the best stats you've ever seen

This is one of the more surprising TED talks I've watched. Hans Rosling, a doctor and researcher of hunger diseases in Africa and international health generally, gives a dazzling presentation of data debunking our preconceptions of the developing world. Some of the points he proves using statistics throughout his 20 minute presentation:

1. We underestimate the tremendous change in Asia, which was social change before economic change.
   
   
2. There's no gap between rich and poor any more. It's a myth.
   
   
3. The concept of developing countries is extremely doubtful.
   
   
4. [T]he best projection from the World Bank is that [income will even out], and we will not have a divided world. We'll have most people in the middle.
   
   
5. Today we don't have to go to Cuba to find a healthy country in Latin America. Chile will have a lower child mortality than Cuba within some few years from now.
   
   
6. It seems [a country] can move much faster if [it is] healthy first than if [it is] wealthy first.
   
   
7. All countries tend to use their money better than they did in the past.
   
   
8. The improvement of the world must be highly contextualized ... we must be much more detailed.
   
   
9. It's as if the world is flattening off.

The end of the presentation explains why most people aren't aware of these statistics and how the internet is rapidly changing that situation. I was aware of some of this, but I wasn't aware of the extent to which it was true. Seeing the data presented graphically brought the point home more vividly than if I were just to read about it. I recommend you watch the video and not just read the transcript.

As statistics like these become widely acknowledged in North America and Europe, two things are going to happen. The first is that it will be possible to correctly diagnose the problems facing places like "Asia" or "Africa"—useless constructs for international medicine, health, politics, and economics, which Rosling is eager to demolish. The second is that the left's tale about the oppression and privilege inherent in "the system" will continue to lose credibility, as it has for over half a century now. I say this as a leftist, as a critic of capitalism, as someone whose worldview is deeply informed by Hegel and Marx, and as a humanitarian. Leftist political dogma since the 60s has been based far too much on moralizing about the oppressed and the privileged and not nearly based enough on theory and observation.

The reasons this is wrong are not complicated. American Marxists in the 20th century distilled the critique of capitalism down to one idea: capitalism is forever crisis-prone and will make your life worse in the long-run. When capitalism radically raised the standard of living over the course of the 20th century, the radical critics of capitalism no longer had a leg to stand on. (See Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff for more.)

Marxism became equated in workers' minds with losing the real, substantial gains they had made. Those workers weren't "sold out" or "stupid. The problem is that Marxism was turned into a theory about oppression, which it never was in the first place.

The hangers-on insisted all the wealth the greedy, racist, sexist, etc., "western" workers (the real enemies!) were enjoying was being stolen from the "developing world". As Rosling's presentation makes clear, nothing could be further from the truth.

Rather than applying by rote what we learned from our liberal arts education—or cynically dismissing it—why not start instead with the actual trajectory followed by capitalism over the course of the last 200 years, with special emphasis on the past half-century? We start with the facts, we attempt to come up with a general law of development, and then we project it into the future and see where it's going.

What's the future of a high tech global capitalism in which the vast majority of individuals experience themselves as empowered individuals with control over their own lives? I believe that situation is far more dangerous to capitalism than a world divided into the privileged and the oppressed.

The Logic of the Commodity

Marx’s aim in the first chapter of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy is to interrogate a theory according to which the essence of the commodity consists in its possessing use-value and exchange-value. Something has use-value insofar as it satisfies a particular want or need, and it has exchange-value insofar as one could exchange a quantity of it for a quantity of another thing, irrespective of the particular wants or needs it satisfies. For example, the use-value of a pair of shoes is that they are worn to protect the feet from damage by the ground, they’re comfortable, and they’re fashionable. By contrast, the exchange-value of a pair of shoes is the proportion in which they can be exchanged for another use-value. One pair of good shoes has the same exchange-value as 100 tins of shoe polish or 1/100 a Cadillac. Use-value is primarily (though not solely) a qualitative aspect of the commodity, determined by the particular physical properties it has which satisfy particular physical needs. Exchange-value is primarily (though not solely) quantitative in nature. As Marx says, “Considered as exchange-value, one use-value is worth just as much as another, provided the two are available in the appropriate proportion. The exchange-value of a palace can be expressed in a definite number of tins of boot polish.” According to the theory Marx is interrogating, since we now know what use-value and exchange-value are, and since use-value and exchange-value make up the necessary and sufficient conditions for being a commodity, then we now know what the essence of a commodity is.

