories of value
A Concrete-labour-embodied
B Abstract-labour-embodied
C Substance of value in the labour-embodied theories
4.3 The abstract-labour theory of value: abstraction in practice
4.4 Substance and the measure of time: real abstractions
5 Reconstructing abstract labour within a systematic-dialectical view
Conclusions
References
Introduction1
Although the science of nature, it seems, first got off the ground from a social-scientific impetus,2 eighteenth- and nineteenth-century social scientists felt constrained to cast their theoretical innovations in terms of metaphors borrowed from the natural sciences, in particular physics (see Mirowski 1990). The birth of Marxist social science in the nineteenth century is no exception in this respect. This is remarkable because Marx was very aware of the naturalism of classical political economy. Borrowing metaphors from physics, it is true, need not be naturalistic. Nevertheless, metaphors may be dangerous (as Hegel observed) if perhaps unavoidable. Within Marxist social science, I will argue, the metaphor substance of value as introduced by Marx (1867|1976) has played a very dubious role. It seems that this metaphor came to be taken for a real embodiment – at least within one important strand of Marxism. Of course, because our thinking is so tied to our language, it is always difficult to disentangle metaphoric language from what we really think. It is, however, important to try to be conscious of the metaphors and their purport.
Although the metaphor substance of value was used by Marx (1867|1976), not without a Hegelian undertone, his linking it to embodiment seems to derive from classical political economy. I argue that the combination of (1) the substance metaphor and the classical embodiment remnant with (2) the only implicit method of Capital and, in particular, the unclarity as to the type of abstractions used by Marx, gave rise to an extensive period of birth of a true theory of social value (a theory of value as a purely social institutional phenomenon). I take such a theory to be in the spirit of Marx’s theory in Capital. Despite Marx’s explicit rejection of classical naturalism, the actual content of Capital often seems to bear the remnants of such a naturalism, which can be explained from his lack of clarity as to the extent of the break with his predecessors (which is a common occurrence among path-breaking theoreticians).
I examine to what extent Marx’s theory may indeed be considered a labour-embodied theory of value and to what extent labour is seen to be a substance of value (§3). Then I consider how this has affected current Marxist theory of value, especially in its varieties of the labour-embodied and the abstract-labour theories of value. These theories contain, in my view, a number of defects that may be traced back to the substance of value view (§4). Finally, I provide an outline of how these defects might be overcome (§5). I hope to show that interpreting the type of abstractions that Marx uses is crucial to the examination of his value theory. Are these dialectical abstractions or some sort of analytical abstractions? An answer to this question is complicated by the fact that Marx is hardly explicit about his method. His attitude vis-à-vis Hegel’s logic is an especially ambivalent one. First, I briefly set out my view of this dialectical logic (§1). This will be the vantage point for the examination of Marx’s theory of value (§2) as well as for my view on a possible reconstruction of the labour theory of value (§5). I also make a number of general remarks on Marx’s method in Capital.
1 Systematic dialectic
That Marx’s method remains only implicit in Capital has always complicated the discussion of the work both among and between supporters and opponents. There seems to be no way out of this dilemma apart from making one’s own methodological inclinations explicit: Inasmuch as empirical observations are theory laden (Popper), theoretical evaluations will be methodologically laden. My own methodological inclinations, however – as inspired by Hegel’s logic – are not totally farfetched with respect to Marx. Marx has repeatedly stressed his own indebtedness to this dialectical logic. (See, e.g., Arthur 1986, Echeverria 1978, Murray 1988, Smith 1990, and the contributions in the collection by Schmidt 1969.) The Introduction to the Grundrisse (Marx 1857|1973) provides a statement of a number of the characteristics of systematic dialectics. In other works, however, Marx often seems to distance himself from this approach. The brief outline of the method of systematic dialectic below may prove to be difficult when abstracting it from the content of the theory. In order to give a more complete picture, I include certain concepts that are less relevant for the issues discussed in the sections that follow (these paragraphs are starred [*] in case the reader wishes to skip them).
