The social process is really one indivisible whole (Ch.

7)
The very notion of equilibrium or tranquility (the term preferred by Joan obinson)
as applied to the body politic was very common in the !iddle "#es. $pecifically%
!arsilius of &adua spo'e of tranquilitas% meanin# a period of social peace and
prosperity (see (. von )ier'e% The Political Theory of the Middle Age.) *nterestin#ly%
both "ntiquity and the !iddle "#es lac'ed the notion of revolution% which is a modern
+uropean concept ori#inatin# in the ,7
th
century (see -. "rendt% On Revolution).
"ntiquity 'new only of metabole% meanin# social chan#e% of stasis% meanin# civil
war% and of homo-noia% meanin# harmony or a#reement% and corruptio% obviously
meanin# corruption% that is% de#eneration from a perfect state (a perfectione ad defectum%
from perfection to defect). ((n all this% see $. !a..arino/s invaluable and irreplaceable Il
Pensiero Storico lassico.)
Creative Destruction: Schumpeters Entwicklung and the Marxian Dialectic
There is however one thin# of fundamental importance for the methodology of economics which he 0!ar12 actually
achieved. +conomists always have either themselves done wor' in economic history or else used the historical wor' of
others. 3ut the facts of economic history were assi#ned to a separate compartment. They entered theory% if at all% merely
in the role of illustrations% or possibly of verifications of results. They mi!ed "ith it only mechanically# $o" Mar!%s
mi!ture is a chemical one& that is to say% he introduced them into the very ar#ument that produces the results. -e was
the first economist of top ran' to see and to teach systematically how economic theory may be turned into historical
analysis and how the historical narrative may be turned into histoire raisonnee. (C$45% p.66)
Once more, Schumpeters con-fusion that is to say, the fusing together of concepts that are
incompatible, just as he did with the Statik and the Dynamik becomes evident when we refect
thoroughly on this most important passage. The reason why Marx is able to introduce the facts of
economic history into the very argument that produces the results cannot be due to any methodology of
economics because there is no such thing as a methodology of economics just as there is no
methodology of science. What leads to successful scientifc studies is not an identifable
methodology but rather a human praxis that frst identifes a desirable outcome and then sets
about to apply existing knowledge to achieve it and, in the practical process of doing so, may or
may not come out with that desirable outcome or other serendipitous outcomes. Each particular
scientifc experiment is sui generis it is an experience - and there is no way of abstracting from
individual experiments to a broader methodology for the simple reason that no method will
ever be capable of being scientifcally or logically connected to the predictable (rather than
causal) relation that is ultimately found between events.
If we defne theory as a series of abstract rules that connect facts in a predictive or apodictic
relation by means of experiments, then it is obvious that no theory will ever be able to achieve
such a relation by means of a method because each experiment is, by defnition, a unique
experience whose outcome cannot be formalised in isolation from the actual experience.
Furthermore, for what concerns the connection of theory with facts, frst, the selection of facts
is itself arbitrary from a theoretical viewpoint in that it is the theory that selects the facts,
which means that the theory itself must be arbitrary from an objective theoretical or
scientifc viewpoint! (Cf. Windelband, Thus, in the scientifc sense, fact is already a teleological
concept, [History and Natural Science, p.181]). And second, no amount of theorizing will ever be
able to establish any causal links between facts independently of the human interest involved
in isolating a particular chain of causality among an infnity of other causal chains (the point
was frst established by Nietzsche from as early as Uber Wahrheit und Luge, and then elaborated by
Weber [cf. his Objektivitat]). After Nietzsche, we ought to know that there is no ordo et connexio
rerum et idearum; after Heidegger, we know that there is no adaequatio rei et intellectus.
So it is certainly not because of a superior methodology of economics that Marxian social theory
presents this chemical fusion of fact and theory (or hypothesis) against the mechanical
incongruence of bourgeois economic theory. But why, then, does Schumpeter believe that
when it comes to the analysis of capitalist industry and society Marxs mixture [of facts
and theory] is a chemical one whereas that of orthodox bourgeois economics is only
mechanical? The reason is that when Marx looks at capitalist society he looks at it from
the point of view of the relations of production of its members and not from that of the
atomistic individual. If we take human beings not as social beings but as isolated
individuals and we then ascribe to them self-interests that are insatiable and also
absolutely incommunicable and incommensurable with one another, and if we then
assume that they initially possess given endowments which they are only able to
exchange with one another then it is entirely obvious that we will be able to come up
with a science of exchange (Hayeks catallactics) that will be the exact replica of
Newtonian mechanics in which there is a unique solution (Walrasian equilibrium) to all
the possible exchange ratios between all such individuals and their optimal
distribution of their original endowments to maximize their individual self-interests.