One might object that Marx's starting point is arbitrary. We have no good reason to believe that use-value and exchange-value make up the essence of a commodity. Indeed, the only support Marx offers in favor of this view is a quote by Aristotle. Marx's starting point succumbs to the fallacy of appeal to authority. Clearly everything that follows from here is invalid.

Yet Marx’s starting point is only provisional. His purpose is not to show that the commodity in fact is use-value and exchange-value simpliciter. Indeed, as Marx proceeds to show in the first chapter and even more emphatically in the second chapter, this view of the commodity as being composed simply of use-value and exchange-value is rife with contradictions, and so the initial appearance the commodity gives off of being composed of exchange-value and use-value cannot be in fact what the commodity is. By developing this inadequate, abstract account of the commodity through its series of contradictions, we can finally arrive at what the commodity in fact is. Therefore, at least for right now, it is not necessary that this account of the commodity be absolutely true, only that it be prima facie true.

So assuming at least provisionally that the commodity really has two aspects, use-value and exchange-value, it follows that the labor that produces the commodity must also have two aspects, one qualitative, the other quantitative. A shoe has use-value because it is made of leather, rubber, and thread, materials capable of withstanding the normal wear and tear of walking. The labor required to make a pair of shoes consists in cutting and shaping rubber and cutting and sewing leather. This labor is qualitatively different from the kind of labor that goes into making a jacket, a car, or even a pair of sneakers. Just as when we consider commodities in terms of their respective use-values each appears qualitatively different from another, so too does the labor which creates the commodity qua use-value appear qualitatively different from other forms of labor which produce other use-values. Therefore, qua use-value, a commodity is materialized particular labor.

Yet in order to consider the commodity solely in terms of its exchange-value, we have to abstract completely from its use-value. It does not matter that shoes are for walking and palaces are for habitation by princes; considered solely in terms of their exchange-value, we can measure the value of a palace in terms of pairs of shoes. But this means we must abstract from everything qualitative in the commodity, including the labor that produced it. “As exchange-values in which the qualitative difference between their use-values is eliminated, they represent equal amounts of the same kind of labour. The labour which is uniformly materialised in them must be uniform, homogeneous, simple labour; it matters as little whether this is embodied in gold, iron, wheat or silk, as it matters to oxygen whether it is found in rusty iron, in the atmosphere, in the juice of grapes or in human blood.” Just as when we consider commodities in terms of their respective exchange-values each commodity appears to represent an identical, quantitative proportion to other commodities, so too does the labor which creates exchange-value appear as mere concatenations of identical units of simple labor. Qua exchange-value, a commodity is materialized abstract, general labor.

At this point one might object that Marx’s argument for the exchange-value of the commodity rests upon the validity of the labor theory of value. Classical political economists came up with the labor theory of value in order to explain the value of commodities in terms of the labor-time that was contained in them, but allegedly neo-classical economics has since shown that the labor theory of value is incoherent. Surely we cannot trust anything Marx says beyond this point, because his entire theory of value is infected by an antiquated notion of value.

And yet again it is necessary to point out that the essence of the commodity Marx is constructing here is not the one Marx intends to hold to without qualification. Marx adopts this model not because he thinks it is the correct model of the commodity.; on the contrary, he adopts it in order to show that it is inherently contradictory and therefore cannot be a self-sufficient description of what the commodity in fact is. Again, all that is required at this point is that the essence of the commodity appear prima facie true, not that it in fact be absolutely true. This is not the foundation upon which Marx intends to construct his theory; rather, it is the view of the commodity which appears (or appeared in Marx’s time) to be immediately correct and which Marx intends to show is in fact not true in the unqualified sense in which its proponents take it to be. That the commodity is simply use-value and exchange-value, individual labor and general labor, is assumed from the start in order to expose its contradictions and lead us to a more concrete, more adequate account of the essence of the commodity.

