Dialectic of the value form

Investigations on the Marxian Economics Criticism

Previously: The beginnings of the new Marx-reading

If the collapse of the theoretical and real "Marxism-Leninism" -that is,

Marxist orthodoxy, at all-does not include the basic principles of Marx's
theory, A modernized figure the Marx-reading literally devoid of meaning has
become?

This seemed, indeed, the "dominant discourse in seemingly" stupid

unanimity "that Marx was" dead, and that he was dead, "and that he was
dead. But such "incantations" were found almost exclusively in the political
literature of the day, scarcely in the scientific field. Recently, the Marxian
theory has even been heard by writers who, like Jacques Derrida, conceive
themselves to be "non-Marxists."

Karl Otto Hondrich insists that the Marxian "analysis of self-destructive

processes of capitalism ... is by no means disproved by the self-destruction of
state socialism." And Derrida states that the "lesson" of the "great works of
Marx" seems to him "more urgent today" than ever: "no future without
Marx."

In the national economic journals, one of the central themes of Marx's

economic discourse, the value and price problem before and after the
implosion of the Soviet Marxist system, was, and remains, discussed in
almost unchanged ways and in a manner quite inaccessible to political
journalism; In the first place it should be determined whether this national-
economic form of reception and criticism is adequate to the intentions of
Marx's theory or not. This almost unbroken continuity of the scientific
discourse on Marx is hardly surprising because, for decades, since the
beginning of the Cold War, a general consensus has emerged that between
'Marx as a prophet' - that is, the inspirer of the 'proletarian Weltanschauung
"And Marx as a scientist and a philosopher had to be strictly distinguished,
but also between the Marxist theory and the theoretical as well as the real
system of" Marxism-Leninism "in particular. The general rules of scientific
discourse were proved by the fact that the collapse of Soviet Marxism could
scarcely shake this communism of Western philosophy and social science. In
the academic national economy it was already long since the very
problematical theory of Werner Sombart that "with Marxist science in his
body he could just as well be capitalist as socialist as neither of them." From
this perspective appears Marx - eg 1988 In the eyes of Jrg Niehans - as
"Ricardians." As a "permanent contribution" - "paradoxically" - it is supposed
to be "through and through neoclassical models of the steady growth of a
twinning economy", which could not even be denied recognition by the
Association of German Industrialists.

A strict distinction between Marx and Marxism suggested, with plausible

reasons, some non-Marxist philosophers. Thus Georg Picht, in 1973, argued
that Marx, from a natural philosophical point of view, "remained an
incomprehensible thinker" And that the Marxists generally "did not
understand the depth of their questions." With regard to Marx's economico-
philosophical manuscripts of 1844, the thomist philosopher Bernhard
Lakebrink represented Dieselbe Position, according to which Marx could be
regarded neither as an economist nor a one-sided, Philosopher, but rather
requires an adequate understanding of his early writings, as the founder of
an economic-philosophical Synthesis. And as regards the relationship
between wage labor and capital in the analysis of the young Marx, Lakebrink
in 1969 came to the conclusion: "Karl Marx is (...) strictly (!) To the Hegelian
logic of contradiction. (...) It is here once again (...) that (...) the content
interpretation of the Marxian early writings is still completely inadequate
(...). (You) are to be opened up to our present understanding only on the
basis of an in-depth knowledge of Hegel's logic and phenomenology. "

On the assumption that the premisses have a justification function with regard
to capital, that a "constitutive and universal meaning" is to be attributed to the
"deepening" or "dialectical contradiction" for nearly all economic categories, the
conclusion is that the interpretation of capital " "So that Marx's principal work is
still to be" opened up "to our understanding, because it can only be developed
on the basis of the Hegelian logic of contradiction, ie, the logic of being; An old
thesis, which has been known since Lenin, but which has been followed at best
in very few respects, and which has been only taken by very few authors. If we
look at the history of capital, one can not help finding a striking continuity of
Marx's thought from the dissertation to its final economic work, the critical
marginal notes to Adolph Wagner's textbook. Max Horkheimer correctly stated
that the Marxist main work "is only half-intelligible to the masses in popularized
dilutions." 10 All the political-economic textbooks of Marxist-Leninist provenance
are examples of such manifold "dilutions."
In contrast to the economic, some philosophical authors offered a much more
differentiated picture of Marx's economics, but their efforts to reconstruct their
dialectical structure were narrow. Thus the crude Engelsian misunderstanding
of the Marxian theory of "simple circulation" as a theory of "simple commodity
production" remained a taboo which was only very late here and there, and with
many Wenns and Abers, under the pressure of West European Marx research
Reasons for this fatal misunderstanding were left out of public discussion.

However, a coherent, weightier taboo remained intact. As is well known, Marx

had "popularized" the "analysis of the substance of value." (23/11) The fact that
until the fall of Soviet Marxism a systematic discussion of what was to be
understood as a "popularized" representation against the backdrop of a rough
draft of capital is a reflection of the whole misery of the "Marxist-Leninist" Marx
discussion . If one had embarked on this, in itself precarious question, "an
avalanche would have come into play, which would have dragged the
laboriously constructed building of traditional Marxism into the abyss. It was not
just the so-called "value substance" as a value theory problem, but ultimately
Marx's much-lauded "method" itself.

In his Marxist-Leninist review of Marx's criticism of 1859, Engels formulated the

thesis: "The method of working out the method which underlies Marx's critique
is considered a result which is important (13/474) and generations of Marxist
theorists and politicians (as far as Kurt Schumacher) had repeatedly withdrawn
from the "method" when Marx's criticism of certain disagreements and
antiquated Marxist theorems and predictions Proof.

We may also recall the vehemently controversial thesis of Georg Lukacs that
"one can reject all Marx's individual theses, without having to give up his Marxist
orthodoxy for a minute," for this refers "to Lukacs' method." Has succeeded in
convincing some of its peculiarities, as the category of "totality", and placing its
finger on many a sore spot: see only his important thesis that Marx's "vulgar
marxism" took the concept of reality adopted from classical philosophy. ) .13
However, since the publication of the Paris manuscripts and the groundwork,
the rough draft to capital, there is also no doubt that Lukcs' understanding of
the method itself remained far below Marx's, and had to remain in the face of
the abundance of material problems of the economy .