The peculiarity of this economic theory or economic science is that it contains no history! No
historical facts are needed for this science because history is the record of metabolic
interaction of human beings not merely inter se, between themselves as individuals or
groups, but also and above all with their physical environment, which is how they pro-
duce their needs and in so doing create and develop new ones, while all the time they
transform also their interpersonal relations in the process. In sharp contrast, there is no
metabolic interaction between the atomistic individuals of orthodox bourgeois
economic theory because there is no pro-duction of needs on the part of these atomistic
individuals but only the simple pure exchange of given endowments an exchange
that exists only as a logico-mathematical equation and deduction and never involves
any historical interaction between these individuals. There is no historical change in
neoclassical economic exchange: there is no history in such pure exchange.
History is not merely the historia rerum gestarum (the record of personal or institutional actions)
but rather it is the record of how human beings interact with one another and with their
physical environment: history is the record of human metabolic pro-duction. History is the
record of how human beings interact to fulfl and satisfy their changing needs by meta-
bolically interacting with their physical environment. It is this metabolic interaction
that forms the content of history. History is not just the record of human relations; it is
the record of social relations of pro-duction because not just the distribution of the
product but above all how and what is pro-duced are essential to understanding human
history! It is this immanentism that we are seeking to expound here by way of a critique
of Schumpeters work so as to overcome the old antinomic dualism of materialism and
idealism.
But in this pro-duction of their needs, as a discrete albeit dependent aspect of it, the question
arises of how human beings may organize in such a manner that some exploit others in
the sense that the living activity of a section or class of human society is subordinated by
another section or class. In capitalism the specifc form of subordination relates to the
exchange of dead labour with living labour, and specifcally to the reality that such
exchange can occur only through political violence because no exchange of living with
dead labour could take place without such violence. It is over this discrete, distinct reality
of confict and antagonism in the process of human metabolic production of their needs
that the dialectical method can be applied to assess the validity of socio-theoretical
accounts of this antagonism.
The peculiarity of the dialectical method, even and especially in its pre-Socratic
origins, is that it is a negative procedure that does not seek to establish the
truth as if the truth ec-sisted! If it did, there ould be no need for the
very concept of truth, as !iet"sche established as early as #ies and Truth
, but rather it seeks to establish a dialogue $hence dialectics% beteen
opposing sides onto a common ground $the polemos, or dispute% from hich
the dispute may be resolved or better super-seded& $'f& (iorgio 'olli, La
Nascita della Filosofa&% The fact that dialectics is not a positive method but is
rather a negative one that eliminates aporetic concepts one that involves
only a becoming, not a scienti)c progressus is evinced by *egel+s
emphasis on the negation of the negation rather than, as is commonly and
erroneously believed, on the se,uence thesis-antithesis-synthesis! $'f&
!orberto -obbio+s instructive Studi Hegeliani& Theodore .dorno+s Introduction
to Negative Dialectics is characteristically opa,ue but highlights this critical
role of the *egelian method&% Still, *egel+s greatest intuition as the notion of
Auf-hebung, hich rests on the convergence of human needs the
Versohnung - rather than on their irreconcilability&
/Interestingly, those philosophers for hom there is an un)llable hiatus or
separation $0lato+s chorismos% beteen ideal $good% and $bad% reality $or
mere appearances and the real orld% are those ho seek the social synthesis
the methe1is but purely as an ideal2 hereas those ho identify reality
and appearance $take the good ith the bad% are those ho stress the
divergence of human needs, the inevitability and ineorability of antagonism
e1istence as it is, esse est percipi& It all goes back to physis hether
nature is fundamentally good or bad&3
The obvious danger in treating dialectics as a positive method is that some may
then mistake it for a positive science in the ay that 4ngels distorted it in
the Anti-Duhring& The danger is that the dialectical method is abused to lay
claim to a vie of human pra1is, of history, and of human society as if it
represented a totality, one indivisible hole or an organism& This is a
pitfall that tempted not 5ust *egel ith his notion that the hole is greater
than its parts, but also 6ar1 in his insistence on regarding the capitalist
process of production as a hole $the title to 7olume 8 of !apital%, and then
especially #ukacs in H!! an e1cessively *egelian derivation of his thought
that he did not recant even in the 9:;< 0reface& #ukacs thought that it as
his confusion of alienation ith ob5ecti)cation that turned the notion of
totality into an eschatology, hen in fact his very theorisation of alienation
and rei)cation as the inability to see the totality as against the
fragmented and rei)ed form of alienated labour, and therefore the turning
of dialectics into a method $cf& p&11vi%, as the real culprit& The distortion
lies in treating the dialectical method as a means of gaining access to
historical development as a totality because then e reduce the social
process and society to an identical sub5ect-ob5ect $#ukacs% or to an
organism $Schumpeter%, and cease to treat it as a living organism, that is
to say, one that mutates and evolves physio-logically, ith the emphasis on
the physicality of human needs& =ust as regrettable is the tendency to isolate
this method from political pra1is hich turns the real phenomena of
alienation and rei)cation 6ar1+s fetishism of commodities - from speci)c