With that in mind, let us now more closely examine this account of the commodity, specifically as it appears in action. Assuming the commodity really is just the unity of use-value and exchange-value, could it ever fulfill the function of an actual commodity that we find out in the world, like a loaf of bread? That is, if the loaf of bread were just use-value and exchange-value, materialized particular labor and materialized general labor, would the bread in fact ever be eaten or exchanged? If not, then we know this cannot in fact be what a commodity is like. It must be like something else.

Immediately after producing the commodity, the commodity is both a use-value and not a use-value. It is a use-value insofar as it has properties that potentially satisfy human needs, but it is not a use-value insofar as the one initially in possession of the commodity will not use it to satisfy his needs. For example, if the bread in the bakery were tasty to the baker, he would eat it. But if he ate it, it would not be a commodity, since commodities are produced to be exchanged for other commodities of equal exchange-value. Instead, the bread is a means of exchange for the baker, a means to his livelihood. It is something he can sell. The “use” of the bread to the baker is that it can be sold. So at this point, no one has yet regarded the bread as a use-value. The commodity in the shop has yet to become a use-value.

To become a use-value, the commodity has to encounter the particular need it satisfies (in this case, hunger for bread). So to become a use-value, the commodity has to switch hands, say, from the hands of the baker to the hands of the man who wants to make a sandwich. In order to switch hands, it must be exchanged. In order to be exchanged, the commodity must be an exchange-value. In order to be an exchange-value, both parties involved in the transaction have to abstract from its use-value and consider it purely quantitatively, in terms of its price. Marx calls this abstraction from all use-value of the commodity the “alienation of the commodity”. Only by means of alienation (by not considering it a use-value at all) does the commodity become a use-value (since that is the condition under which it can be exchanged and fall into the hands of someone who will use it). Only by abstracting from the use-value of bread (i.e., that it can be eaten) does the bread ever really become eaten. So under capitalism, only by being exchange-values do commodities ever become use-values.

Our view of the commodity has already undergone significant revision from our first take on it. We initially regarded the commodity as simply being the unity of exchange-value and use-value. Use-value was something a commodity had by virtue of its ability to satisfy human wants and desires, and this ability seemed to be based solely in its immediate, physical properties. But when we look at actual commodity production and exchange under capitalism, we find this is not the case. In fact, the commodity is not a use-value at the beginning of its existence but rather has to become one by means of exchange. Only once the commodity has passed into the hands of the consumer does it finally become a use-value. Therefore, what initially appeared to be a freestanding property of the commodity is actually a property that is “mediated”. It is a property that comes into being only by means of a social process in and through which it is “alienated” from itself.

At this point it appears as though a commodity becomes a use-value only by means of being an exchange-value, but we have already seen that a commodity has exchange-value only because it is materialized labor-time. Yet the particular commodity (say, our loaf of bread again) only comes into existence and subsists in this world by means of particular labor. The loaf of bread is not “just any” loaf of bread. It is this particular loaf of semolina wheat bread on this particular shelf of this Italian bakery in Hoboken, NJ. A loaf of bread is materialized individual labor, not materialized universal labor-time. But the commodity has exchange-value only insofar as it is materialized universal labor-time. Therefore, the commodity is not yet an exchange-value.

Now our view of the commodity has undergone yet another shift. A moment ago we treated the commodity as though just by virtue of sitting in the baker’s shop, it was an exchange-value, and by virtue of being an exchange-value, it could become a use-value. But now it appears as though the commodity is not immediately exchange-value, either. The commodity has yet to become exchange-value. But the commodity which has yet to become an exchange-value or a materialization of universal labor-time (in this case, a loaf of semolina wheat bread in a shop in Jersey), is a particular existing object. Bakers don’t create “just any” loaves of bread. All loaves of bread which are to become exchange-values are particular, actually existing loaves of bread, produced by particular people under particular circumstances. This is the only sort of thing that can have a price. But what we have just described is a use-value. So only something which is a use-value can become an exchange-value.

Our analysis of the commodity as the unity of exchange-value and use-value has led us in a circle. To be exchanged, commodities must have exchange-value, but commodities don’t immediately have exchange-value just by virtue of existing in the baker’s shop. They have to become exchange-values. To become exchange-values, commodities must be materialized universal labor-time. The only thing that can embody universal labor-time is a particular thing, a use-value. But commodities are not immediately use-values, either. In order to be use-values, they have to be exchanged. But to be exchanged… etc.

