????????本篇文章由我翻譯，原文附于末尾，紅色標注為原文附帶的注釋，藍色標注為我添加的補充和注釋。由于我不懂哲學，黑格爾文本不作翻譯。

The Myth of Dialectics

Reinterpreting the Marx-Hegel Relation

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辯證法的神話——馬克思與黑格爾關(guān)系的再解讀

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第四部分

經(jīng)濟學的對象

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????????現(xiàn)在我們已在德國中心！我們一方面談?wù)撜谓?jīng)濟學，同時又要談形而上學。

（馬克思，《哲學的貧困》）

（《馬克思恩格斯全集》第一版第4卷第138頁）

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第13章

對“新”黑格爾馬克思主義的附帶評論

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????????從前文的討論中我們已經(jīng)可以清楚地認識到，馬克思所說的黑格爾的主謂之間的“倒轉(zhuǎn)”(‘Umkehrung’)實際上也被認為是主謂之間的“顛倒”(‘Verkehrung’)：一種擾亂了主謂關(guān)系中合理內(nèi)容的“倒裝”(‘reversal’)，因此是一種“倒置”(‘inversion’)。事實上，為了強調(diào)這一點，馬克思在他1873年的“跋”(‘Afterword’)中使用了這樣一個比喻，并因此廣為人知?！斑@也是不言而喻的。”他寫道，“正確的方法被顛倒了（wird auf den Kopf gestellt——字面意思是：‘戴在頭上’）”(CHDS, 99-100/242)（《馬克思恩格斯全集》第二版第3卷第52頁）。然而，馬克思1843年的批判在這里給我們帶來的困惑是，它顯然與馬克思在“價值形式”(‘the Value-form’)中強調(diào)的“主語”(‘subject’)和“謂語”(‘predicate’)之間的顛倒(Verkehrung)相同。但在“價值形式”中，“顛倒”(‘Verkehrung’)似乎不再被視為神秘化理論所處理的一種虛假產(chǎn)物，而是屬于所考慮對象本身的真正本性。那么，我們是否可以得出這樣一個結(jié)論：老年馬克思（成熟馬克思，mature Marx）已經(jīng)接受了他曾經(jīng)花費了如此多精力來揭露的倒置，也就是說，他接受了他早期批判中黑格爾的所有神秘主義內(nèi)核？

????????幸運的是，馬克思對經(jīng)濟學中價值的“顛倒世界”(‘inverted world’)的發(fā)現(xiàn)——或者更確切地說，對構(gòu)成這個“世界”的現(xiàn)象中的“顛倒”(‘inverted’)現(xiàn)象的發(fā)現(xiàn)——并不要求我們得出上面這個不可能的結(jié)論。如果只有一些對象在問題中展現(xiàn)出其特殊性的話，如果它確實正好是它們的特殊性的話，那么黑格爾的形而上學主張，由于它應(yīng)當關(guān)注客觀現(xiàn)實的特征，因此只能是錯誤的。簡單考慮的特殊(particulars)本身實際上并不從屬于普遍(universals)（更不用說“一般”(‘the universal’)），因為前者的本質(zhì)存在僅僅為后者的表現(xiàn)提供了材料(material)。(1)我們非常熟悉這一主張在黑格爾語境中的神秘意義。重申：既然事物作為特殊僅存在于經(jīng)驗中，那么它必然與“一般”相背離，因此它們必然失去經(jīng)驗實體，必然消亡，“因此”它們的消亡證明了它們的所謂獨立性只不過是一種虛幻的性質(zhì)以及“一般”超越它們的真實力量。正是在這種——極其深奧的——意義上，黑格爾宣稱作為一個整體的特殊領(lǐng)域，即感性現(xiàn)實(sensuous reality)，是“表象世界”(‘world of appearance’)：在這個世界中，也正是在這個世界中，“一般”，即“精神”(‘Geist’)能夠“將自己表現(xiàn)為”永恒的本質(zhì)。[1]