Systematic dialectic or conceptual dialectic refers to the dialectic as developed in Hegel’s logic (Hegel 1817|1975), which is a logic of dialectical conceptual development. This dialectic should be distinguished definitively from a theory of dialectical historical development (as in Hegel’s philosophy of history) or a theory of historical development of concepts (as introduced in Hegel’s history of philosophy).3
The starting point of the presentation of the systematic-dialectical theory (Darstellung) is an abstract universal notion – an abstract all-embracing concept. This starting point itself is the result of a process of inquiry, of critical appropriation of empirical perceptions and existing theories (of them). This abstract notion is the starting point of explicit theorisation and its presentation (cf. Marx 1867|1976, p. 102; 1857|1973, p. 100). Thinking cannot conceivably make anything of such an abstract universal notion, other than by thinking its abstract negation and its abstract particularisation. In both cases (negation and particularisation), opposed concepts are applied to the same thing or notion, and in this specific sense these opposites are contradictions. In this sense also, to think these things and notions is to articulate their doubling that is, the universal doubles into the universal and an opposite universal, or into universal and particular. (The value–use-value opposition is an example of the former; the opposition of universal and particular labour – amplified upon below – or in simpler terms the animal–cat opposition, are examples of the latter.)
*Two further remarks concerning these oppositions should be made. First, it is precisely the purpose of the presentation to resolve the contradiction from which we start; it is this process of thought that should render comprehension of reality. “The essence of philosophy consists precisely in resolving the contradiction of the Understanding” (Hegel 1833|1985, p. 71). Second, to immediately subsume single empirical phenomena as particulars under universals provides only empty abstractions. One reason for this is that such subsumption may indicate what such phenomena have in common, but not what, if anything, unites them, how they are interconnected. Another is that it is the difference between phenomena that determines them; but this difference also does not say what, if anything, unites them. As long as we have provided no difference-in-unity we have provided no concrete determination. It is this double determination (difference-in-unity) that systematic-dialectical thinking seeks. As Hegel expresses it: “The truth of the differentiated is its being in unity. And only through this movement is the unity truly concrete.” Whereas at first, at the starting point: “difference is still sunk in the unity, not yet set forth as different” (Hegel 1833|1985, p. 83).
*The object of the presentation is to grasp the phenomena from which we start in our perception as concrete, that is, as the “concentration [Zusammenfassung] of many determinations, hence unity of the diverse” (Marx 1857|1973, p. 101). But that may only be possible to the extent that these are phenomena necessary to the existent, rather than contingent ones. (For example, if we have established monetary policy to be necessary to the existent, then credit restrictions or open market policy may be only contingent.) Contingent phenomena cannot be explained as codetermining the internal unity of many determinants – thus not as necessary – but only as an external determinant. (In this article, however, I will not reach this stage of contingency of phenomena.)
A further characteristic of the method of systematic dialectic is that the argument is not based on rules of axiomatic deductive nomological systems. All axioms are eschewed. Rather, anything that is required to be assumed, or anything that is posited immediately (such as the starting point), must be grounded. But it should not be grounded merely abstractly (i.e., giving the arguments in advance), because this always leads to regress. That which is posited must be ultimately grounded in the argument itself, in concretising it. Therefore, the intrinsic merits of the presentation – and not some external criterion – have to convince the reader of the adequacy of the presentation. Thus the presentation moves forward by the transcendence of contradiction and by providing the ever more concrete grounds – the conditions of existence – of the earlier abstract determination. In this forward movement the conditions of existence of earlier abstract determination do not dissolve, but transcend the opposite moments (identity–difference, universal–particular) of the abstract determination. (A moment is an element considered in itself that can be conceptually isolated and analysed as such but that can have no isolated existence.)
*Thus the previous conceptualisation of abstract determinations as moments is not negated, but rather transcended in the ground; or the ground provides the unity of the opposed moments. But at the same time it is a further, more concrete determination of the difference, a difference previously posited only in itself (an sich, potentially, implicitly), as it now appears. So the differences that were previously not set forth as such now come into (abstract) existence. The ground at this new level itself then gains momentum; it is itself an abstract existent showing the contradiction that it cannot exist for itself (für sich, actually). The presentation has to move on in order to ground it in its turn, so as to provide its conditions of existence (Hegel 1817|1975, pp. 120–4; 1833|1985, pp. 81–3). And so on, until the presentation claims to have reached the stage where it comprehends the existent as actual, as actuality (Wirklichkeit), in the sense that its conditions of existence have now been determined such that it is indeed actual, concrete, self-reproducing, or endogenous existence, which requires no external or exogenous determinants for its systematic reproduction.