Our analysis of the commodity has led us not only to a circle in which exchange-value and use-value presuppose one another; it has also led us to a contradiction. As use-values, commodities are inherently unequal with one another. A bottle of water does not fulfill the same exact need as a loaf of bread or even a different bottle of water. And yet as exchange-values, commodities must be equal to one another, since it is possible to express the value of a loaf of bread in terms of the value of a bottle of water. To become equitable (to become exchange-values), commodities must first become unequal: to become an exchange-value, a commodity has first to be a use-value. But once the commodity becomes a use-value, it cannot be exchanged, since being a use-value includes being qualitatively different from other things. But qualitatively different things are not equitable (and so cannot be exchange-values). But to become unequal (use-values), commodities have to be exchanged, since the commodity is not immediately a use-value (to its producer). The commodity only becomes a use-value in the hands of its consumer. So in order to be unequal (use-values), commodities have to be equal (exchange-values) and vice versa. This is the contradiction inherent in the commodity considered as the unity of use-value and exchange-value.

At this point Marx invites us to ask ourselves what would have to change in this account of the commodity in order to allow the commodity to be what it purports to be. Let’s imagine for a second that the commodity already made the salto mortale, that it made it through the process of exchange and passed from the baker’s hands into the hungry man’s stomach. What would have allowed that to come about? The answer, says Marx, is money.

Money resolves the contradiction inherent in the commodity by allowing the commodity to transform from a use-value into an exchange-value and vice- versa. This is because money is a commodity that itself serves as a “universal equivalent” or a “universal commodity”. Its use-value is that it is a measure of the exchange-value of other commodities. The commodity starts as a use-value in the baker’s shop. The baker attaches a price to the commodity. This price is a hypothetical exchange-value of the commodity, what Marx refers to as a nominal price. The baker takes the bread to market with this nominal price in the hope of attracting money with it. Once the exchange takes place, the nominal price transforms into a real price, i.e., the bread is exchanged for actual cash. The commodity has “proved” it was really that price. (If it doesn’t get exchanged, nothing was proved.) The bread has now proved itself to really have this abstract value attached to it (its real price), and as a result, the particular labor which went into the production of the bread proves itself to have really been in fact abstract general labor. Contrariwise, from the side of the consumer, the bread is now able to prove itself as use-value.

Without any details (I’ll provide them in a future post), this account of how money resolves the contradiction inherent in the commodity is murky, but it is still possible to get the general idea of what has happened. The commodity was allegedly the simple unity of use-value and exchange-value. These were purported to be two properties immediately inhering in the commodity, apart from any complex social process. Yet we saw that if we assumed this to be the case, we were forced to assume that one and the same thing was both particular and general at the same time and in the same respects. Money did not fully eliminate this contradiction. On the contrary, one and the same object (the loaf of bread) is still both particular and general. Yet it is no longer particular and general at the same time and in the same respect. Money comes between these two properties of the commodity so that the commodity can be exchange-value at one point, use-value at another. Therefore the essence of the commodity is not simply use-value and exchange-value, but neither is the essence simply not use-value and exchange-value. The essence of the commodity is revealed in the process of exchange. This is the “social metabolism” of the essence of the commodity, and it requires money.

Marx's "Method" (work in progress)

Like the rest of the introduction to the Grundrisse, the third section is both abstract and difficult. Nothing in Capital is as hard to slog through, simply because Marx is presenting here in vague outline what he intends to fill in later. Nevertheless, some of what he says here is intriguing, and it's gotten me thinking about the subject of Marx's so-called "method".

My thesis is that almost none of what Marx says here is important. It's misleading to believe that reading this will prepare you to read Marx's Capital. If Marx felt it was necessary to introduce his readers to his method before presenting to them the arguments of Capital, he would have included a methodological introduction, like many philosophers before him had done, and as many bourgeois economists today, Paul Samuelson included, do. But Marx deliberately did not include an introduction in any of the editions of Capital. The theoretical introduction of the Grundrisse does not make it into the final copy of Capital. Granted, he remarks in the Afterward to the second German edition that he is "inverting" Hegel's dialectic, standing it up on its feet, but there's no systematic exposition of this approach that would put it on the same level of scientific precision as one encounters in the body of the work.

