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THE UNKNOWN MARX Reconstructing a Unified Perspective T O AKAHISA ISHI Foreword by Terrell Carver P Pluto Press LONDON • STERLING, VIRGINIA in association with Takushoku University, Tokyo First published 2001 by PLUTO PRESS 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 22883 Quicksilver Drive, Sterling, VA 20166–2012, USA www.plutobooks.com Copyright © Takahisa Oishi 2001 The right of Takahisa Oishi to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Oishi, Takahisa, 1950– The unknown Marx : reconstructing a unified perspective / Takahisa Oishi; foreword by Terrell Carver. p. cm. ISBN 0–7453–1698–0 — ISBN 0–7453–1697–2 (pbk.) 1. Marx, Karl, 1818–1883. 2. Philosophy, Marxist. 3. Capitalism. 4. Communism. I. Title. HX39.5 .O47 2001 335.4—dc21 00–009581 ISBN 0 7453 1698 0 hardback ISBN 0 7453 1697 2 paperback 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Disclaimer: Some images in the original version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services, Fortescue, Sidmouth EX10 9QG Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton Printed in the European Union by TJ International, Padstow Communism (a) still of a political nature, democratic or despotic; (b) with the abolition of the state, but still essentially incomplete and influenced by private property, i.e. by the estrangement of man. In both forms communism already knows itself as the reintegration or return of man into himself, the supersession of man’s self-estrangement; but since it has not yet comprehended the positive essence of private propertyor understood the human nature of need, it is still held captive and contaminated by private property. True, it has understood its concept, but not yet its essence. (EW (Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts), pp. 347; emphasis added.) Relations of personal dependence (entirely spontaneous at the outset) are the first social forms, in which human productive capacity develops only to a slight extent and at isolated points. Personal independence founded on objective [sachlicher] dependence is the second great form, in which a system of general social metabolism, of universal relations, of all-round needs and universal capacities is formed for the first time. Free individuality, based on the universal development of individuals and on their subordination of their communal, social productivity as their social wealth, is the third stage. The second stage creates the conditions for the third. Patriarchal as well as ancient conditions (feudal, also) thus disintegrate with the development of commerce, of luxury, of money, of exchange value, while modern society arises and grows in the same measure. (G, p. 158; emphasis added.) Butinthesamemeasureasitisunderstoodthatlabouristhesolesourceof exchange-value and the active source of use-value, ‘capital’ is likewise conceived by the same economists, in particular by Ricardo . . . , as the regulator of production, the source of wealth and the aim of production, whereaslabourisregardedaswage-labour,whoserepresentativeandthe real instrument is inevitably a pauper . . . , a mere production cost and instrumentofproductiondependentonaminimumwageandforcedtodrop even below this minimum as soon as the existing quantity of labour is ‘superfluous’ for capital. In this contradiction, political economy merely expressedtheessenceofcapitalistproductionor,ifyoulike,ofwagelabour,oflabour alienatedforitself,whichstandsconfrontedbythewealthithascreatedas alien wealth, by its own productive power as the productive power of its product,byitsenrichmentasitsownimpoverishmentandbyitssocialpower as the power of society. But this definite, specific, historical form of social labourwhichisexemplifiedincapitalistproductionisproclaimedbythese economistsasthegeneral,eternalform,asanaturalphenomenon,andthese relationsofproductionastheabsolutely(nothistorically)necessary,natural andreasonablerelationsofsociallabour.(KarlMarx,TheoriesofSurplus-Value, PartIII,London:Lawrence&Wishart(1972),p.259;emphasisadded.) In Memory of Gillian and Barry Dodd CONTENTS Abbreviations xii Foreword xiii Preface xix Part One: Marx’s Dialectical Method 1 Marx’s Task of History and the Nature of his Critique of Political Economy 3 ‘Material Interests’ and ‘French Socialism and Communism’ 4 The two-fold Proof of Private Property 8 The two Aspects of Marx’s Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right 9 The Nature of Marx’s Critique of Political Economy 13 The Relationship between Marx’s Critique of Political Economy and French Socialism 17 Conclusions 18 2 ‘The Materialist Interpretation of History’ and Marx’s Dialectical Method 20 The so-called ‘Materialist Interpretation of History’ in ‘I Feuerbach’ 20 Insertions by Marx and Engels 23 The Dissimilarities between Marx and Engels 27 The ‘Materialist Interpretation of History’ and Marx’s Critique of Political Economy 29 Conclusions 31 3 Marx’s Methodological Critique of Proudhonian Dialectics 32 Proudhon’s Dialectical Method 36 Marx’s Critique of Proudhon’s Dialectics 39 Conclusions 47 4 Marx’s Methodological Critique of Classical Political Economists 49 Ricardo v. Marx on Method 50 Ricardo v. Marx on the ‘Historical Character’ 54 Ricardo v. Marx on the ‘Intrinsic Connection’ 56 x The Unknown Marx Marx’s Presentation of Economic Categories 57 Conclusions 59 5 Marx’s Critique of Ricardian Value Theory 62 Ricardo’s Value Theory 64 Value as a Capitalist Relation 66 Value as a Capitalist Process 71 Conclusions 74 Part Two: Marx’s First Critique of Political Economy 6 Defining Capitalist Laws of Structure and Movement 79 The Position of the ‘First Manuscript: Former Part’ 80 Marx’s Analysis of the Structure of Capitalist Society 82 Marx’s Analysis of the Movement of Capitalist Society 89 Value Theory in the ‘First Manuscript’ 96 Conclusions 99 7 A Two-fold Analysis of the Capitalist Production Process 102 The Position of the First and Second Manuscripts 102 Logic in the ‘First Manuscript: Latter Part’ 106 Logic in the ‘Second Manuscript’ 109 Conclusions 118 8 Comprehending Capitalist Laws and Conflicts 120 The Comprehension of Necessities 120 Conclusions 135 9 Ricardo, Engels and Marx in 1844 136 Marx and Engels on ‘A Critique of Political Economy’ 138 Marx and Engels on Value 146 Conclusions 149 Part Three: The Totality of Marx’s System 10 Marx’s Concept of ‘Social Property’ 153 Marx v. Engels on Communism 154 Individual, Social and Common Property 158 The Nature of Capital as the Principle of Marx’s System 166 Conclusions 174 Contents xi Appendices 177 I The Editing Problems of The German Ideology 179 A Bibliographical Study of ‘I Feuerbach’ 179 The ‘Small Volume’ 180 The ‘Large Volume’ 183 The Missing Pages ([36] to [39]) 186 The Position of {B} 187 Conclusions 188 II An Aspect of Marx’s Critique of Political Economy: The Cynicism of Political Economy 189 The Meaning of the Cynicism of Political Economy 190 Cynicism and the Theories of Value and of Surplus Value 191 The Causes of Cynicism 192 Marx’s Critique of the Cynicism 193 Conclusions 194 Notes 196 Index 213 ABBREVIATIONS AD Friedrich Engels, Anti-Dühring. (MEC 25, pp. 5–309) CAP 1 Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, trans. B. Fowkes. The Penguin Group, London, 1976. CAP 3 Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. 3, trans. D. Fernbach, The Penguin Group, London, 1981. EPM Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, 1844. (MEC 3, pp. 229–346) FM:FP First Manuscript, Former Part FM:LP First Manuscript, Latter Part EW Karl Marx, Early Writings, Penguin Books, London, 1975. G Karl Marx, Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft), trans. M. Nicolaus, Penguin Books, 1973. GI Karl Marx, ‘I Feuerbach’ in The German Ideology. (MEC 5, pp.19–93) MEC* Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works, Lawrence & Wishart, London , 1975, etc. MEGA1* Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe, ed. D. Ryazanov et al., Frankfurt and Berlin, 1927, etc. (incomplete) MEGA2* Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Gesamtausgabe, Dietz, Berlin, 1972, etc. (in progress) MEW* Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Werke, Dietz, Berlin, 1956, etc. OCPE Friedrich Engels, Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy, 1844. (MEC 3, pp. 418–43) POP Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, 1847. (MEC 6, pp. 105–212) SEC Proudhon, System of Economic Contradictions, or The Philosophy of Poverty, 1846. SW Karl Marx, Selected Writings, ed. D. McLellan, Oxford, 1977. * multi-volume collections and volumes are indicated thus: MEC 1, MEW 33, etc. xii FOREWORD Terrell Carver Professor of Political Theory, University of Bristol Marxisnotonlyunknown,heisundead.Heliesveryunquietlyinthegrave. Themoreresearchersandscholarsstalkhimwiththewoodenstake,themore proteanwillbehisspectres.ExperiencingMarxisanactivityinthepresent, and in the present there will be an increasing number of Marxes to be experienced.Thisissointheusualwaywith‘greatauthors’,becauseaswe change,soourreadingoftheirtextschangesinaccordwithourconcerns; authorswhohavenocontemporaryresonancearenotread,andceasetobe ‘great’. This is also true of Marx in another way, again a way he has in commonwithother‘greats’.Whichworkstoread,whatordertoreadthem in,theirrelativehierarchyofimportance,whatexactlyeachisaboutandhow they‘addup’arequestionsthatwillbeaskedagainandagain.Thereisno definitiveviewforalltime,notfromtheauthor,norfromhisfamilyorfriends. Indeed