Introduction to a Dialectical Theory of Political Economy based on Dialectical Contradictions

Introduction to a Dialectical Theory of Political Economy based on Dialectical Contradictions.

Keywords: Marx, classical and post-classical theory, value, labour-power, exchange.

1. Peter Ruben’s logical definition of value-un-decidedness. In his book Dialektik und Arbeit der Philosophie (1978)[1] Peter Ruben offers a logical analysis of the so-called „dialectical contradiction“ starting out from the formal judgement building, negations and counternegations, thereby using the common logical signs: ! meaning “it is true that…”, Ø “it is not true that…”, Î “is”, p its predicative, ~ “not”, Ù sentence conjunction and & the predicative conjunction and finally Û for bi-implication indicating equivalence.

Now Peter Ruben takes two predicative sentences (S): !S/Îp and !S/Î~p which when taken together build the sentence conjunction !S/Îp Ù !S/Î~p (‘it is true that S is p and it is true that S is non-p‘), the standard example of the logical value false. By means of the affirmative paradox (‘it is both true that p and non-p’) we then define the logical contradiction (Cd_log.) by the following bi-implication:

So the affirmative paradox as a positive judgement exactly represents the logical contradiction in so far it can be stated logically equivalent to !S/Îp Ù !S/Î~p. To this Peter Ruben in his paper has this comment: “Whether this is the case is to be determined in the frame of the presupposed theory. It can not be stated a priori” (Ibid., p.141; all transl. R.S.).

Now, using the difference between “outer” (Ø) and “inner Negations” (~) we have at our disposal both negation and counter-affirmation so that we can negate the original (false) sentence conjunction !S/Îp Ù !S/Î~p and so create the new: ØS/Îp Ù ØS/Î~p ; this one as the negation of false, however – and that is the crux of the matter – cannot mean true but in fact logically generates a third value. Again Peter Ruben:

Of course, this is no work of predication but rather the product of a value formation which you also could express by using the predicative “value-un-decided”. We call the corresponding logical term “logical un-decidedness”. (Ibid., p.141).

From this logical argument Ruben finally defines the “dialectical contradiction” (Cd_dial) in this way:

An affirmative paradox exactly represents a dialectic contradiction if the positive judgement about this affirmative paradox is logically equivalent to the term of logical un-desidedness. In other words: the dialectic contradiction appears logically as un-decidedness. (Ibid., p.142).

In the language of the formal logic this theorem says: The dialectical contradiction involves the exclusion of the logical contradiction. In the language of analytics this means: The dialectical contradiction is the sufficient condition for excluding the logical contradiction; the exclusion the logical contradiction is the necessary condition for the existence of the dialectical contradiction. In the language of Hegel this theorem says: The dialectical contradiction sets the logical contradiction. (Ibid.)

He who wants the logical version of the dialectical contradiction contrarily to the logical one must accept the existence of logical un-decidedness! (In respect to the negative paradox there is no un-decidedness; therefore this one cannot give any dialectical contradiction.) He who excludes any un-decidedness will newer clear up the dialectics. (Ibid.)

With these arguments Peter Ruben clearly opposes Aristotle’s metaphysical ontology where the copula is just separates the sentence subject from its predicative(s), that is, takes them in separation one by one only connected by the copula is. Contrarily to this Peter Ruben states subject and predicative(s) to be different, but inseparable, i.e. existing only as members of the content-bearing sentences which according to classical logic as judgements must be either true or false (Tertium non datur). However, on this basis now including the “logical un-decidedness” and consequently the logical definition of the dialectical contradiction, this classical principle can no longer be maintained as a generally accepted truth (Tertium datur!). In the sense of his dialectic ontology (“ontology is no metaphysics but the doctrine about what sentences and their members really means”, p. 122) he states as his guiding rule:

Subjects indicate things, predicates properties, their unities, the sentences, are expressions of matters of fact. There are no properties without things (bearers) and no things without properties. So subjects and predicates are inseparable; they indicate dialectic opposites of contradictions which themselves are sentences. The term “matter of fact” [Sachverhalt] is just to be understood indicating the concrete unity of a fact (a thing) and its behaviour (its property). This means that a sentence is the expression of a concrete unity and its members as subject and predicate signs of the this unity conditioning opposites. (Ibid., p. 121f)

2. Contradictions in the concept of the commodities. The real philosophical problem is now descriptively to indicate such objects characterised by an affirmative paradox equivalent to (bi-implicating) the term of logical un-decidedness which so to say characterises these objects’ outer conditions, that is, the double conditions of their existence the poles of which they have to unify and about which Marx says, that this ‘does not abolish these contradictions but rather provides the form within they have room to move’ (cf. Capital I, p. 198). In this connection some school-examples shall be discussed here, commodities on the market and the concept of “labour power” realising “living labour” under the conditions of capitalist economy. Among other things we shall therefore demonstrate the logical un-decidedness of the market function (the circulation sphere) under the condition of functioning of workshops (the production sphere). Further cases will be discussed in analogue ways.