The presentation then is one of conceptual reproduction of the concrete in successive steps (levels of abstraction); if successful, the presentation is able to grasp the concrete as mediated by the theory (that is, to theoretically reconstitute the empirical ‘facts’, which were at the basis of the initial inquiry). Such a process of inquiry and reconstruction can, of course, never be posited as definitive and completed.
*Levels of abstraction may further be characterised by degree of necessity versus degree of contingency of the elements theorised. It is the purpose of the theory to single out which elements of the object of inquiry may be theorised as necessary to the object, and which elements are (merely) contingent. Of course, the more the presentation moves toward lower levels of abstraction, the more (historically) contingent elements have to be incorporated.
2 Marx’s method in Capital
2.1 Kinds of interpretation
I have indicated that Marx is hardly explicit about the method he uses in Capital. The scarce explicit remarks, moreover, are open to different interpretations. Of course, such interpretations are linked to the understanding of the content. In this respect the history of Marxism has resulted not only in various fashions (such as those led by Bernstein or Althusser) but also in specific research programs (linked to minor groups, e.g., around Lukács and Korsch or Gramsci).
In general, interpretations can be of three sorts, and one can find all three within the Marxist tradition. The first allots authority to, in this case, Capital and sticks in an exegetic way to the text. In terms of the development of a scientific programme this is not very fruitful. The second is historiographic, and for this critical approach one cannot normally stick to a single text. The third type of interpretation is heuristic. Under the heuristic approach, Capital has proved to be a fruitful source. (Indeed, this is what makes a work a classical text.)
Aspects of these three approaches, in general, cannot be kept separate. The historiographer, for example, will at some point be faced with exegetic questions, and good theoretical history will end up with either heuristically interesting questions or heuristically interesting loose ends. My remarks in the remainder of this section and the next derive primarily from the heuristic interest.
2.2 Systematic dialectic in ‘Capital’?
Is Marx’s method in Capital systematic dialectic? And if not, what kind of dialectic is it? Even if I were able to answer this question, this is not the place to do so in a well-balanced and well-documented way. (One need only consult the scholarly works of Murray 1988 and Smith 1990 to see that the issue is quite complicated.) In §3 I consider, from a limited point of view, only one aspect of the question: How can we evaluate the very beginning of Capital, that is, the starting point, in terms of a systematic dialectic? However, these considerations do not provide an answer to the question of the systematic-dialectical character of Capital as a whole. For several reasons, there cannot be a simple yes or no answer to this question.
Hegel’s logic is not a philosophy of social science or of political economy in particular. It is propaedeutic to that philosophy, which needs to be developed on the basis of that logic. There are several ways to do this, and the choice is connected to one’s view of the object realm of the science. However, the object realm is inseparable from the content of the science. Further, these ways are tied not only to the object realm but also to one’s view (vision) of the state of the science in relation to the phenomena (although this is closely related to the object realm).4
It follows that the philosophy and methodology of a science cannot be developed in separation from the content of the science. Both Hegel and Marx seem to have been well aware of this point. (And I am very much aware of it from my own research experience.) Nevertheless, I believe that much of the trouble with Hegelian Marxism is due to an exaggerated puritanism in this respect. I want to make a plea for making the philosophy and methodology of systematic-dialectical social science explicit. However, this can never be a once-and-for-all matter. It can never be more than a temporary state of the art since it is necessarily linked to (one’s view of) the state of the science. Marx, for example, might have written such a treatise after the completion of the Grundrisse (i.e., more than the current Introduction) and a new one after the completion of Volume 1 of Capital and another new one after the completion of Volume 3 of Capital.