????????在本書的一開始，我就評論了黑格爾對“表象”地位在經(jīng)驗具體(the empirical concrete)方面的“貶損”對馬克思主義經(jīng)濟學家的吸引力，以及后者甚至愿意采用傳統(tǒng)哲學的“表象”類別，即“本質(zhì)”(‘essence’)，這與他們自己（實際上基本一無所獲）嘗試采用新古典主義的方法論關(guān)系很大。在支持經(jīng)濟學家在這一問題上的“自發(fā)”哲學沖動的過程中——通過闡述“辯證邏輯”(‘dialectical logic’)等方式——我擔心他們哲學系的“馬克思主義”同事只會讓他們自己成為壞科學的奴仆。我在這里不想深入討論這些對科學的哲學“幫助”。與這一趨勢相關(guān)的許多工作都是臨時性的，不值得仔細檢查：如果確實值得仔細檢查的話，那也只是因為其中具有代表性的特定問題，而非其內(nèi)在的智力因素。

????????鑒于這一判斷的嚴肅性，實際上最好避免引用任何特定的引文。但是，為了那些還不熟悉我想使用的那種語言風格的讀者，我先提供以下的典型例子：

????????“具體(concrete)和物質(zhì)(material)的可理解性只能通過主張思想過程優(yōu)先于具體和物質(zhì)的給定表象來把握。具體和物質(zhì)在其表象的表面(surface)層次之下還有一個深度(depth)層次。思想的首要任務(wù)是先穿透表象，達到深度層次（以勞動時間而非價格計量的‘價值’層次），然后進入將深度層次與給定表象層次聯(lián)系起來的中介。為了完成這項任務(wù)，思想僅僅保持其獨立性是不夠的，它必須維護其對實際過程產(chǎn)生的表象的首要地位。概念的辯證重建允許這樣做。在這方面，黑格爾和馬克思沒有原則性的區(qū)別。兩人都斷言，只有在思想和理論中，世界的可理解性才能被把握。”[2]

????????人們找不到任何一個不同意“只有在思想中、在理論中”世界的可理解性才能被把握的理論家。哪里有這樣的理論家？！但這和思想的“優(yōu)先性”又有什么關(guān)系，或者說，和暗指的神秘“深度”有什么關(guān)系？（確切地說，價值比價格“更深入”的維度是什么？以及在任何意義下，價格的物質(zhì)性是什么？）因此很難嚴謹?shù)卣J為，長期以來在哲學中不受信任的“表面”和“深層”的隱喻有助于澄清已經(jīng)模糊了的“表象”和“本質(zhì)”的說法。

????????順帶提一句，馬克思自己有時候也會寫資本主義經(jīng)濟“表面”上發(fā)生的事件和現(xiàn)象。然而，對于這些“表面”，馬克思并沒有系統(tǒng)性的與任何在其“之下”的任何“深度層次”作對比，而是與隱藏在它們背后的社會活動領(lǐng)域作對比。[3]這種用法與與現(xiàn)實“層次”的任何形而上學劃分完全無關(guān)，更不用說是被認為特別適合把握現(xiàn)實各層次之間聯(lián)系的“辯證邏輯”的規(guī)則了。事實上，馬克思自己關(guān)于“表面”的論述基本不應(yīng)該視為一種隱喻。發(fā)生在資本主義經(jīng)濟生活“表面”的行為非常簡單，就是那些發(fā)生在市場中的行為，而與后者相關(guān)的客觀“現(xiàn)象”則是價值現(xiàn)象(value-phenomena)：最根本的是價格，以及在馬克思傾向于使用這種修辭的背景下，最關(guān)鍵的是利潤。發(fā)生在資本主義經(jīng)濟生活“表面”背后的事情非常簡單，就是那些發(fā)生在私人領(lǐng)域的事情：尤其是在馬克思的理論目的下的消費，包括對勞動力的消費。

????????回想一下《資本論》中馬克思將討論從資本/雇傭勞動之間的交換轉(zhuǎn)移到勞動過程的論述：

????????“勞動力的消費，像任何其他商品的消費一樣，是在市場以外，或者說在流通領(lǐng)域以外進行的。因此，讓我們同貨幣占有者和勞動力占有者一道，離開這個嘈雜的、表面的、有目共睹的領(lǐng)域，跟隨他們兩人進入門上掛著‘非公莫入’牌子的隱蔽的生產(chǎn)場所吧！在那里，不僅可以看到資本是怎樣進行生產(chǎn)的，而且還可以看到資本本身是怎樣被生產(chǎn)出來的。賺錢的秘密最后一定會暴露出來?！?(CI, 279/189)（《馬克思恩格斯全集》第二版第44卷第204頁）