Karl Marx’s Capital I takes its point of departure by analysing the nature of the commodity as we find them on the market. Traditionally we characterise this as the unity of: being both “value” and “use-value” which can be interpreted as an affirmatively paradox in so far use-value can be identified as non-value. Let us call value p and consequently use-value in the sense of being non-value ~p . Then we can descriptively define the commodity C by the predicative-conjunction !C/Î(p & ~p). But let us quote Marx himself:

If then we disregard the use-value of commodities, only one property remains, that of being products of labour. (…) If we make abstraction from its use-value, we abstract also from the material constituents and forms making up the use-value. It is no longer a table, a house, a piece of yarn or any other useful thing. All its sensuous characteristics are extinguished. Nor is it any longer the product of the labour of the joiner, the mason or the spinner, or of any particular kind of productive labour. With the disappearance of the useful character of the products of labour, the useful character of the kinds of labour embodied in them also disappears; this in turn entails the disappearance of the different concrete forms of labour. They can no longer be distinguished, but are all together reduced to the same kind of labour, human labour in abstract. (Capital I, p. 128)

When having in mind that as well value as use-value are products of concrete living labour over time, this quotation indicates that value in abstract cannot be exactly determined in any descriptive way in the case of commodities (C) staying on the market which cannot be determined under these conditions; so we state: ØC/Îp (‘the different concrete forms of labour’ disappear when reduced to an amount of time once in the past). On the other hand: also indicating the use-value in abstract is according to this negated: ØC/Î~p (‘the useful character of the kinds of labour embodied in them also disappears’); use-value is only a matter of concrete use after the commodity has once been bought in the future. Consequently, when value and use-value is taken in separation, in abstract as matters of past and future, there remains only logical un-decidedness expressed with the term ØC/Îp Ù ØC/Î~p equivalent to the affirmative paradox !C/Î(p & ~p). That is, we have in a descriptive way reproduced the dialectical contradiction contained in commodities in general as long as they are staying on the market:

On the other hand, we must not undertake the logical shortcut cancelling the affirmative paradox saying: the commodity as such is value and also is use-value: !C/Îp Ù !C/Î~p . This would exactly separate the logical predicatives and according to formula 1 above generate a logical contradiction.

3. ‘Contradictions in the Formula for Capital’. Peter Ruben’s above given deduction of the dialectical contradiction could very well have been conceived on the basis of Karl Marx’s chapter 5 of his Capital I, Contradictions in the Formula for Capital, so that this Marxian argument could be taken as a further school example of dialectical contradictions. Marx takes his point of departure in the well-known formula M-C-M’ (money, commodity, more money; cf. Capital I, Ch. 4: The General Formula for Capital, p 247ff) as the formula of merchant capitalism where the commodity already has achieved its money-form (cf. further chapter II.***). The formula M-C-M’ just contains the essential contradiction between the proposed equivalent exchange M-C und the following non-equivalent exchange C-M’. To clear this specific contradiction Marx writes:

But commodities are not paid for twice over, once on account of their use-value, and a second time on account of their value. And though the use-value of a commodity is more serviceable to the buyer than to its seller, its money-form is more so to the seller. Would he sell otherwise? (Capital I, p. 262)

The formation of surplus-value, and therefore the transformation of money into capital, can consequently be explained neither by assuming that commodities are sold above their value, nor by assuming that they are bought at less than their value. (Ibid., p. 263)

That is, in equivalence exchange no general gains of surplus-value C-M’ can be achieved by sale. Again Marx:

We have shown that surplus-value cannot arise from circulation, and therefore that, for to be formed, something must take place in the background which is not visible in the circulation itself. (…) The commodity owner can create value by his labour, but he cannot create values which can valorize themselves. He can increase the value of his commodity by adding fresh labour, and therefore more value, to the value in hand, by making leather into boots, for example. (Ibid., p. 268)

To understand the production of surplus-value we therefore besides the circulation sphere have to include the production sphere so that the circulation sphere must be completed with some processes outside itself. These are, on the one hand, different yet in the case of a real capitalist economy both necessary and inseparable. To propose this contradiction at the end of chapter 5 Marx argues in the following way:

Capital cannot therefore arise from circulation, and it is equally impossible for it to arise apart from circulation. It must have its origin both in circulation and not in circulation.