At times Marx makes it appear as though there is a Marxist "methodology" separate from the actual concrete phenomena he analyzes in his work. Engels did much to extend the so-called “dialectical method” from the sphere of political economy and generalize it into a broad account of both nature and society. Lenin was highly influenced by such formalistic accounts, and no one less than Trotsky wrote an essay on the "ABC's of Material Dialectics".

The problem with presenting such a method as a fact accomplished prior to the science itself is that it is susceptible to skepticism. As such, there have been both socialist and bourgeois critics of dialectical method. None other than Eduard Bernstein, Engels's personal secretary, attempted to rescue scientific Marxism from the mysticism of Hegelian dialectics in his 1899 The Preconditions of Socialism (see chapter 2 especially). Since traditional, orthodox Marxists see dialectics as providing the teleological framework through which to understand the inevitable collapse of capitalism and its “supersession” by communism, it's no accident that Bernstein's rejection of dialectics goes hand-in-hand with his embrace of reformism. Socialism will not come about as a result of the inevitable collapse of capitalism, according to Bernstein; rather, socialism will occur under capitalism once the proletariat attains for itself a more just share of surplus. Bernstein adds the Marx stamp of approval to this position at the beginning of his book when he quotes Marx as saying, "Hence the Ten Hours' Bill was not only a great practical success; it was the victory of the principle." The realization of the political “principle” of Marxism is none other than the concrete condition under which the life of the proletariat as a class is made empirically more tolerable through the larger portion of surplus distributed to working individuals. (Bernstein's socialism has been the most influential, far surpassing Lenin’s.) Bourgeois critics usually find nothing but either metaphysics or mathematics in Capital. The metaphysics they dismiss without further adieu, and so they spend the rest of their time pointing out what a buffoon Marx was for having improperly formulated labor as a series of simultaneous equations rather than linear equations, etc. Outside of metaphysics, there is nothing but positivism.

The assumption shared by both socialist and bourgeois critics of Marx's method is that the rejection of dialectical formalism entails empiricism. Reformist socialists like Bernstein, who see in dialectics nothing more than the imminent, messianic coming of communism, are led through their rejection of it to assume that the only scientific socialism worthy of the name must concentrate exclusively on improving the concrete living conditions of the working classes, increasing their share of distribution, and expanding their consumption. But the Bernsteinian approach is similar in essential ways to the approach of bourgeois economists who also reject "metaphysics" in favor of what is observable and measurable. Moreover, bourgeois economists since Adam Smith have long argued that free markets negotiated by owners of private property would yield the fastest possible growth of production. This in turn would enable social peace and a rising standard of living. Nowhere has Smith's prophecy enjoyed more relevance than in the United States, whose working class has reaped the benefits of increased consumption since the 19th century. By concentrating almost exclusively on improving the standard of living of the proletariat, reformist socialists in the tradition of Bernstein have played directly into the hands of the bourgeoisie. They have demanded from capitalism the one thing capitalism has turned out to be very good at providing. (For more on this, see Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff, "Exploitaton, Consumption, and the Uniqueness of US Capitalism”, Historical Materialism, volume 11:4 (209-226).)

All of this might lead one to believe that one must either embrace materialist dialectics as the proper method of political economy, or one must embrace the method of bourgeois economics or reformism. But Marx did not understand things this way. He neither begins Capital with a systematic statement of his methodology, nor does he advocate bourgeois economics or reformism. How does Marx proceed, then, and what makes his way of proceeding differ from the method of bourgeois economics generally? If we answer this question, we can figure out what it means that Marx has a "dialectical" way of proceeding, but going the other way will never help us. That is, we can't understand Marx beforehand by figuring out what "dialectics" is and then reading the book. The latter would assume that Marx has a method which he is then going to apply to the object, economics, the way a biologist might have a scientific method which she then applies to a living thing. But as it turns out, Marx questions the relationship between thought and its object that is assumed by this approach. Adopting a thoroughly Marxist perspective will require one not only to see capitalism differently, but also to see the relationship between thought and object überhaupt differently.