????????在完全領(lǐng)會了馬克思在劃分上毫無特別的性質(zhì)后，對它的任何宏大的形而上學解釋不但是完全錯誤的，而且老實說是十分滑稽的。無論如何，哲學家們可能已經(jīng)做了很多工作來幫助學術(shù)界的俗人正確理解黑格爾語境下的“本質(zhì)—表象”對偶，從而使他們在模仿后者時至少保持一定的謹慎，例如可以注意以下段落：

????????. . . essence does not lie behind or beyond appearance, but it is rather the infinite goodness that releases its show [Schein] into immediacy and grants it the joy of existence. The appearance which is thus posited does not stand on its own feet and does not have its being in itself, but rather in another. God as the essence, just as He is the goodness that creates a world by lending existence to the moments of His inward showing-forth [Scheinen], proves Himself at the same time to be the power over this world and the righteousness which, inasmuch as the content of this existing world wants to exist on its own, reveals the latter to be mere appearance. (En.L, §131, add.)(2)

????????盡管如此，證明馬克思對價值關(guān)系中感性具體(sensate-concrete)只能算是抽象普遍(abstract-universal)的“表現(xiàn)形式”(‘form of appearance’)的觀察——除此之外，還有一種在某種意義上并不完全恰當?shù)恼f法，“表達方式”(‘mode of expression’)——與黑格爾對感性具體的貶損因而對“一般”的現(xiàn)象形式(phenomenal form)的貶損毫無相同之處依然是十分簡單的。

????????公正地說，“新”黑格爾馬克思主義中一些精明的代表不僅承認，甚至特別強調(diào)黑格爾的“范疇”(‘concept’)與馬克思價值分析的特定對象之間的同構(gòu)性。[4]然而這并沒有阻止他們繼續(xù)相信黑格爾有一套獨特且合理的“方法”（如果不去深究的話，至少是有關(guān)“表現(xiàn)”(‘presentation’)的方法），并認為馬克思在特定情況下應(yīng)用它。因此，他們開始在《資本論》中用黑格爾方法發(fā)現(xiàn)范疇“轉(zhuǎn)變”，甚至更糟糕的，在默認這種“轉(zhuǎn)變”實際上并不存在的情況下，主動代表馬克思設(shè)計了它們。例如，C. J. Arthur寫道，“作為隱藏在背后的東西，價值只是一種消失的假象。要成為真正的本質(zhì)的話，它必須變成它自己；它必須在它表現(xiàn)形式的進一步發(fā)展中取得現(xiàn)實性。這就是使貨幣成為必然的原因?！?span id="s0sssss00s" class="color-pink-03">[5]這種對貨幣形式必然性的“推導”被視為黑格爾式“解釋”中精彩的一部分。然而，它并沒有證明貨幣形式的形成是如何因作為一種社會結(jié)合機制的商品交換中的某些特質(zhì)而成為必然，只是證明了它作為黑格爾“邏輯”的一部分是如何通過黑格爾“本質(zhì)論”(‘doctrine of essence’)的一些鮮明特征而成為“必然”。

????????類似地，Jairus Banaji在對馬克思經(jīng)濟學的黑格爾式重新解讀的這一類型的開創(chuàng)性著作中自信地斷言，《資本論》中從簡單商品流通到資本流通的敘述手法表明了一種“辯證邏輯推導”(‘dialectical-logical derivation’)[6]。然而，回到實際文本中，我們不能從中發(fā)現(xiàn)任何“辯證推導”(‘dialectical derivation’)，只能發(fā)現(xiàn)一種謙遜的并列。“商品流通的直接形式，”馬克思寫道，

????????“是W—G—W，商品轉(zhuǎn)化為貨幣，貨幣再轉(zhuǎn)化為商品，為買而賣。但除這一形式外，我們還看到具有不同特點的另一形式G—W—G，貨幣轉(zhuǎn)化為商品，商品再轉(zhuǎn)化為貨幣，為賣而買。在運動中通過這后一種流通的貨幣轉(zhuǎn)化為資本，成為資本，而且按它的使命來說，已經(jīng)是資本。”(CI, 247-8/162)（《馬克思恩格斯全集》第二版第44卷第172頁）