The transformation of money in capital has to be developed on the basis of the immanent laws of exchange of commodities, in such a way that the starting-point is the exchange of equivalents. The money-owner, who is as yet only a capitalist in larval form, must buy his commodities at their value, sell them at their value, and yet at the end of the process withdraw more value from circulation than he threw into it at the beginning. His emergence as a butterfly must, and yet must not, take place in the sphere of circulation. These are the conditions of the problem. Hic Rhodus, hic salta! (Capital I, pp. 268-69)

In fact, Marx here presents us for even two affirmative paradoxes derived form the market function M-C-M’, where the first exchange M-C is based on equivalence (eq by buying), the other one based the non-equivalence of C-M’ (~eq by selling) because this extra value can only be the result of some production. So this market exchange (Exch) is descriptively characterised by the affirmative paradox !Exch/Î(eq & ~eq); these opposed predicatives can as such only be unified by the market function based partly on the circulation sphere as such where exchange is done value-equivalently (eq), partly on the production sphere where labour-power is generating new value, so that the produced commodities now have more value than their production cost (~eq) (this also expressed in the contradiction between value and price). These moments of the exchange function taken together gives us the economical term of un-decidedness ØExch/Îeq Ù ØExch/Î~eq . These two contradictions implicate each other and are unified in the market action using money:

The second affirmative paradox is based on the productive labour function which shall be more thoroughly analysed below. Alone based on the functions of the market, however, there is no definite logical solution of the problem of this logical un-decidedness. Therefore Marx seeks a ne social moment which as such, but again “does not abolish these contradictions, but rather provides the form within they have room to move” (p. 198).

4. Introducing Labour-power Therefore, on the very first page of chapter 6 Marx follows this contradiction up by introducing exactly a new “commodity” to unify its opposites, that is, a “commodity” with the specific capacity of creation new value. This “commodity”, the “labour-power” introduced as the cause of this value difference at the same time distinguishes between the functioning of the market, the circulation sphere and that of the workshop, the production sphere; and again, by doing this it also unites these spheres in such a way that we could transform Marx’s merchant capital formula M-C-M’ into M-L-M’ (L for “labour-power”). This makes it possible to us also to change formula 5a into that of the function of “labour-power” when realising production:

Here in his Capital Marx in fact has introduced a quite new scenario to illustrate the essential moment of this very capitalist “revolution”:

… our friend the money-owner must be lucky enough to find within the sphere of circulation, on the market, a commodity whose use-value possess the peculiar property of being a source of value, whose actual consumption is therefore itself an objectification [Vergegenständlichung] of labour, hence a creation of value. The possessor of money does find such a special commodity on the market: the capacity for labour [Arbeitsvermögen], in other words labour-power [Arbeitskraft]. (Capital I, p. 270)[2]*****

We mean by labour-power, or labour-capacity, the aggregate of those mental and physical capabilities existing in the physical form, the living personality, of a human being, capabilities which he sets in motion whenever he produces a use-value of any kind. (Ibid., p. 270)

But of course, to ‘find such a special commodity’ (with a self-valorising value!) with ‘those mental and physical capabilities’ on the market is not at all so easy as for the butterfly to slip out of the cocoon. The postulated labourer to be must just be free, free from money, free from any means, i.e. free as air. But this was in no way the general situation for the people of that time: everyone was bound up by feudal rights and demands, on the estates, by the guilds, the church etc. Many of such dependencies really had to be broken up before the fine new butterfly could really fly in the air. To break these dependence was a historical process, a revolution, demanding many hard social and economical struggles, in the first instance just the struggle for ‘freedom’, exactly ‘freedom’ to enter into the new capitalist world of freedom, e.g. with the freedom to “sell” this faculty of labour by entering a wage contract, and so also the money-owner’s freedom to exploit his worker in order to get maximal profit from his labour.