There are indeed several ways to proceed from Hegel’s dialectical logic. For example, within an agreed movement from abstract to concrete categories, as well as an agreement that Hegel’s Begriffs logic cannot be applied or developed immediately to the social science of capitalism, Murray (1988) stresses general versus determinate abstractions and their development, Smith (1990) a triadic development, and Reuten and Williams (1989) systemic necessity versus contingency as well as negation and particularisation.5 In their works these authors do not deny the importance of that which is stressed by the others; only the emphasis is different.6
In The Philosophy of Right, originally published in 1821, Hegel does develop Begriffs logic into social science (i.e., in his theory of the state). It is a social-scientific work into which Hegel develops his own logic. Although The Philosophy of Right contains, in my view, a number of outstanding insights (especially in the Introduction), it does not live up to Hegel’s logic. At least it can be highly criticised from the point of view of Hegel’s logic. For example, it does not (cf. Smith 1990) follow a strict triadic movement even if the three parts do so, the movements within the parts definitely do not. Hegel leaves no room for the articulation of general versus determinate abstractions (cf. Murray 1988), and the articulation of the necessary versus the contingent is far from sound (cf. Reuten and Williams 1989).7
I will not blame anyone for not seeing a systematic conceptual development in Marx’s Capital. When I first read the work, I knew little about dialectics and conceptual development, and my reading was a flat one. A later reading though – with some knowledge of dialectics – did not convey to me more than three broad levels of abstraction in line with the three volumes of Capital. Nevertheless, and perhaps paradoxically, certain moments in Marx’s Capital contain a conceptual development. In general, this applies to his concept of tendency and, in particular, that of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. But in a recent reading of the first three chapters of Volume 1 (undertaken in writing this essay), I once again found them very disappointing in terms of systematic conceptual development.
5 Reconstructing abstract labour within a systematic-dialectical view
This section provides some elements of a methodological outline of how a social labour theory of value may be derived from Marx’s theory by way of reconstructing that theory. It is not an interpretation of Marx’s theory. The reconstruction is one along the lines of a systematic dialectic as briefly introduced in §1. I confine myself to a few stages of such a theory. The systematic context is set out in Reuten and Williams (1989, ch. 1); my remarks expand on the concepts of abstract labour and value set out in that work.
In §3 I indicated how Marx derives the concept of abstract labour. He does this on the basis of a reductive abstraction, not a dialectical logical abstraction. Marx arrives at his concept of abstract labour in abstraction from particular and concrete labour: The latter is reduced to elements making up human labour in the abstract, metaphorically referred to as crystals of social substance. As this objectified social substance, they are value(s) (Ʌ in the notation introduced in §3.2).
It was also indicated that the concrete labour Li and Lj cannot be added up as particulars. However, because of the dialectical contradiction of particular labour being simultaneously universal labour, the labour-time i and j can in principle be added up as labour hours in the abstract (l): li + lj = l, even though we cannot add them up as particulars L. Similarly we can add up acres of land even if we know their qualities to be different; the same goes for pieces of fruit. But this is a dialectical logical abstraction and not a simplification. Within an approach of dialectical conceptual development, li and lj may have abstract existence as l. But this very approach purports to concretise this abstract existence to the level of concrete and phenomenal existence. At the abstract level it is not impossible to quantify, but any such quantification will have only abstract meaning – and sometimes makes hardly any sense.8 To take an example: The abstract ‘animal’ has concrete existence as my cat Mitzy or as the fly she is catching; it is not impossible to think of them as two animals and to add them up as such. But we cannot add them up as particulars. Also, many mathematical operations make no sense: Half a cat plus half a fly do not make one animal. The dialectical contradiction is that Mitzy is a cat and an animal at the same time. A fly and a cat cannot be added up as particulars, but only in the abstract.
Thus we have the dialectical contradiction Li ·×· l (where ·×· indicates dialectical contradiction).9 At this level, li + lj = l is fairly empty; it is indeed an abstract statement, a statement at the abstract level of theory. (Though the statement is true and remains true even if we move to concrete levels of the theory: In fact we do speak in practice of US labour expended.) In the market, people do not reckon in terms of the abstract l. Nor do they reckon in terms of concrete Li’s because these cannot be added up. Because production inputs and outputs diverge (and because in capitalist production such divergence itself is not the aim, it is production for others) they have to be reduced to a common denominator, which is value. Value is thus constituted as universal as opposed to the particularity of the physical inputs and outputs. (Note that in this view, labour, even l or l objectified, is not value. Here the theory clearly diverges from Marx’s.)10 In the market, value actually gets shape in its expression in terms of money. If we restrict ourselves to the output, and to the value-added component, we may write m for the monetary expression of labour, as it is actually realised in the market. Thus m is also the value productivity of labour. In the market then, the contradiction Li ·×· l is transcended at a more concrete level into what I provisionally call mLi (but should call mli as indicated below). mLi is a sum of money (in terms of dollars, for example, though this belongs to an even more concrete level of the theory). In the market, labour actually takes the value-form. Thus labour is actually converted (transformed) into an abstract entity. It is actual and capitalist abstract labour, which is capitalist value. (This opens up an enormous terminological confusion, because here and in the abstract-labour-embodied theory the same words are used to denote different concepts. This is, however, inevitable if one wants to keep in touch with everyday language.)