????????馬克思之所以這樣表達資本流通，并不在于Banaji的開創(chuàng)性觀點中所提及的這種所謂的必然性：價值克服了它在商品中的純粹直接存在并“使自己成為”“根本背景”(‘essential ground’)（原文如此?。?，而在于這個更一般的事實：貨幣在現(xiàn)實中確實以這種方式流通。馬克思注意到這種流通在現(xiàn)實中確實發(fā)生了且被經(jīng)驗感知，并確定只有價值在兩極上發(fā)生數(shù)量的變化才能推動與之關(guān)聯(lián)的社會活動（即為賣而買）。然后，他給自己設(shè)定了兩個任務(wù)，即解釋通過流通(1)價值增殖是怎么可能的和(2)價值增殖是如何與統(tǒng)治簡單商品流通的基本“價值規(guī)律”（即商品應(yīng)在價值相等的情況下相交換）相兼容的。馬克思并沒有從價值“范疇”中“推導”出資本流通，他也做不到，因為資本流通實際上并非所說“范疇”的必然結(jié)果（在通常的意義上而非在黑格爾的意義上）。事實上，正是前者與后者表面上的不一致構(gòu)成了馬克思試圖解決的問題。

????????即使在《政治經(jīng)濟學批判大綱》這樣馬克思自己對黑格爾論證風格的“興致”遠在《資本論》之上的文本中（實際上，用Wal Suchting的話來說，這種“興致”有時會導致真正的魯莽），即使在馬克思發(fā)現(xiàn)自己受到黑格爾引誘的最為嚴峻的考驗的段落中，他依然堅持了足夠長的時間，并打斷道：“有必要對唯心主義的敘述方法作一糾正，這種敘述方法造成一種假象，似乎探討的只是一些概念規(guī)定和這些概念的辯證法?！?(Gr., 151/85-6)（《馬克思恩格斯全集》第二版第30卷第101頁）這些“新”黑格爾馬克思主義者們基本都沒有注意到這個警告——結(jié)果，他們傾向于僅僅用以“辯證”為名的偽解釋來替代馬克思對經(jīng)濟學形式的復(fù)雜解釋。[7]

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????????注：

????????1. Cf. En.L, §131, add.: 'Merely to be appearance, this is the proper nature of the immediate objective world itself, and insofar as we know it to be so, we recognize at the same time the essence which remains neither be hind nor beyond appearance, but rather precisely manifests itself as essence in that it derogates this world to pure appearance.' Cf. too En.L, §50, add.: ' . . .it lies in the very fact that the world is contingent that it is merely something transitory, phenomenal and in and for itself null'.

????????2. Tony Smith, The Logic of Marx's Capital (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), p. 37.具有代表性問題地，引用的段落出現(xiàn)在“馬克思著作中的辯證邏輯”(‘Dialectical Logic in Marx’s Work’)一章。

????????3.《政治經(jīng)濟學批判》一書的所謂“初稿”(‘Urtext’)，即《政治經(jīng)濟學批判》的一篇1858年草稿中有一段不恰當?shù)脑?，在這篇文本中，馬克思寫到了隱藏在簡單流通領(lǐng)域的“表現(xiàn)形式”背后的“更深層次過程”(cf. Grundrisse, [Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1953], pp. 922-3)，在《政治經(jīng)濟學批判大綱》中的另一段同源文本(Gr., 247/173)也有相同的內(nèi)容。這些構(gòu)想展現(xiàn)出了明顯的探索性，而且更重要的是，它們從馬克思的成稿中消失了。

????????4.例如，參見Christopher J. Arthur, 'Hegel’s Logic and Marx’s Capital', in Fred Mosely, ed., Marx's Method in Capital: a Re-examination (New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1993).

????????5. Arthur, p. 78.

????????6. Cf. Jairus Banaji, 'From the Commodity to Capital: Hegel's Dialectic in Marx's Capital', in Diane Elson, ed., Value: the Representation of Labour in Capital, (London: CSE Books, 1979), p. 28 and passim.