So again we have the contradiction of two amounts of value (V), first that of wages primarily determined by the costs for things necessary as provisions for the individual worker’s identical reproduction (eq), secondly that of the higher price achieved by selling the produced things (~eq). That is, through its work this new “commodity” realises a specific form of exchange (Exch, formula 5a) in favour of the always value calculating employer. Consequently the value determinations are again as such involved in these functions un-decided (note that “value” pr. definition is stated identically constant, at least in this sense being not self-valorising; cf. part II) what we again might express by ØV/Îwages Ù ØV/Î~wages. Again, “labour-power” as a “commodity” just by production unifies the value of the agreed wages for reproduction and (as its “self-valorising”

“use-value”[3]) of the value with surplus-value produced in the working process itself and realised by selling the products: !V/Î(eq & ~eq). Again we formulate the dialectical contradiction about value as such under these conditions:

This formula (5a) demands a serious theoretical comment. You could say that it is based on an exaggerated quotation of the Marxian text (the owner of commodities “cannot create values which can valorize themselves,” p. 268), but such a seemingly simple statement in a yet dialectical text in fact poses an essential question about the very basis on which the actual theory is built. In the classical (also Marxian) political economy based primarily on equivalent exchange value as such is defined abstract identical. In post-classical theory, however, we find theoreticians basing their basic arguments on fluctuating interests realised through entering contracts, among others also labour-contracts. On such a basis it is unavoidable about value to pose the opposite proposition, at least as a possibility. But in the author’s opinion this question is not a simple either-or but rather concerns the very dialectics of all economical theory. The question is rather which of these understandings is the primary, which the secondary, derivative one, but neither of them as such being false, and under which historical conditions have they been formulated in theses ways? This question will be a leading one through the whole book.

5. The Formula of Capitalist Economy. The main point is here expressed by Marx in concentrated form: „Capital cannot therefore arise from circulation, and it is equally impossible for it to arise apart from circulation. It must have its origin both in circulation and not in circulation.“ (Capital I, p. 268) That is, Capital (Cap) arises neither from equivalent exchange, eq , nor apart from circulation, i.e. from extended production based on non-equivalence (~eq), in logical terms: ØCap/Îeq Ù ØCap/Î~eq; in other words, capital as social-economical formation contains the dialectic contradiction:

This ‘double result’ means that these two forms of exchange mutually depend on each other; i.e., they are different but because of the self-valorising value inseparable, unified in and characterising the capitalist economy. This ‘double result’ can of cause be mirrored, non-circulation ~eq meaning production (prod) and eq = ~prod, circulation (market function). That is, the capitalist’s necessary surplus cannot be generated in the production sphere alone (ØCap/Îprod) and (Ù) neither in the circulation sphere alone (ØCap/Î~prod); taken together this reproduces the dialectical contradiction

This way of defining capital as production and circulation (= non-production), !Cap/Î(prod & circ) or !Cap/Î(prod & ~prod), might seem un-necessarily abstract. We e.g could have taken the categories in the reversed order and one after the other: (this specific form of) Production is capitalist (!Prod/Îcap), and analogously (this specific form of) Circulation is capitalist (!Circ/Îcap). This would have described two different forms of capitalist action – and at once indicated that these concepts both are more general than capitalism itself! Such descriptions could certainly have told us a lot about the predicatives “capital” too, but thereby not only distinguished Production from Circulation but rather definitely separated them from each other (connected only by their identical predicatives). Thereby we also would have cancelled every possibility of grasping their inner dialectics and omitted to reveal the deepest and most essential dynamics of the predicative itself, the capital. However, at issue here is exactly the inseparability of these social functions, i.e. their non-existence as paradox capitalist predicatives in isolation (mind you, under the condition of preservation of the capital as such) and so to define the main capitalist dialectics, which just is the central issue of this introducing chapter.

6. Labour-power again. Above we cited Marx (p. 270) for saying that “our friend the money-owner must be lucky enough to find within the sphere of circulation, on the market [in the sense of the labour market], a commodity whose use-value possess the peculiar property of being a source of value, whose actual consumption is therefore itself an objectification [Vergegenstandlichung] of labour, hence a creation of value.” ‘Find(ing it) within the sphere of circulation, on the market’ means just being able to ‘buy’ it to its “value” of production (eq here transformed into the identical monetary measure of the “value” [p]), the “use-value” of which, however, ‘possesses the peculiar property of being a source of value, whose actual consumption is therefore itself … a creation of value’, this again monetarily determined; call therefore this growth of value (by self-valorisation!) ~eq the monetarily measured p-negation [~p] . In this way the so-called “labour-power” in the sense of “living labour” (L) over time again realises this un-decidedness of the dialectical contradiction

Here the unifying element in the original form of M-C-M’ (cf. formula 5a), the “commodity” labour-power L in fact replaces the commodity C as defined by money

This comparison makes production analogue to market exchange, i.e. again making labour, the “faculty” or “capacity” of labour, again the “labour-power”[4] a kind of commodity but with this curious form of value. The obvious similarity of the two formulae for resp. L and C easily explains that “labour-power” has been seen as a member of the genus commodities. The only new in these last formulae is that they are based on measured quantities, as such being rather arithmetic than logic. The essential point in this comparison is, that the exchange of commodities is a quite formal transaction but on the contrary production is a real, material function immediately necessary for all social life as such.