historical forms of political violence into necessary illusions $#ukacs% that
arise directly from the mere rationali"ation of the social relations of
production as if indeed this rationali"ation could be based on any ob5ective
rationality independent of hat >eber styled as the rational organisation of
free labour under the rigid discipline of the factory& .gain, >eber uses
rational to describe the rigid discipline of the factory over free labour& ?et,
as e argued in our >eberbuch, rationality consists of this rigid discipline
of the factory over free labour and therefore it is super@uous or pleonastic to
describe this as rational& -ut if this ere so, then it is impossible to see ho
e can dispel an illusion that is necessary or ho e can defeat a
necessity that is illusory! The hole ,uestion of structure and
superstructure hich -obbio de)ned as the crucial concept in 6ar1ism $in
"ramsci% - turns thus into the obscurest of veils and into the most
impenetrable enigma one that threatens to 5ustify the mysti,ue of the
leadership of the proletariat charged ith applying the dialectical method
to political reality so as to decipher its totality&
#ukacs re5ects the species as an abstraction e,ual to that of the individual, see
*'', p9:8A
The individual can never become the measure of all things& Bor hen the individual confronts
reality he is faced by a comple1 of ready-made and unalterable ob5ectsCDnly the class
can react to the hole of reality in a practical revolutionary ay& $The Especies+ cannot
do this as it is no more than an individual that has been stylised and mythologised in a
spirit of contemplation&% .nd the class, too, can only manage it hen it can see
through the rei)ed ob5ectivity of the given orld to the process that is also its on
fate&
*eidegger+s more circumscribed phenomenological version is limited to the
authentic $eigentlich% perception of everyday reality by the Da-sein as
#uhandenheit, as against its rei)ed obverse, 7orhandenheit& In each case, the
historical sub5ect capable of perceiving reality, hether sociological $#ukacs%
or ontological $=aspers+s $m-greifende or all-encompassing% or
phenomenological $*eidegger%, in its %otalitat is e1alted against the partial,
fragmented, inauthentic, rei)ed e1perience of the mass or the petty
bourgeoisie or the mob in the everyday life imposed by capitalism and its
technology $%ec&ni&%& The confusion of technology as a pro-duct ith the
ob-5ect is featured in *eidegger+s discussion of .ristotle $'athmar&s, pF99%&
Bor *eidegger, only those ho accept the being of physis and physis as being
go beyond the domination of sub5ectivity by technical means 'athmar&s,
ppFG9-F2 see also the blatant elitism of the (infuhrung discussed by
(oldmann& .t a political level, the inauthentic perception of rei)ed social
reality leads to hat #ukacs called the false consciousness of the proletariat
hich therefore re,uires leadership by the #eninist 0arty to be guided back
into totality& Df course, #ukacs+s #eninist vision of totality suHers the same
elitist fate!3
The notion of totality ill play the most prominent role in all social theory
around the turn of the century as an attempt to overcome the
dichotomy or separation of Sub5ect and Db5ect formalised for modern
metaphysics by Iescartes ith his distinction of res cogitans $soul% and
res etensa $body%& Df course, in our classi)cation, this is a reciprocal
action hose comprehension leads to the notion of organic totality&
The ay out of this seemingly insuperable opposition antinomy,
apory, dichotomy beteen Sub5ect and Db5ect is ,uite obviously
through its historicisation, in the manner indicated by *egel and then
#ukacs, that is, through the category of labour hich is the action
that intervenes to mediate and historicise the )1edness of Sub5ect an
Db5ect& -ut this history cannot be comprehended ideally or
conceptually by means of the dialectical method hich is the
delusion that #ukacs fell into in *''& .s e have seen, the dialectical
method is not a positive tool for predicting the future or guiding pra1is,
but it is instead a purely negative critical tool& #ukacs+s *egelian
privileging of the proletariat as the identical sub5ect-ob5ect of history
has three sourcesA Schopenhauer+s criti,ue of Jant, *egel+s dialectical
idealism, and 6ar1+s %heses on Feuerbach $especially the )rst, see
p&9<;H of H!! here Beuerbach+s materialism is discussed e1plicitly in
this conte1t%&
This totality% and not the univocality of inputs and outputs% that is% the inevitability or apodicticity of
outcomes (whenever 1% then y)% is what constitutes the closedness of $chumpeter/s
methodolo#y. The confusion of totality and inevitability or apodicticity is the central error in
7awson/s and !oura/s critiques of this 'ind of methodolo#y. 3ut the most important failure in
their critiques of neoclassical economic analysis as closed systems is that they do not see the
cate#orical imperative of this 'ind of bour#eois analysis8 9 to be able to reduce economic analysis
to pure e1chan#e of #iven resources or endowments between atomistic individuals% and
thereby to hide the anta#onism in the capitalist mode of production% instead of confrontin# the
actual metabolic production of fresh resources and human needs by a livin# or#anic community:
This flaw is shared by the classification of closed and open theories adopted by 7an#lois and
7oasby althou#h their approach% relyin# more on evolutionary chan#e than on apodicticity% is
much closer to our own outlined here. $tran#ely% $chumpeter did not heed the criticism of his
mentor 3ohm93awer' a#ainst the closedness (Ab-schluss) of !ar1/s schema of capitalist
reproduction (cf. 3ohm93awer'% 'arl Mar! and the (lose% of )is Theory) and apply it to his
own Theorie. *t was !ar1/s view of human society and of its reproduction as a totality that
de#enerates into an eschatolo#y or a prophetic destiny% and ultimately into a simple tautolo#y
(it will be because it has to be; it has to be because it is in its definition < thus% a simple
equation% a definition "=3% is translated into an aetiolo#y% " causes 3% and then into a historical
evolution% " becomes 3) as 3ohm93awer' intuited and 3obbio has e1plained (cf. *a )obbes a
Mar!).