Perhaps a somewhat subtle differentiation (that is, for the current purposes) is that in the market the Li ·×· l contradiction is transcended by way of positing it, more concretely, in the abstract moment (l) of the contradiction. Thus we should write mli.
At a somewhat more concrete level we may have diverging monetary expressions of labour, whence we have mili. (In Reuten and Williams 1989, ch. 2, it is explained how this expression bears on the aggregate income Y = ml =
In comparison with the abstract-labour-embodied theory, the upshot of all this is that the simple labour discounting that bedevils the theory pertains to a process that actually takes place in the market (mi; mj). Of course, the current theory maintains that value has no existence prior to the market. But this is far from saying that it does not affect production. In Reuten and Williams (1989, pp. 66–8)11 it is explained how the commensuration in the market (mili) is anticipated by capital and so gives rise to what we have called an ‘ideal pre-commensuration’ in production (properly written mi´Li). Thus the labour process is in fact calculated in terms of value (i.e., money).
Let me summarise the different views in terms of the symbols that have been used (3§2-A; §3.3; §5).
A. The systematic-dialectical reconstruction states:
li + lj = l (5)
Equation (5) makes sense to the extent labour is considered as universal. The expression is rather empty and in that sense is an abstract statement (of universal labour in the abstract). In this view the following equation make no sense.
Li + Lj = L (6)
Equation (6) makes no sense in this view because we cannot add up different labour as particular labour. The following equation is considerably more concrete than equation (5):
mili + mjlj = ml (7)
This equation (7) represents the expression for real abstract labour. It is also the expression for value (in terms of money).
B. The concrete-labour-embodied view states:
Li + Lj = Ʌ (8)
or alternatively
Li + Lj = L (9)
If there is a concept of abstract labour at all in this view, then this is Ʌ. All the quantities in equations (8) and (9) are in terms of value, measured in hours.
C. The abstract-labour-embodied view states:
Ʌi + Ʌj = Ʌ (10)
Equation (10) is the expression for abstract labour = value (abstract labour is the result of a reductive abstraction). Equation (10) is equivalent to or may be transformed into:
α iLi +α jLj = Ʌ (11)
where the dimensions are simple labour = value, measured in hours. Only by simplifying (heuristic) assumption does (11) reduce to (8).
Conclusions
It is somewhat grandiose to say that Capital was an effort at developing systematic dialectics for social science – beginning with political economy – in confrontation with Hegel’s work. (But then the qualifications in this respect as set out by Murray 1988 and Smith 1990 seem plausible.) I have shown that a reconsideration of the first chapter of Capital reveals that Marx embarked on a different track from Hegel’s logic. Marx felt that this method would have to be developed in the practice of research (cf. Murray 1988). However, as with all founders of new paradigms, Marx’s exact break with the previous paradigm(s) is unclear, and here this applies to both the method and the content. Therefore there is room for several interpretations as well as lines of research developing from Capital. And, for the time being, this does no harm: I sympathise with Feyerabend’s anarchistic view even if I myself have rather definite inclinations as to the way in which the paradigm might fruitfully develop.
Systematic-Dialectical interpretations of Marx have always been in a minority. The majority of the Marxist tradition indeed took the dialectic for Hegelian claptrap. Heuristically the question of how far Marx reached in developing systematic dialectics is not very important – though it is interesting from a historiographic point of view. What is important is that, from it, a systematic-dialectical social science may be (further) developed. If we take this project seriously, then one of its targets should be a critical study of Capital from that perspective. The critique of Capital in this chapter then has been a critique of Marx with (as far as I am concerned) Marx.
A systematic-dialectical study of current society would have to be a four-stage project. These stages are those that I consider the stages of a systematic-dialectical methodology.