????????7.這里可以引用一些其他的“新”黑格爾馬克思主義學者的代表作品，例如Michael Eldred，Geert Reuten和Michael Williams。在這方面，許多早期英文著作都受到了西德黑格爾—馬克思學者Hans-Georg Backhaus的影響。（對于Backhaus自己的著作，請參見'Zur Dialektik der Wertform', in Alfred Schmidt, ed., Beitrdge zur marxschen Erkenntnistheorie [Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1969] and 'Materialen zur Rekonstruktion der Marxschen Werttheorie' in Gesellschaft. Beitrdge zur Marxschen Theorie, vols. 1, 2 and 11 [Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1974, 1975, 1978].）然而目前為止，公平地講，“新”黑格爾馬克思主義就像“老”馬克思主義一樣，構(gòu)成了一個完整的“話語”(‘discourse’)，而基于其規(guī)范的學術(shù)文本從不同來源顯示出某種規(guī)律性?？梢哉f，“新”黑格爾馬克思主義處在“氛圍中”——當然，只是在馬克思主義學術(shù)辯論的稀薄氛圍中。同時也不用指出，每個人著作的水平都有高有低。

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????????譯者注：

????????(1)本質(zhì)并非某種獨立的實體，不能僅僅通過揭開面紗來認識它?，F(xiàn)象不僅僅是本質(zhì)的反映或者說是表現(xiàn)形式，更是本質(zhì)的存在方式。在我們從楊樹、柳樹和樺樹中找出其本質(zhì)“樹”的過程中，并不存在一種名叫“樹”的東西，“樹”僅僅存在于楊樹、柳樹和樺樹之中，沒有各種各樣的現(xiàn)象，本質(zhì)就不可能存在。我們可以而且只能通過分析楊樹、柳樹和樺樹來揭示它們的本質(zhì)“樹”以及它們的共同特征。同時，這也意味著我們不能僅僅通過對本質(zhì)“樹”的分析來推導出這三種樹具有的一切特征，尤其是僅有它們自己所具有的獨特特征。

????????(2) En.L = 'Encyclopedia Logic', i.e. the first part of the Enzykloptidie, titled Wissenschaft der Logik, in Werke, vol. 8.

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Part IV

The Objectivity of the Economic

????????Here we are right in the middle of Germany! Even while speaking political economy, we are going to have to speak metaphysics.

(Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy)

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13 Some Passing Remarks on the 'New' Hegelian Marxism

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????????It will be clear from the foregoing discussion that what Marx calls Hegel's 'Umkehrung' of subject and predicate is also indeed supposed to be a 'Verkehrung' of the same: a 'reversal' which disturbs the rational content of the subject-predicate relation, hence an 'inversion'. Indeed, in order to lay stress on the point, Marx employs the very metaphor which would later acquire such fame through its occurrence in his 1873 'Afterword'. 'It is self-evident,' he writes, 'The true way is turned upside-down [wird auf den Kopf gestellt - literally: 'is put on its head']' (CHDS, 99-100/242). The puzzle which Marx's 1843 Critique presents for us here, however, is that it is manifestly the very same Verkehrung of 'subject' and 'predicate' to which Marx yet again alludes in 'the Value-form'. But in 'the Value-form’, it would seem that the 'Verkehrung' is no longer to be regarded as the spurious product of a mystifying theoretical treatment, but rather as pertaining to the real nature of the object itself under consideration. Must we conclude, then, that the mature Marx had come to accept as legitimate the very inversion which he once expended such energies to expose as, so to say, the mystical kernel of all of Hegel's mysticism in his youthful critique?

????????Fortunately, Marx's discovery of the 'inverted world' of economic value - or rather of the 'inverted' character of the phenomena which this 'world' comprises - does not require us to draw such an improbable conclusion. If only some objects exhibit the peculiarity in question, if indeed it is precisely a peculiarity of them, then Hegel's metaphysical claim, inasmuch as it was supposed to concern the character of objectivity as such, is thereby shown to be false. It is not the case that particulars considered simply per se are in reality subordinated to universals (much less to 'the universal'), such that the essential being of the former would consist merely in their providing the material for the manifestation of the latter. We are very familiar with the mystical import of this claim in the Hegelian context. To reiterate: since things in their empirical existence, viz. as particulars, necessarily deviate from 'the universal', they are, then, destined to lose this empirical embodiment, viz. to perish, 'thus' in their dissolution testifying to the merely illusory quality of their supposed independence and to the real power of 'the universal' over them. It is in this - esoteric - sense that Hegel declared the realm of particulars as a whole, viz. sensuous reality, to be the 'world of appearance': with respect to which and precisely in which 'the universal', viz. 'Geist', is able to 'show itself as the abiding essence.1