To begin, we might consider two ways in which we can "ground" our inquiry: in facts or in abstractions. In the third section of the introduction to the Grundrisse, Marx refers to the former as "concrete particulars" and the latter as "abstract ideas". In political economy, an example of a concrete particular might be something like division of labor, the price of a commodity, exchange, etc. These are all observable, simple, measurable phenomena. An example of an abstract idea might be population, society, etc. These are things which, if we abstract from the particular things determining them like classes, etc., are very general ideas which we could apply to a vast multiplicity of human organizations.

Two questions arise from this dichotomy: (1) where do we begin, and (2) what is the foundation upon which political economy rests? Do we begin from very simple phenomena like exchange or actual consumption of goods in one place and build up general theories by means of an inductive method, or do we start from general ideas like society and population, things which are common to all societies, and derive possible ways of being social or being economic out of them? That's the question of beginning. But what are the basic laws or categories we're going to produce by means of this method? Will they belong only to particular societies, or can we generalize them to all societies? What can we say about the people who participate in societies? Do they have properties belonging intrinsically to them? Can we base our economics on those properties? In general, what are the basic, most foundational predicates for economics, and what grounds their universality and necessity?

Many believe Marx proceeds in a basically inductive, linear fashion. According to this interpretation, Marx starts with an observable fact (the existence of commodities) and breaks that fact down into its atoms: use-value, exchange-value, and value. He disregards use-value as irrelevant. Exchange-value on its own is incapable of telling us anything about capitalism. This leads him to construct a proper foundation for his analysis of capitalism: the labor theory of value. This is the building block upon which he will construct everything else, the Archimedean point from which we can learn everything we need to know about capitalism. This in turn is founded upon Marx's insight that all history is the history of class struggle. The labor theory of value is true, because it expresses class relations under capitalism. (See David Harvey, The Limits to Capital, Chapter 1.)

The great thing about this interpretation of Marx—aside from the fact that it turns Marx into a convenient popinjay for bourgeois economists and, therefore, for undergraduates—is that it fits in nicely with the way we expect theorists to proceed. Marx begins with a visible phenomenon—the commodity—and analyzes it into its components. He proceeds by means of analysis to discover a secure principle upon which to base the rest of his inquiry, and he uses that foundation to construct a theory of capitalism. Because Marx proceeds in such a straightforward, linear, analytical fashion, it's easy for us to see right away that Marx's foundation, his theory of value, is wrong. He's going to base the rest of his theory on a wrong foundation, so we can stop right here and not bother ourselves with the rest of what he says.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, Marx never argues that the commodity, the value theorem, or anything else serves or can serve as the foundation of a critique of political economy. It's true that Marx considers the commodity to be the material embodiment of use-value, exchange-value, and value, and that we have to understand these concepts if we're going to understand anything at all about capitalism. And yet, in order to fully understand these concepts, according to Marx, we already need to know the inner logic of capitalism itself. So what appears at first to be an a priori beginning to the inquiry, or what appears at least to begin with some elemental "givens", is actually no "beginning" at all in the strict sense of the term. Marx begins in medias res, in the middle of things. (See Harvey, ibid.)

What appears as an origin or a given is really a result of a complex process, and it is the job of the critique of political economy to reproduce in thought the complex process that brought about this result. Yet we cannot reconstruct this process simply by looking at the order in which phenomena arise in time. As Marx argues in the third section of the introduction to the Grundrisse, although phenomena like money and property appear at the beginning of civilization, their character under capitalism is entirely different. Therefore, no foundation in history, as a mere concatenation of events in the order in which they occurred, is available to us. Furthermore, we cannot reconstruct this process by going back to a more fundamental principle (like some take the labor theory of value to be), because, according to Marx, the only way we can understand anything else going on in capitalism is by means of the inner structure of the commodity. And those atoms themselves which make up the commodity—use-value, exchange-value, and value—cannot be understood except in relation to one another. So we cannot understand what exchange-value is abstracted from use-value and value. We cannot understand value without thinking about it in terms of exchange-value and use-value. We cannot understand use-value except in terms of exchange-value and value. No concept can be understood in isolation, as the foundation of all the others.

