The British Journal of

Politics and International Relations

doi: 10.1111/j.1467-856x.2009.00368.x BJPIR: 2009 VOL 11, 355–359

Society and Nature: Some Notes on

Ian Bruff
Werner Bonefeld

Keywords: Neo-Gramscianism; historical materialism; Open Marxism

I
The rediscovery of Antonio Gramsci’s work in the late 1960s was of considerable
importance for the development of the New Left. Gramsci’s Marx was distinct. In
sharp contrast to the insipid evolutionism of Bukharian historical materialism,
which he argued took its concepts ‘root and branch from the natural sciences’
(Gramsci 1971, 438), his philosophy of praxis put into relief conceptions that saw
humanity as a mere agent of the so-called objective laws of history. He argued that
attempts at tracing ‘the philosophy of praxis’ back to some transhistorical material
properties revealed in fact a desire—at once both illusory and disturbing—to hold
‘the whole of history in the palm of its hands’ (see Gramsci 1971, 425–434). Clearly
his ‘philosophy of praxis’ does not entail a concession to the weakness of thought
that following Kant (1979) is characterised by its refusal to reveal the social
constitution of existing social relations, yielding instead to their deceitful publicity
to have their origin either in nature or God.1

II
Ian Bruff (2009) objects that so-called ‘Open Marxism’ conceives of capitalist social
relations as the sole constitutive praxis of capitalistically constituted social relations.
This is a puzzling objection. As an alternative he proposes that ‘human praxis is
multifaceted yet anchored in the existence lived by humans in capitalist societies’
(Bruff 2009, 332). Its meaning is not clear. Is he referring to a capitalistically
anchored plurality of human practices or a transhistorically defined plurality of
practices that, akin to Negri’s bio-power of the multitude, struggle against their
capitalist signification?2
In his conclusion Bruff declares the need for an approach that ‘accounts for the
complexity and richness of human existence’, and that therefore ‘avoids proclaim-
ing a singular constitutive source of existence’ (p. 345). Yet, this approach has also
to be ‘explicit about the nature of human existence in capitalist society’ (p. 345).
Neo-Gramscian historical materialism is said to offer such an account because it
brings out the ‘essentials of life that are the basis for human existence’ (p. 345).
These essentials are ‘transhistorical and universal properties’ and form the ‘material
basis for our existence’ (p. 334). He therefore concludes that ‘production is at the

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356 WERNER BONEFELD

heart of human activity’ and that ‘production is organised through the ideas that
respond to ... the need for such production’ (pp. 345–346). He surmises that one
‘can never escape the material circumstances in which we live’ (p. 346). Yet, and
obviously so, ‘production in and of itself is not enough’ (p. 346) and one has
therefore also to ask about the ‘how’ of production—ordinarily called mode of
production. Capitalism, he quotes Gramsci, ‘would completely transform all modes
of existence and radically upset the past’ (p. 346). Bruff does not explore Gramsci’s
understanding of the radical transformations characteristic of capitalism. Instead, he
writes in general terms about the ‘need to produce, that this need is essential to our
existence, but that the capitalist organisation of production is not essential’ (p. 347).
Without further ado, he moves the argument on to discussion of common sense in
Gramsci, by which Bruff means the sense that is common, not the common sense
that in Hegel totalises the sensuousness of each particular sense (cf. Gunn 1991).
Bruff insists on the transhistorical character of production. Capitalist social relations
are therefore seen as a specific historical form of transhistorical properties.3 In
contrast, Open Marxism argues with Marx that the point of departure is ‘individuals
producing in society—hence socially determined individual production’ (Marx
1973, 83). Social phenomena are socially constituted, that is, they do not find their
rational explanation in transhistorical material properties. They find explanation
instead in human social practice and in the comprehension of this practice. The
following thesis explores this further.

III
Bruff’s distinction between production as transhistorical material necessity and
concrete historical forms was common currency in the second and third Interna-
tionals, which assumed a separation between first nature and second nature.4 First
nature figured as the so-called general metabolism with nature. Here production is
at the heart of human activity as general presupposition of existence regardless of
history, posited by nature. Then there is second nature, which comprised the
distinctive historical forms of the social organisation of natural necessity. The
second and third Internationals kept these two ‘natures’ analytically distinct. They
argued that capitalist social forms can be traced back to some natural basis, which
however does not exist in pure natural form. It always exists through distinct modes
of production. One thus cannot find in history ‘pure manifestations’ of posited
nature. The appearance of natural necessity was thus one of manifold historical
overdeterminations. This tradition, then, repressed the whole idea of social consti-
tution in favour of a historical materialism based on the natural sciences. Such
historical materialism is able to describe things abstractly and analyse their sup-
posed capitalist anatomy as a historically specific manifestation of transhistorical
properties, such as the need to produce. Capitalism appears here as developed
nature, and socialism as its further development. Yet, what are these ‘things’?
Adorno declared that ‘concepts are moments of the reality that requires their
formation. All concepts refer to non-conceptualities’ (Adorno 1973, 11). What this
means is well brought out by Marx (1973, 239) when he writes about the money
fetish that ‘a social relation, a definite relation between individuals ... appears as a
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SOCIETY AND NATURE: ON IAN BRUFF 357