So, as the essential moment of the capitalist economy we have stated “labour-power” and its “value” as logically and arithmetically un-decided. Matter is that this elementary moment of each individual life is produced by natural metabolism in the body itself depending on consumption of food stuffs and other necessities themselves produced by metabolically realised labour of other individuals like themselves by extended production, in fact the general conditions of all life at all. Only under the condition of private property of money and valued means of production and ther things this will realise the specific capitalist economy and life style.

At the same time we observe that in the course of this capital process our human individual as a worker somehow “found” on the market is constantly changing his individual subjectivity. Installed by the employer’s machines and other means of production he was proposed lacking any specified personality[5]*** (lacking any personal interest in the working process etc.) beside his simple awareness (“a”-subjectivity, cf. Part II. ***) necessary to carry out what he was ordered to fully subjected to the demands and control of his employer. But after the agreed period of working time and he had received his wages he in a quite radical way changed this “personality” (cf. Orlando Patterson’s discussion below), now being a “free” person in every respect disposing over his own property (thereby realising “q”-subjectivity). So when he wanted he “freely” might enter into a new labour contract to take up his bound work for his old employer (or someone else) to earn new wages.

So we again find an affirmative paradox of the subjective, ideal “a”-moment and the objective, non-subjective moment of capitalism, the privately owned means of production “m” (m = ~a). This can be expressed as usual by the logical un-decidedness of ØProd/Îa Ù ØProd/Î~a , the unifying element of which under capitalist conditions is the real “labour-power” L, here expressed in its product form a ∙m = f , just as “power” or even “force” [Kraft] (!). So we again can characterise the capitalistic production in this twofold way:

7. Un-decidedness and Fragility. Thereby we also indicate the essential antagonism between the social bearers of the “a”-subjectivity, the workers, the proletariat, and the private owners of the means of production “m”, the capitalists with their “q”-subjectivity (note the essential reservation to this characteristic made in A6 above). With the last bi-implications (formulae 7a and b) we have dialectically defined the capitalism as an economical formation based on the private property to the socially essential material and economical means in opposition to the productively involved moments of subjectivity. On the other hand we understand that affirmative paradoxes as such in the last instance always have an ephemeral form of existence. As mentioned, these paradoxical existences necessarily have to be supported by every means; the thingly existence e.g. of the commodity is not enough, commodities unsold are simply waste, and this dialectics will steadily be influenced by the economic circumstances. Will the difficulties grow massively the functions of the capitalist society will be seriously interrupted and itself as such be gravely threatened (crisis).

Such situations would provoke strong fear to the employers and capitalists for losing their traditional room for moving their property, resp. for losing their means of profit-giving production etc. This, of course, would not mean that basic capacities of producing and circulation as such would be cancelled, only that the elementary productive conjunction of subjective and objective, ideal and material moments had to be organised on new technological, economical and legal basis, that is, new forms of social, economic, etc. action would then even be changing the formal determinations of the social activities as such, even changing the very human interests and so eventually leading to a new, post-capitalist revolution realising new dialectic contradictions.

[1] In Peter Ruben: Dialektik und Arbeit der Philosophie, Pahl Rugenstein Verlag, Köln 1978, pp. 117-145 (transl. R.S.).

[2] We notice here a remarkable terminological ambivalence: “capacity for labour [Arbeitsvermögen], in other words labour-power [Arbeitskraft]” and again: “labour-power, or labour-capacity.” But a “capacity” is no “power”. We shall return to this ambivalence below (§A6 here and ***)

[3] The expression ~eq also indicates, the use-values (unlike values) in general cannot be determined (measured) numerically.

[4] We observe here a contradiction by calling both “faculty (or the capacity) of labour”, “labour-power” and “living labour” commodities. This contradiction, however, will be cancelled in a later paragraph of this book, see II.***.

[5] Cf. §***