Dialectics cannot be used as a positive method to determine or to predict human historical events:
it can only be used negatively as a critical tool to assess the historical validity of a given
socio-theoretical hypothesis. In a nutshell, the dialectical method may be dissected into
three principles, as Engels did in Anti-Duhring. The frst principle, which says that
quantitative increments lead to qualitative change, is a banality when it is not a tautology
(incidentally, Schumpeter uses this approach at pp.220f of Business Cycles to describe
innovations, although he too points out the simplicity of this distinction).
The second is the principle of reciprocal action which means that when two factors are in
opposition, they interact with each other. Hence, it is incorrect to say that nature is
what conditions human beings, or the opposite, because clearly the two must interact
indeed it is not possible to conceive of human beings without nature and even vice
versa because the concept of nature implies a non-nature which is clearly human
being. This principle is analytically valid because it serves to distinguish for analytical
purposes between diferent factors of human reality, but it is historically inapplicable if it
is considered purely from the standpoint of ontological analysis, because then its
conceptual framework becomes thoroughly ahistorical and indeed as banal as the frst
component of the dialectical method! Any historical and socio-theoretical analysis that
identifes conficts that cannot be resolved turns quite evidently into an ahistorical
hypostasis; in other words, it turns a problem of human agency into an ontological entity.
This is why only the third principle of the Hegelian-Marxian dialectical method, the principle of the
negation of the negation, is valid both for analytical and historical purposes because it
reminds us that all analyses of antithetical and conficting historical concepts must
include at the very least the possibility of the historical resolution, of the over-coming and
the super-session of any antagonism and confict that may be the object of that historical
or socio-theoretical analysis. The problem with interpreting the dialectic in the sequence
thesis-antithesis-synthesis is quite simply that here the syn-thesis is meant to preserve
both the thesis and the anti-thesis. Yet, as Gramsci vehemently argued, the antithesis does
not preserve but rather it frst negates and then dissolves (Auf-heben) the thesis which is
why Hegel and Marx preferred to speak of the negation of the negation (in which no part
of the thesis is preserved, precisely because it is negated by the anti-thesis) as the
supersession of the confict between thesis and antithesis. Here the moment of antithesis,
the antagonism as negation, must contain (hold and refrain at the same time, see Cacciari,
Il Potere che Frena on this notion of catechon, containment) the moment of supersession
of the antagonism the negation of the negation.
Bobbio on Marxian dialectics:
5i fronte a due enti in contrasto% il metodo della com90>?@2
penetra.ione de#li opposti% o me#lio dellAa+ione reciproca%
conduce a mantenere entrambi i termini del contrasto e a
considerarli come condi.ionantisi a vicenda; al contrario% il
metodo della nega+ione della nega+ione conduce a considerare
il primo eliminato in un primo tempo dal secondo, e il
secondo eliminato in un secondo momento da un ter+o termine#
*l primo metodo viene applicato a eventi simultanei% il
secondo% a eventi che si dispie#ano nel tempo8 perciB questAultimo
C un metodo per la comprensione della storia (vuoi della
storia della natura% vuoi della storia dellAuomo)% (pp.>??9@)

-o strumento di questa comprensione unitaria era la ./012

dialettica come rileva+ione delle opposi+ioni e loro risolu+ione#
$olo che la unitD concreta nello studio dello svol#imento
storico #li era apparsa come il risultato della sintesi
degli opposti (negazione della negazione)% donde la cate#oria
del corso storico dellAumanitD C il divenire; nello studio
scientifico della realtD% lAunitD concreta #li apparve come il
risultato di una interrela.ione de#li enti che lAintelletto
astratto ha erroneamente isolati #li uni da#li altri ( a.ione
reciproca ) % donde la cate#oria unitaria della totalit organica.
ome il divenire 3 composto di diversi momenti in opposi+ione,
cos4 la totalit organica 3 composta di diversi enti
in opposi+ione# -a dialettica, come metodo di risolu+ione
delle opposi+ioni, si presenta l5 come sintesi degli opposti,
qua come azione reciproca# Il divenire, in altre parole, 3 il
risultato di successive nega+ioni, o se si vuole di un continuo
superamento 6 il ter+o termine 7 & la totalit organica 3 il
risultato di un intrecciarsi delle reciproche rela+ioni degli
enti, o, se si vuole, di una integra+ione 6 che non risolve i
due termini in un terzo ), (*a )obbes a Mar!% pp.>@E9,).

