Abstract
We take off from Althusser’s contrast between the idealist/mechanical materialist method of abstraction, which, Althusser argues are different forms of essentialism and Marx’s materialism grounded in overdetermination–contradiction. Our central proposition is that the mode of analysis of commodity employed by Hegel and the neoclassical is based on essentialist modes of reasoning while that used by Marx is based on overdetermination–contradiction. The paper tries to establish this through the elaboration of Marx’s critique of commodity fetishism. The relation between Marx’s idea of fetishism, in general, and commodity fetishism is explored through the twin concepts of alienation and reification, which are argued to be the two pillars of fetishism. The critical role of interpellation is brought to the fore in the course of this exploration. The article then moves on to examine how the analyses of commodities in Hegel and in neoclassical economics are both governed by the figure of commodity fetishism.
I am deeply indebted to the late Pradip Bannerjee, who died while writing his Ph.D. dissertation. He first pointed out to me the significance of the simultaneous existence of the concrete and the abstract in Marx’s method. Hope someday I can manage to edit and publish his unfinished thesis.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
We know that matter, as such never enters our consciousness. The difference then is between what thought concrete and thought abstract; the former is an overdetermined totality ever escaping encapsulation of its essence; thought abstract is an idealist notion that is completely self-contained. (Incomplete: correct the sentence).
- 2.
In the sequence of presentation in Capital, the starting point is exchange by petty producers. Labour power has not yet become a commodity. However, as we will show, in the same volume, Marx says that capitalist order is necessary for production to be dominated by the motive of commodity exchange.
- 3.
“The will which exists absolutely is truly infinite, because its object being the will itself, is for it not another or a limitation. In the object the will has simply reverted into itself” (Para 22). “This subjectivity is (a) pure form or absolute unity of self-consciousness with itself. This unity is the equation “I = I,” consciousness being characterised by a thoroughly inward and abstract self-dependence” (Para 25).
- 4.
“A person in his direct and definite individuality is related to a given external nature. To this outer world the personality is opposed as something subjective. But to confine to mere subjectivity the personality, which is meant to be infinite and universal, contradicts and destroys its nature. It bestirs itself to abrogate the limitation by giving itself reality, and proceeds to make the outer visible existence its own” (Para 39).
- 5.
“In order to fix property as the outward symbol of my personality, it is not enough that I represent it as name and internally will it to be mine; I must also take it over into my possession. The embodiment of my will can then be recognised by others as mine. That the object, of which I take possession be unowned is a self-evident, negative condition. Rather it is more than a bare negative, since it anticipates a relation to others. A person’s putting his will into an object is the conception of property, and the next step is the realising of it. The inner act of my will, which says that something is mine, must be made recognisable for others.” (51).
- 6.
“Outward and visible existence, as definite, is essentially existence for another thing… But property is also a manifestation of will, and the other, for which it exists, is the will of another person. This reference of will to will is the true and peculiar ground on which freedom is realised. The means by which I hold property, not by virtue of the relation of an object to my subjective will, but by virtue of another will, and hence share in a common will, is contract” (Para 71).
- 7.
“In use the object is a single one, definite in quality and quantity, and answers to a special need. But its special usefulness, when fixed quantitatively, can be compared with other objects capable of being put to the same use, and a special want, served by the object, and indeed any want may be compared with other wants; and their corresponding objects may be also compared. This universal characteristic, which proceeds from the particular object and yet abstracts from its special qualities is the value. Value is the true essence or substance of the object, and the object by possessing value becomes an object for consciousness” (para 63).
- 8.
“In order that these objects may enter into relation with each other as commodities, their guardians must place themselves in relation to one another, as persons whose will resides in those object, and must behave in such a way that each does not appropriate the commodity of the other, and part with his own, except by means of an act done by mutual consent. They must therefore, mutually recognise in each other the rights of private proprietors” (C1, 59).
- 9.
“Despite Marx's strong disavowals, Capital is indebted for much of its potency and resonance to ideas he disavowed, including most notably an Enlightenment humanist understanding of labour as the origin of all wealth and a discourse of rights in which man's entitlement to the fruits of his labour is naturally ordained” (Gibson-Graham 2000).
- 10.
In his exposition of the method of enquiry and presentation/analysis in Grundrisse (100) Marx says that first the simple or elementary aspects or ‘simplest determinations’ of a complex whole are discovered then starting from the simple determinants the complex totality is constructed in thought ‘as a rich totality of many determinations and relations’.
- 11.
Chapter 5 of the unfinished Ph.D. thesis of Pradip Bannerjee.
- 12.
I have attempted to work out some of these connotations in a recent article (Basu 2018).
References
Althusser, L. 1969. Contradiction and Overdetermination. In For Marx, (tr. Brewster). London: The Penguin Press.
Amariglio, J., and A. Callari. 1989. Marxian Value Theory and the Problem of the Subject: The Role of Commodity Fetishism. Rethinking Marxism 2(3): 31–60.
Basu, P. K. 2012. Rethinking the values of the left. Rethinking Marxism: A Journal of Economics, Culture & Society 24(2): 221–239.
Basu, P.K. 2018. Financialisation and Financial Crisis: Looking through the lens of Commodity Fetishism. In: International Critical Thought, Routledge, November 2018.
Gibson-Graham. 2000. Introduction. In: Class and its Other, ed. Gibson-Graham, et al. Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press.
Hegel, G.F.W. 2001. Philosophy of Right, trans. Dyde. Kitchener, Canada: Batoche Books Limited.
Hilferding, R. Finance Capital. A Study of the Latest Phase of Capitalist Development, ed. Tom Bottomore (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1981) downloaded from https://www.marxists.org/archive/hilferding/1910/finkap/.
Marx, K. 1875. The Critique of the Gotha Program. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1870/gotha/index.htm.
Marx, K., and F. Engels. The Communist Manifesto. Copyleft: Marxists Internet Archive (marxists.org).
Marx, K. Capital, vol. I at https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/…/Capital-Volume-I.pdf.
Marx, K. Grundrisse. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857-gru/index.htm.
Rubin, I.I. 2008. Essays on Marx’s Theory of Value, trans. M. Samardzija, and F. Perlman. Delhi: Aakar Books.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Basu, P.K. (2019). Marx and the Enigma of Commodity. In: Chakraborty, A., Chakrabarti, A., Dasgupta, B., Sen, S. (eds) ‘Capital’ in the East. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9468-4_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9468-4_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-32-9467-7
Online ISBN: 978-981-32-9468-4
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)