????????At the very outset of this work, I commented upon the attraction which Hegel's 'derogation' of the empirical concrete to the status of 'appearance' has had for Marxist economists and the willingness of the latter even to adopt the traditional philosophical companion category of 'appearance', viz. 'essence', as somehow being germane to their own (in fact largely unrequited) attempts at a Methodenstreit with the neoclassicals. In lending support to the 'spontaneous' philosophical impulses of the economists in this matter - by expounding upon 'dialectical logic' and the like - I am afraid that their 'Marxist' colleagues from the philosophy departments have only made themselves into the handmaidens of bad science. I do not want to go into any detail here on such philosophical 'aids' to the sciences. Much of the work associated with this tendency is of such an ad hoc sort as not to merit close scrutiny: or if it does merit scrutiny, then only by virtue of its symptomaticity and not on account of any intrinsic intellectual qualities.

????????In light of the severity of this judgement, it might in fact be better to avoid making any particular citations. But for the benefit of readers not already familiar with the style of discourse I have in mind, let me offer just the following as a representative sample:

????????The intelligibility of the concrete and material can only be grasped through asserting the priority of the thought process over how the concrete and material is given in appearances. The concrete and material has a depth level underlying its surface level of appearances. The task of thought is first to pierce through the appearances to that depth-level (the level of 'value' as measured by labor-time rather than price...) and then to proceed to the mediations that connect the depth level with the given appearances. To fulfill this task it is not sufficient for thought to assert its independence, it must assert its primacy over the appearances generated by the real process. A dialectical reconstruction of categories allows for this. In this there is no difference in principle between Hegel and Marx. Both assert that it is only in thought, in theorizing, that the intelligibility of the world can be grasped.2

????????One would be hard-pressed to come up with any theorist who did not agree that it is 'only in thought, in theorizing' that the world's intelligibility is to be grasped. Where else?! But what has that to do with some alleged 'priority' of thought or, for that matter, with the mysterious 'depth-level' to which allusion is made? (And in exactly what dimension are values 'deeper' than prices? And just what, in any case, is material about a price?) It can hardly be seriously expected that appeals to philosophically long since discredited 'surface' versus 'depth' metaphors should help clarify already vague talk of 'appearances' and 'essences'.

????????Marx himself does, incidentally, sometimes write of events occurring and phenomena appearing on the 'surfaces' of a capitalist economy. To these 'surfaces', however, he does not systematically contrast any 'depth-level' which lies 'beneath' them, but rather spheres of social activity which are concealed behind them.3 This usage has absolutely nothing to do with any metaphysical distinction of 'levels' of reality, much less with the protocols of some 'dialectical logic' which is supposed to be especially well-suited to grasping the connection between the latter. Indeed, Marx's own talk of 'surfaces' barely even deserves to be described as metaphorical. The acts which transpire on the 'surfaces' of capitalist economic life are, quite simply, those which transpire on the market, and the objective 'phenomena' which appear associated with the latter are value-phenomena: most fundamentally, prices, and most crucially in the contexts in which Marx tends to employ such a rhetoric, profits. What occurs behind the 'surfaces' of capitalist economic life is, quite simply, what occurs in the private domain: most notably for Marx's theoretical purposes, consumption, including the consumption of labour-power.

????????Recall the remark in Capital with which Marx motivates the transition from the discussion of the capital/wage-labour exchange to that of the labour-process:

????????The consumption of labour-power occurs, like the consumption of every other commodity, outside the market or the sphere of circulation. Let us therefore, in company with the owner of money and the owner of labour-power, leave this noisy sphere of what lies on the surface and in full view of everyone, in order to follow them into the hidden place of production, on whose threshold there hangs the notice: 'No admittance except on business'. Here will be seen not only how capital produces, but also how it is itself produced. The secret of profit-making must at last be exposed. (CI, 279/189)

????????Once the utterly mundane character of Marx's distinction is fully appreciated, any grandiose metaphysical interpretation of it appears not just mistaken, but frankly rather comic.

????????In any case, the philosophers might have done more to assist the academic laity in forming a correct appreciation of the sense which the 'essence-appearance' couplet has in Hegel's usage, and hence in acquiring at least a certain prudence with respect to emulating the latter, by calling attention to a passage such as the following:

????????. . . essence does not lie behind or beyond appearance, but it is rather the infinite goodness that releases its show [Schein] into immediacy and grants it the joy of existence. The appearance which is thus posited does not stand on its own feet and does not have its being in itself, but rather in another. God as the essence, just as He is the goodness that creates a world by lending existence to the moments of His inward showing-forth [Scheinen], proves Himself at the same time to be the power over this world and the righteousness which, inasmuch as the content of this existing world wants to exist on its own, reveals the latter to be mere appearance. (En.L, §131, add.)