Notice how in the quotation above Bobbio makes two mis-statements. The frst is when he says
that the negation of the negation contains two moments whereby in the frst moment the
negation eliminates the thesis, and in the second moment the negation of the negation
eliminates the negation. This is entirely misleading because the negation of the
negation is, yes, a separate moment from the negation, and the negation is in turn a
distinct moment of the thesis. But these moments are separate and distinct only as
dialectical moments, only as aspects of the antagonism, certainly not as
chronological moments! This means that the negation of the negation is a necessary dia-
logical moment of the negation and the negation is a moment of the thesis: but these are
not chrono-logical moments that are separate in time! What is chrono-logical is only the
necessary extrinsication of the antagonism contained in the thesis in historical time. But
the thesis, its negation and the negation of the negation are dialectical aspects of the one
antagonism whose resolution (as Bobbio calls it; we prefer the term supersession)
must take place historically if the antagonism in question is indeed historical and not
ontological: they are not moments in a chrono-logical sense as Bobbios explication
would lead us to believe.
The second error is that whereby Bobbio confuses the synthesis of opposites with the negation of
the negation. As we saw above, and as Bobbio himself noted in a later review of
Gramscis use of the dialectic (cf. Nota sulla dialettica in Gramsci, in Gramsci e la
Concezione della Societa Civile) with the analytical acuity that was always his great
attribute as a thinker, this identifcation of synthesis and negation of the negation is quite
incorrect because, although both involve a form of historical becoming (Italian, divenire),
only the latter the negation of the negation specifes that the thesis is not preserved by
the antithesis but that both are entirely superseded! The notion of syn-thesis instead, as
the very name suggests, involves the preservation of the thesis in the antithesis as syn-
chronic and therefore ahistorical or ana-lytical moments. This is a point to which
Gramsci held fast (cf. the Quaderni on Il Materialismo Storico) and it is in relation to
Gramscis interpretation of the dialectical method that Bobbio fnally hits the mark where
earlier (in Da Hobbes a Marx) he had failed to do so.
As Adorno most adroitly insists (in Lectures 1. pp6-7), the antithesis and its negation are already
contained in the thesis this is why the thesis contains its antagonism -, but are not
contained by it because they explode the thesis which is what is meant by contra-
diction intended historically as the ex-plosion of the thesis or the historical
extrinsication of the antithesis contained in the thesis and its resolution in its negation,
that is, the supersession of both thesis and the antithesis contained in it. This is not a
triadic movement of thesis-antithesis-synthesis. There is no syn-thesis because the
antagonism contained in the thesis (which is a unity of concept and object), which
generates the antithesis, does not preserve the thesis and the antithesis (as the syncretism
of synthesis implies) but rather explodes both (they can no longer contain in
themselves the antagonism contained by themselves) and is resolved in the negation of the
negation.
Fevertheless% what * intend to present to you as ne#ative dialectics
possesses somethin# quite crucially related to the concept of dialectics [6]
in #eneral 9 and this is somethin# * wish to clarify at the outset. It is
that the concept of contradiction will play a central role here% more
particularly% the contradiction in things themselves% contradiction in
the concept% not contradiction bet"een concepts.
Adorno should specify that there is contradiction in the concept, not contradiction between them
only because there is antagonism in the object. This is so because the concept cannot
be isolated from its object: the contradiction that negative dialectics addresses is in the
concept; but this is only because, most importantly, there is antagonism in the object
or the historical reality that the concept seeks to describe.
Moreover, there is no synthesis because the negation of the negation is not a positive it is not a
Hegelian reconciliation but a real obliteration, overcoming and supersession of the
antagonism implicit in the thesis both as concept (ideology) and as real object
(antagonism).
[17] And this is why I would say in general that the thesis that the negation o the negation is !ositi"e, an
air#ation, cannot be sustained$ The negation of the negation does not result in a positive, or not
automatically#
Care must be taken to remember that the dialectical method may be applied only to historically
antagonistic relations: - only to concepts that apply to historical realities that contain
antagonism that explodes the concepts, which cannot be contained by them although it is
contained in them, and that lead to the supersession of the historical reality described by
the concepts. The dialectical method does not apply to concepts as concepts that can be
described by the second distinction made by Bobbio above, which has a purely analytical
role but not a historical one.
For example, the notion of competition, as we discussed earlier in our study, contains the
notion of monopoly (the aim of competition is to eliminate all other competitors). This
means that the extrinsication of competition its practical historical unfolding will lead
to its negation monopoly. But monopoly still contains in itself the historical
antagonism that brought about the original state of competition. It is not until this
original state is entirely destroyed and obliterated by the negation of the negation that
competition is fnally abolished or superseded. But this supersession of competition is not
a reality that must occur because it somehow contains a dialectical contradiction! All
it may be said to contain is antagonism: but whether or not this antagonism results in a
specifc historical development is something that no dialectical method can
positively predict!