metal, a stone, as a purely physical external thing which can be found, as such, in
nature, and which is indistinguishable in form from its natural existence’. That is to
say, critically understood historical materialism is not a method that is applied to the
empirical world. It does not think about things but, rather, it thinks out of things (cf.
Adorno 1973, 33). At its best, it is a critique of things understood dogmatically. It
‘aims at the thing itself’ (Adorno 1973, 205). Instead, then, of elevating the ‘laws’
of second nature, the existence of which depends on the continued existence of
specific social conditions, into laws of history in general, it seeks to dissolve the
autarky of things by revealing their social constitution in human practice (cf.
Bonefeld 2009). It strives to recognise ‘the existent’ (Adorno 1941, 318) for what it
is: ‘the human being itself in its social relations’ (Marx 1973, 712). That these social
relations appear as a coin or golden metal does not make them less ‘human’, as if
the world of things were a world apart. The reality in which the social individual
moves day in and day out has no invariant character, that is, something that exists
independently from existent social relations.
Concepts have a social validity. Validity belongs to subjects. Conceptualisation does
therefore not entail expounding of meta-theories, which, by means of infinite
regress, finishes up akin to the doctrine of the Invisible Hand with deist conceptions
of social existence, whether in their religious or secularised forms—the so-called
logic, or transhistorical property, of things. Instead, its critical intension is to reveal
their social constitution. It does also not entail the explanation of one thing by
reference to another. Such thought moves from one thing to another in an attempt
to render its respective terms coherent by means of external reference. The state is
explained by reference to the economic, and the economic by reference to the state
(Bonefeld 2006). Similarly, demand is explained by supply and supply by demand.
By means of vicious circularity, then, explanation becomes tautological. Further,
conceptuality does not mean the discovery of natural laws, like, for example, the
so-called natural tendency of man to barter, as Adam Smith alleged. That man has
to eat says nothing about his or her mode of subsistence and the social necessities
that a mode of subsistence entails—the so-called social laws.5 Economic categories
have neither transhistorical validity, nor a God-like infinity, nor do they posit
themselves, as if by nature. Critically understood, historical materialism is not an
‘expression’ of social forces whose ‘real’ interests it pretends to represent in theo-
retical terms. It aims at these forces themselves, seeking their dissolution.
In sum, the anatomy of man can explain the anatomy of the ape, but not con-
versely: the anatomy of the ape does not explain the anatomy of man. If the
anatomy of the ape would really explain the anatomy of man then the ape would
already possess man as the innate necessity of its evolution—a natural teleology or
an already written future (cf. Bonefeld 2008). Gramsci ridiculed positivist evolu-
tionism that obliged its followers to regard humanity as the goal of the ape, in the
following terms: ‘The “acorn” can think that it will become an oak. Were acorns to
have an ideology it would precisely consist in feeling “pregnant” with oaks. But in
reality, 999 acorns out of a thousand serve as pig food and at most go to making
sausages and mortadella’ (Gramsci 1975, 1192). In conclusion, transhistorical con-
ceptions of production present the capitalist mode of production as ‘encased in
eternal natural laws independent of history’, which allows its analysis as a specific
formation of the ‘inviolable natural laws on which society and history in the
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abstract are founded’ (Marx 1973, 87). The strongest arguments in Marxist theory
do not suggest ontologisation of ‘natural laws’ in history but their abolition.

Postscript
Ian Bruff’s insistence upon the transhistorical character of production is well
intended. No doubt, man has to eat, but s/he does not eat in the abstract. Nor is
production in the abstract possible. Production is always concrete and goes forth as
social production. In contrast, Bruff’s argument emphasises society as a mode of
existence of transhistorical, natural properties. Such conception tends to rebound
politically. When posited as a natural property of man in the abstract, the ‘need to
produce’ legitimises existing social relations as developed nature and delineates
possible futures as idealised derivatives of the existent. Both depend on the deadly
slogan that freedom is recognition of necessity. Yet, transhistorical properties have
nothing to do with it.

About the Author

Werner Bonefeld, Department of Politics, University of York, York YO10 5DD. email: wb3@
york.ac.uk

Notes
I am grateful to Greig Charnock for his comments. The usual disclaimer applies.
1. On the Enlightenment’s conception of critique, see Agnoli (2003 [1992]); and see Horkheimer (1972)
for an explication of the distinction between critical theory and traditional theory.
2. I have explored the former in Bonefeld (2002) and the latter in Bonefeld (2003 [1994]).
3. Bruff’s stance connects well with Althusser’s (1969, 7) structuralist reading of Capital, which he
argues is not a critique of capitalism but rather ‘develops the conceptual system’ of scientific Marxism.
In his view, Capital delivers the capitalist anatomy of transhistorical laws of ‘economic necessity’ but
does not analyse capitalism as a living process.
4. On this, see Schmidt (1981).
5. On social laws, their constituted necessity, innate counter-tendencies and thus openness, compare
Clarke (1991, 53) with Gramsci (1971, 401 and 1995, 429–432). See also Clarke (1992) and Bonefeld
(1993).

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© 2009 The Author. Journal compilation © 2009 Political Studies Association

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