as Paul Thomas has shown in his essay ‘Critical Reception: Marx Then and Now’,1 early versions of ‘the truth about Marx’ were based on what there was available to read at the time, and since then the amount of Marx in print has multiplied by an astronomical figure. Currently the complete Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe (MEGA2) is aiming at 130 double volumes, surely one of the largest scholarly projects ever undertaken. Moreover, as Thomas also shows, ‘the truth about Marx’ has never been singular or unquestioned, as orthodoxies, revisions and critiques have abounded since his death in 1883. The first ‘truth about Marx’ is traceable back as far as 1859, to Engels’s earliest reviews.2 Using a clear and direct logic, Takahisa Oishi ruthlessly blows away some of the most hallowed ‘truths’ about Marx. Oishi’s new book is unusually fresh and timely, and will contribute mightily to the re-evaluation of Marx after the ‘fall of the Wall’. In the nature of the exercise it is unlikely that Oishi will succeed in disposing of these familiar ‘truths’ completely, but it is certain that readers of this remarkable work will experience an intellectual and possibly even physical experience of Pauline proportions. Whether they will continue along the same road as Oishi is another question, but they will certainly feel profoundly shaken. This has to be a productive experience, as even the most hallowed ‘truths’ need to be tested; otherwise we are left with the deadest of xiii xiv The Unknown Marx dogmas, as John Stuart Mill – not someone Marx admired, at least as an economist and logician – argued persuasively in On Liberty (1859).3 The reader of Oishi’s work will need to be prepared for a very radical and very controversial book. Takahisa Oishi was promoted to Professor of the History of Economic Theories at Takushoku University, Tokyo, in 1993. This is a distinguished appointment following on from his work at that University, where he started as a lecturing assistant in 1981. Prior to that he completed masters’ degrees in economics at Chuo University, Tokyo, and Yokohama National University, Japan. He has published papers in English on Ricardo and Marx in Japanese international journals, and three books on economic history and analysis in Japanese. The Marx–Engels ‘Forscher’ (Researchers) is an active group of academics from universities all over Japan, and he is a respected contributor to their debates and conferences. Oishi positions his revelation of an ‘unknown Marx’ against a backdrop of Soviet Marxist commentary on Marx and Marxism. This in itself will strike most Anglo-American readers as a fairly unusual perspective, at least since the time of the early Cold War in the 1950s. By the 1960s in ‘the West’ most Marxists and anti-Marxists were rather more relaxed about the previous linkage between the ‘Red Terror Doctor’ and the ‘World Communist Threat’ (or ‘Revolution’, depending on your political orientation). What comes across at this juncture from Oishi’s perspective, however, is the extent to which many of the ‘truths’ about Marx after the 1950s were shared by orthodox, even Stalinist, Marxists, and by Western commentators (both pro- and anti-Marx/Marxism). This happened unbeknownst and unacknowl- edged, creating a sanitised tradition of ‘common knowledge’. Again, this is something that Thomas notes in his essay on the reception of Marx by readers and followers. Indeed the idea that Marx had a ‘reception’ is itself productively unsettling, because for those accepting conventional views, ‘the truth about Marx’ just iswhat it is for anyone to receive at any time. That a history of Marx’s ‘reception’ can be written at all implies a mal- leability in the story that for many commentators is frankly unwelcome, or at least for them any major contribution or justifiable revision would be almost unthinkable. Paradoxically as the history of this tradition has come down to us, ‘revisionists’ did not really revise Marx – they were instead said to have created ‘revisionism’, thus leaving the conventional Marx – of the (singular) ‘received wisdom’ – in place. Oishi’s account is useful in providing an ‘outsider’s view’ of the situation, i.e., someone rather outside the conventions of Anglo-American commentary on Marx. What he says, rightly, is that this tradition shares much more with orthodox, even Stalinist accounts, than is generally admitted. Oishi also uses Japanese scholarship, as yet little known in Anglo- American or indeed ‘Western’ circles, notably an edition of The German Ideology4that is by far the best (the Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabehas not yet managed to produce its own complete edition). Oishi also draws on the