Adorno uses the example of concept and object which like those of nature and society,
nature and history, body and mind - are not dialectical but are ontological and
subject only either to formalism (antinomies, apories as in Kant) or to reciprocal action
(organic totality). These concepts give rise either to formalism (Platonic, Kantian, with its
chorismos) or to the notion of organic totality (a methexis seen only as ahistorical
organic totality) both of which are hypostases, static and immutable concepts, and are
therefore amenable to dialectical critique which unmasks their separation, their
chorismos, and reminds us that the two opposites are so only because they are not
applied metabolically and historically we could say, concretely - and are instead
exasperated as antinomic dichotomies. Seen formalistically or reciprocally there appears
to be no dialectical relation between them; but once we examine the content of each
concept and seek to apply it historically we fnd its opposite is already contained in it.
Only when these concepts are applied historically and metabolically can they contain
actual antagonism and in this sense contain also a contra-diction within the thesis
amenable to dialectical critique. So long as we consider the concepts of economics and
sociology, of nature and society or of body and mind, there is no contradiction except for
the fact that they are hypostatic and aporetic they are antinomic. It is only once we
apply them to historical situations that they become antagonistic in their use, as a
matter of praxis, and then their contra-diction comes to the fore. This is what Adorno hints
at in this passage in which the historical metabolic dimension is specifed by reference to
the confrontation of concepts with objects:
*nstead% the ne#ativity * am spea'in# about contains a pointer to what -e#el calls determinate ne#ation. *n other words%
ne#ativity of this 'ind is made concrete 0historical and metabolic2 and #oes beyond mere standpoint philosophy
0formalism% or#anicism2 by confrontin# concepts with their 0historical2 obGects and% conversely% obGects with their
concepts. "dorno% p.>?
Indeed, as Adorno has contended, the hypostatisation of dialectical concepts their positivity,
immutability or closedness - is a faw that aficts also Hegels phenomenology or
objective idealism, despite its undoubtedly revolutionary role in inspiring the later
development of the dialectical method as a critical tool by Marx.
0,?2 This% then% is the model of that positive ne#ativity8 the negation of the negation as a ne" positive that appears in
-e#elian philosophy as a new model. *ncidentally% it should be pointed out that one of the very stri'in# features of
-e#elAs philosophy% one whose si#nificance has not been sufficiently appreciated% is its dynamic nature. 3y this * mean
that it does not re#ard its cate#ories as fi1ed% but instead thin's of them as having emerged historically and therefore as
capable of change. +ven so% in reality its conceptual apparatus contains much more that is immutable% incomparably
more that is constant% than it lets on. "nd these constants come to the surface to a certain de#ree a#ainst the intentions
of this philosophyH. ("dorno% -ectures pp.,?97)
Ior it is precisely this Ahavin# somethin#A% havin# it as
somethin# fi1ed% #iven and unquestioned on which one can comfortably
rely 9 it is this that thou#ht should actually resist. "nd the very
thin# that appears as a flaw in a philosophy that does not have this
quality is in truth the medium in which philosophical ideas that are
worthy of the name can thriveH.p.>?0"dorno/s -ectures on $egative *ialectics2
(Adornos Introduction to Negative Dialectics superbly describes the need for the dialectical
method to embrace the object materially, as history, as physis in other words, to
include that metabolic interaction that is our focus in this work. This is a point that
Merleau-Pontys Phenomenology of Perception and the rest of his work cf. the English
collection The Merleau-Ponty Reader highlights masterfully. See also our discussion of
Colletti just below and our The Philosophy of the Flesh on scribd.com.)
The later chapter in Adornos Negative Dialectics on Concept and Categories discusses the
importance of the negative use of dialectics. On Marxs naturalism see A. Schmidt,
Marxs Concept of Nature, and C. Luporini, Dialettica e Materialismo. Marxs insistence on
method and particularly on organic totality as a conciliation of the nature/society
dichotomy is noted by Schmidt (pp.40f) but without pointing out its defects
positivity as against negativity of the dialectic which then cannot be seen as
method but at most as a critical tool. Schmidt correctly distinguishes between Marxs
emphasis on the historical development of science as refecting human interests and
needs and Engelss quite erroneous application of the dialectical method to the
development of nature itself (!) as in the case of the cell as the being-in-itself of the
organism. It is one thing to apply the dialectical method negatively, it is another to apply
it positively as often does Marx with the reciprocal action to claim a superior
com-prehension of historical development as organic totality; and then it is quite
another to transfer, as Engels does, this dialectical analysis and critique to the very
internal development not of the science of nature but of nature itself! It is one
thing to claim that human science (of nature or of history) develops dialectically, and
quite another to opine that nature itself (whatever that is!) obeys dialectical laws!