The first step is a critical phenomenal analysis, which would need to concentrate on phenomena as reported in newspapers and everyday conversations rather than their filtered reports in books and journal articles. It is not obvious, for example, that labour–capital class or exploitation issues are the phenomena that require explanation rather than the phenomena, for example, of third-world catastrophes, oppression of women, unemployment, racism, the ecological environment, unequal distribution of income, and authoritarian relations. I am not saying in advance that the latter phenomena cannot be grasped in terms of the capital relation; I am saying that we need to step back regularly in order to think over our theory.
The second step is to reanalyse the analyses of those phenomena, as well as the existing systematic outlines in books and journal articles. This includes a critical study of philosophy and social science in perspective of the analysis carried out in the first step. The abstract determination should result from this.
Third is the reproduction of the concrete from the abstract determination in the second step.
And the fourth step is the critique of the analyses done in the second step.
All this may sound familiar, but it has to be carried out as an ongoing project. We cannot – ever – just take for granted what has been accomplished yesterday.
In this chapter I have picked out some value-theoretical issues of the second step mentioned. I have suggested that although Marx provided the rudiments of a theory of social value (which nobody after him took any further), he was enmeshed in the physical substance–embodiment metaphor inherited from Hegel (substance) and classical political economy (embodiment). The Marxist tradition, rather than taking off from Marx in this respect, seems to have ‘fetishised’ the metaphor (which is remarkable in the face of the antinaturalism that is one of the main characteristics of the Marxist tradition). This seems related to the priority Marxists give to the theorisation of production. Indeed, this is the strong point of the Marxist paradigm in comparison with any other. However, with it Marxism has tended to theorise the economy in one-sided physical terms. I believe that the metaphor has prohibited the breakthrough to a true theory of social value. It may be added that no other paradigm in economics has been able to undertake this breakthrough. I have indicated how the ground may be cleared for developing a social labour theory of value. Within such an approach it seems possible to dispense with the metaphor and the related concept of value without, however, cutting loose from the theorisation of production.
I am grateful to Chris Arthur, Martha Campbell, Mino Carchedi, Paul Mattick Jr., Patrick Murray, Fred Moseley, and Tony Smith for the intensive and enjoyable conference discussion of an earlier version of this paper, which has also benefited from comments by Michael Williams and Alexander van Altena, and further from a second-round comment by Fred Moseley.
Paolucci (1974, p. 108) indicates how Francis Bacon was inspired by Machiavelli, who had taken the laws of statecraft as statecraft really is rather than as it ought to be. Cf. Mattick Jr. 1986, p. 113, on the natural law metaphor taken from “the medieval Christian picture of God as lawgiving sovereign of creation”.
The remainder of this section draws on a section on method in Reuten 1988. An extensive discussion is in Reuten and Williams 1989, part 1.
If we are primarily interested in historiographic questions with respect to Marx’s Capital, then the relevant phenomena are those of 1850.
Reuten and Williams 1989 – note, however, that this work is not an interpretation of Marx, although it owes a lot to Marx.
In Murray’s (1988) work, ‘contradiction’ and its developmental powers are far less prominent than in either Smith (1990) or Reuten and Williams (1989). In both Murray and Smith, the concept of form is treated differently than in Reuten and Williams. Form is at the very basis of Reuten and Williams; it is developed as expressions of form, whereas both Murray and Smith allow for forms of form. As an interpretation of Marx, forms of form is correct, though I think it is a confusing concept.
Two examples that spring to mind are Hegel’s view on the male-female functions, divisions, and roles, and the role of the monarch. Even if Hegel’s views on these issues can be explained in terms of the culture of his time, and even if in his time (around 1800) his views were far from conservative, they are still inadmissible if we take his own logic seriously: The systemic necessity of the roles referred to is not developed in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1821|1967).
Reuten and Williams (1989) aim to show how the abstract category l develops, via the existence of the market and the complex of market relations, into the more concrete category of ml.
We can look at this contradiction both as particular labour Li under the aspect of universal labour 1, i.e., l(Li), and as universal labour under the aspect of particular labour, i.e., Li(l). Using this notation we may write: l(Li) + l(Lj) = l. However, Li(l) + Lj (l) = L makes no sense.
[2023 note: Regarding this last sentence I do not recall what I meant here in 1993. Anyway, in Capital I, ch. 1, section 3 Marx writes: “Human labour-power in its fluid state, or human labour, creates value, but is not itself value. It becomes value in its coagulated state, in objective form” (1867/1976, pp. 138–9).]
See also Reuten 1988, 53–55.
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