So in answer to the question—Does Marx begin from concrete particulars (like actual commodities or particular events in history), or does he begin from abstract ideas (like the labor theory of value or Hegelian metaphysics)?—we reject the premise. The premise is that there is any "given" one can begin from. But it is the very idea of a "given" which Marx rejects. Theoretical insight into capitalism comes about not through the linear construction of a theory on a foundation but rather through the process of thinking the relations that make up the capitalist mode of production.

We must use insights garnered from one standpoint to throw light upon another. Looked at from the perspective of use-value, capitalism will look one way. Then we shift perspectives and look at it from the point of view of value, and it looks another. Then we move to another perspective, keeping in mind what we already saw, and applying it to this perspective. In light of what we see now, we revise what we already saw in order to come to a fuller understanding of what capitalism and its contradictions are.

We don't make our account of capitalism concrete by having the right starting point. The concrete comes about as a result of moving between perspectives and revising our current and previous interpretations in light of what we have already seen and are currently seeing. This is why in the third section of the introduction to the Grundrisse, we come to that which is concrete not at the beginning, but only by breaking down population and building it back up again. Then and only then is population “determinate”. But this is a result of analysis, not a given.

And this is the way people normally go about learning things. It's rare that one perspective on the world turns out to be entirely wrong, and even if it is wrong, we don't simply throw away what we had. Rather, we revise our beliefs on the basis of the shortcomings of our previous view on things, and we come up with a new account of the phenomenon that takes into account and makes up for our previous errors. In the introduction to the Phenomenology of Spirit Hegel called this process of learning "determinate negation". It is the essence of dialectics, and it is something nearly every reasonable person practices on a day-to-day basis.

Although rejecting the “myth of the given” gets us out of the dichotomy of empiricism and mysticism, it is still not enough to bring us to a concrete understanding of Marx’s actual dialectical procedure. This is because one can reject foundationalism but still reject dialectics. Indeed, most forms of pragmatism follow just such a path. Since Marxist praxis is often confused with pragmatism, a closer look at pragmatism will help us see better what is distinctive in dialectics.

Philosophical pragmatism has taken a few forms, but in general it is the view that the truth consists in the agreement qualified scientists reach about some phenomenon or proposition—or—the test of truth is its practical value for the achievement of human ends. Pragmatism differs from positivism in its assertion of the unity of fact and value. We can form no conception of philosophical “Truth” abstracted from human values. There is no cognition that is not relative to the human, practical perspective. Pragmatism follows dialectics in its rejection of foundationalism—we cannot base our theories on “sense particulars” or static universals, because what counts as a particular or a universal is relative to what we value collectively or what “works” best for our purposes. It also follows dialectics in its insistence upon seeing an underlying relation between people where there appears to be a relationship between things. However, it differs from dialectics where it insists that cognition remain at the level of apparent reality, at the level of what we can manipulate or what simply works. Any philosophy that asks us to accept the role of science as the careful recording of facts chooses to leave the world mystified. By subjectivizing the relationship between subject and object, it leaves the question of our historical development aside, and so it becomes the willing instrument of the prevailing system of power.

By contrast, dialectics starts from a recognition of our own partiality rather than a methodological distrust of our means of getting at “Truth”. The partisanship of critical philosophy—Marx’s included—stems from its goal: the reconstruction of society on the basis of non-exploitative relations between persons. Self-directing, self-conscious human beings will be at the center of this society, not objects. And this brings us to the positive core of dialectics: the idea that the perceived world itself is a product of human activity. What we call “nature” is in fact humanized nature.

Therefore, to call Marx's dialectical way of proceeding a "method" is misleading. There really is no positive doctrine here, nothing that is accepted at the beginning as an accomplished fact, and certainly nothing on the order of what Engels referred to as the "unity of opposites" or the "negation of the negation". We can define dialectics negatively as the rejection of a "given". Positively, the core of dialectics consists in the idea that the world of perception is a product of human activity. There is nothing our senses or our intellects are in touch with immediately, tout court. We can adopt foundational or transcendental perspectives provisionally as a means of getting inquiry off the ground, but, as Wittgenstein says, we climb up the ladder only to throw it away when we're done. There is no beginning which in and of itself is not already a result. We start in the middle of things, trying to figure out what is going on around us. We can achieve a scientific perspective on capitalism, but we achieve that orientation as a result of the inquiry, not as something at the beginning.