Schmidt distinguishes between the Marxian application of dialectics to a unifed natural-historical
realm whereby the two condition each other and the Engelsian application of the
dialectical method to nature and history as separate spheres such that the dialectical
method is abstracted from them and acquires a life of its own (pp.50f). At p.54, Schmidt
concludes:
Schmidt is entirely right here. Yet, whilst he does chastise the Engelsian abuse of dialectics as a
cosmic positive principle (p.53), we cannot agree with his attempt to minimise or
obfuscate Marxs own mistaken use of reciprocal action as a positive method of
understanding reality even in the Marxian distinction between investigation and
presentation. Dialectics may be used only negatively, to sift out hypostases in
historical explanations including scientifc methods as objective procedures to fnd
out scientifc laws. Schmidt believes that dialectical contradictions arise in human
history which is right so long as we see these contradictions as dia-logic tools to
guide our praxis in a negative sense with regard to the interpretation of history that is,
to correct hypostases and eliminate antinomies and apories (as applied to concepts and
categories, says Adorno) -, but not as intrinsic to human history except in the sense of
antagonism. History contains antagonisms, but not dialectical contradictions.
This is a point that applies most eminently to Lukacss own conception of the dialectical
method. And in fact, Schmidt does not fail to advert to Lukacs in his own historical
interpretation of this positive dialectical method, in direct contrast to Engelss
extension of the dialectical method to nature (p.55):
In the passage cited by Schmidt above Lukacs specifcally refers to the reciprocal action of
subject and object which means that he was referring to historical reality, which was
the only reality possible for Lukacs and his identical subject-object in HCC, (an
attempt to put-Hegel Hegel, p.xxiii) and not also to pre-human and extra-human
nature as Schmidt believes, because such an a-historical notion is inadmissible to
Lukacs! Schmidt misconstrues the Lukacsian interpretation of the dialectic in that he
seems to believe that whilst the third law (contradiction) cannot be applied to nature,
at least the second law the law of reciprocal action - can be so applied: but Lukacs
is identifying nature with its human construct, history.
Again, Schmidt clearly maintains that there is such a thing as a dialectics of nature, as well as a
pre-human and extra-human nature that does obey the second law of dialectics
that of reciprocal action which is nonsense, whereas human history or society is
subject to all three laws. And indeed even Lukacs denies this, as we have seen, - but
only because he insists on the (equally Manichaean) distinction of history and nature
in Marx whereby nature is a human construct not just conceptually but also as the
product of human objectifcation a Hegelian subversion of Marx to which Schmidt
rightly objects (at pp.77-8).
Schmidts work was published before Lukacss 1967 Preface where he accepts this criticism, and
Collettis. What neither Schmidt nor Lukacs do is allow for the category of human needs
that are meta-bolic in that they are the pro-duct of human objectifcation as metabolic
interaction between humans and their physical environment (avoid the term nature
which separates the environment from humans rather than uniting the two immanently
so that the two are distinct but not opposing). There is no antagonism and therefore no
dialectic between humans and their physical environment: but antagonism is mediated
nevertheless by human needs that involve the environment.
All great Marxist theoreticians Lukacs, Colletti, Schmidt incorrectly pinpoint this immanent
identifcation of human being and its physical environment through the notion of human
needs as well as labour as living activity or objectifcation precisely because they insist on
this equivocal word nature with its ontological overtones (something that Heidegger
wisely avoids, preferring physis, Pathmarks, p.183).
Lukacs:
*t is true that the attempt is made to e1plain all ideolo#ical phenomena by reference to their basis in economics but%
despite this% the purview of economics is narrowed down because its basic !ar1ist cate#ory% labor as the
mediator of the metabolic interaction between society and nature% is missin#H
*t is self9evident that this means the disappearance of the ontological ob8ectivity of nature upon which this process of
chan#e is based% (-CC% p.1vii).
Here we can see most clearly how easily metabolic interaction between human being and its
environment is quickly confused with the ontological objectivity of nature, which then
again can be unifed or synthesised with society through the dialectic of
reciprocal action leading to a static organic totality something that Lucio Colletti
punctually does in the Preface to the Italian edition of Schmidts work where he praises
the authors insistence on the phrase dialectical materialism (in opposition to the
Engelsian, then Stalinist, Diamat).
Indeed it is this notion of totality that Lukacs defends as the still valid most important
contribution of HCC It is undoubtedly one of the great achievements of HCC to have
reinstated the category of totality in the central position it had occupied throughout
Marxs works, though this was done at the expense of economics: -
It is not the primacy of economic motives in historical explanation that constitutes the decisive
diference between Marxism and bourgeois science, but the point of view of totality, he
had written in HCC. And specifcally the adoption of the dialectical method was the
scientifc way of reaching that point of view. (P.xx HCC)
This Manichaean view of the law of reciprocal action as a method to which nature is
subjected is revealed unequivocally by Schmidt in this statementat p.55:
In other words, only the law of reciprocal action may be applied to nature-in-itself, whereas
the law of negation of the negation can be applied only to human society. Note that
Schmidt seems to object to the interpretation of the dialectic as a purely objective
domain of prehuman and extrahuman nature, but has no objection to Engelss
presentation of the dialectical method as laws, presumably because he approves of
Marxs use of these laws to the unifed (reciprocal action) feld of nature and history.
At p.56:
Although the Marxian premise of a unity or organic totality of the interaction of nature and
society serves to minimise the damage of the positive use of dialectics whether in its
investigative or explicatory role, the fact remains that dialectics cannot be used either to
investigate or to explain anything at all! It is not a positive method full stop!
At p.57. Clearly here Schmidt elevates what can only be a negative use of dialectics, its dia-logic
character, to an actual positive role as a process that determines human history in general
something that is quite inadmissible because it hypostatizes human history into a
fxed or reifed or at least determinable process.
[Colletti on unity of Marxian method.] But alas these are faws that have aficted theoretical
Marxism as well. As an illustration, we can allude to Lucio Collettis remarks in Ideologia e
Societa (at p.16f) where he discusses Schumpeters quotation above concerning Marxs
ability to combine economic facts and theory in one indissolubly unifed synthesis. At
frst, Colletti agrees with us that this chemical mixture is due precisely to the strict
connection in Marxian economic theory between the interpersonal human side and the
relation of human beings as a species to their physical environment, in such a way that
economics is never seen as a question of mere (universal, eternal) exchange but is
indeed treated as a theorisation of the satisfaction and creation of physiological human
needs in which pro-duction not exchange! is the essential aspect. It is from the
perspective of the production of human needs that any distinction between theory and
fact, between economics and sociology, nature and history and most
important for Marxist theory structure and superstructure becomes illusory.
Colletti perceives the essential role of production, of metabolic interaction, to the theorisation of
capitalism. But then he immediately falls victim to the confusion of dialectical
synthesis that is to say, the interpretation of Marxian dialectics as the synthesis of
thesis and antithesis, instead of as the negation of the negation - with the notion of
organic totality, of unity, of the whole which is a trap into which much of what
we call theoretical Marxism has fallen in the past.
$i comprende H. come questa unita di economia e sociologia% di natura e storia in !ar1 non si#nifichi
identita/ dei due termini; come essa cioe/ non comporti ne/ una ridu.ione della societa/ alla natura
ne/ una ridu.ione della natura alla societa/8 non una ridu.ione della societa/ umana al formicaio%
ne/ una ridu.ione della vita umana a quella filosofica. !a si comprende anche per converso come
l/elusione di queste due antitesi unilaterali avven#a proprio in for.a della loro composizione
organica% da parte di !ar1% e% quindi della loro riunifica.ione in un tutto che e/% si/% totalita%
ma de-.192terminata; che e/ si/ sintesi ma di distinti; che e/ si/ unita% ma di eterogenei. 5ove e/
facile vedereH cio/ che !ar1 deve a -e#el e come% d/altra parte% e#li ne stia al tempo stesso
lontano% (IeS, pp.17-8).
Here Colletti confuses both the notion of negation, which he wrongly substitutes with
synthesis; and he confuses also the last two aspects of Marxian dialectics, one valid and
the other invalid, which, as we emphasised above, must be kept separate: he is quite
correct in insisting on the primacy of the process of pro-duction in the sense of metabolic
interaction that we have outlined in this work as the locus of political antagonism in
capitalism. This is essential to the notion of metabolic interaction or production as a
becoming (Bobbios divenire), that is, as a historical process of human objectifcation
that can be accompanied by historical forms of antagonism.
But then, as we are arguing, Colletti hypostatises this historical antagonism by insisting on the
separate antithetical analytical categories or entities of nature and history and their
reunifcation or synthesis only from the theoretical perspective of an organic
totality or whole just like Schumpeters vision of the social process as one individible
whole or Lukacss notion of totality. The problem with this notion of totality, as
Bobbio splendidly explains, is that it depends on a static antithetical opposition
(economics/sociology, society/nature, nature/history) that does not resolve the two
[opposing] terms [thesis and antithesis] into a third, that is, into the negation of the
negation which is the supersession of this antithetical antagonism through its historical
extrinsication. Consequently, any theory that represents social reality as an organic
totality, as a fxed or positive entity, is not dialectical in that it does not allow for
the supersession (Hegels Aufhebung) of the social antagonism it seeks to theorise. To refer
to a dualism of society and nature, for instance, is to posit an antithesis that cannot
be superseded for the simple reason that neither society nor nature as concepts will
ever be able to be negated. In reality, the two terms are not antithetical at all because
there is no antagonism, no contra-diction within them that can be resolved historically.
Colletti relies on Dobb, Political Economy and Capitalism, who also stresses the limitation of
neoclassical theory to the sphere of exchange. Unlike Colletti, however, Dobb does not see
the metabolic side of capitalist production, and refers instead to the emargination by
bourgeois theory of all institutional and historical factors that is, its restriction of
economic theory to inter-personal relations and not to political elements or
superstructural ones. Because Dobb was a frm believer in the labour theory of value,
to his mind the central antagonism of capitalism lies in the unequal distribution of income
which is due to superstructural institutional factors. It is obvious how the labour
theory of value, by insisting on the existence of a Law of Value that determines prices
scientifcally, removes the focus from the sphere of metabolic production whence is
derived its artifcial separation of what it sees as the superstructural aspects of capitalism
from its presumably strictly economic or structural aspects. The same applies to Lenins
remarks [Philos.Notebooks] about skeleton and fesh-and-blood analysis. (See also
quotations from Friends of the People in Schmidt, pp42f.)