????????Be that as it may, it will be an extremely simple matter to demonstrate that Marx's observation to the effect that in the value-relation the sensate-concrete counts as but the 'form of appearance' of the abstract-universal has nothing in common - apart that is from a certain, indeed not even entirely felicitous, 'mode of expression' - with the Hegelian derogation of the sensate-concrete as such to the phenomenal form of 'the universal'.

????????In fairness, it should be noted that some of the more astute representatives of the 'new' Hegelian Marxism have not only recognized, but even placed special emphasis upon the isomorphism between the Hegelian 'concept' and the specific object of Marx's value-analysis.4 This has not prevented them, however, from continuing to credit Hegel with a distinctive and rational 'method' (at least of 'presentation' if not of inquiry) and to attribute to Marx a particular application of it. Consequently, they have set about discovering conceptual 'transitions' on the Hegelian pattern throughout Capital or, worse still, in tacit acknowledgement that such 'transitions' are not in fact there to be found, have taken the initiative of devising them on Marx's behalf. C.J. Arthur writes, for example, that 'as merely implicit, value is a vanishing semblance. To be really of the essence it must become posited for itself; it must gain actuality in its further developed forms of appearance. This is what makes money necessary.'5 Such a 'derivation' of the necessity of the money-form will be recognized as a fair piece of Hegelian 'explanation'. It does not, however, serve to demonstrate how the coalescence of the money-form is necessitated by certain definite features of commodity exchange as a mechanism of social integration, but only how it is 'necessitated' by certain definite features of Hegel's 'doctrine of essence' as a division of the latter's 'logic'.

????????In an analogous manner, Jairus Banaji, in a pioneering work within the genre of Hegeloid reinterpretations of Marx's economics, confidently asserts that the expository move in Capital from the simple commodity circuit to the circuit of capital represents a 'dialectical-logical derivation'.6 Turning to the actual text, however, what we find is not any 'dialectical derivation', but rather a humble juxtaposition. 'The direct form of the circulation of commodities,' Marx writes,

????????is C-M-C, the transformation of commodities into money and the re-conversion of money into commodities: selling in order to buy. But alongside this form we find a second specifically different form: M-C-M, the transformation of money into commodities and the reconversion of commodities back into money: buying in order to sell. Money which in its movement describes this latter circulation is transformed into capital, becomes capital, and, according to its determination, already is capital. (CI, 247-8/162)

????????Marx's justification for presenting the circuit of capital as he does lies not in the alleged necessity that value overcome its merely immediate being in the commodity and 'posit itself' as 'essential ground' (sic!), per Banaji's creative suggestion, but rather in the more mundane fact that money actually does circulate in the manner described by it. Marx notes the empirical occurrence of such a circuit, and establishes that only a quantitative variation between the values represented by its extremes could motivate the social activity with which it is associated (viz. buying in order to sell). He then sets himself the task of explaining how such an apparent augmentation of value through circulation (a) is possible and (b) is compatible with the basic 'law of value' which governs the simple circulation of commodities (viz. that commodities should exchange in just such quantities as their values are equal). He does not 'derive' the circuit of capital from the 'concept' of value, nor could he, since the circuit of capital is not in fact entailed by said 'concept' (that is, in the ordinary rather than the Hegeloid sense). Indeed, it is precisely the prima facie inconsistency between the former and the latter that constitutes the problem which Marx attempts to solve.

????????Even in a text such as the Grundrisse, where Marx's own 'flirtation' with Hegelian styles of argumentation is far more overt and prevalent than in Capital (and indeed where, to paraphrase Wal Suchting, this 'flirtation' sometimes does even lead to real indiscretions), and even in the midst of passages where (for precisely those reasons here reviewed) Marx finds himself most severely tested by the Hegelian temptation, he still takes hold of himself long enough to interject: 'It will be necessary later... to correct the idealist manner of the presentation, which makes it seem as if it were merely a matter of conceptual determinations and of the dialectic of these concepts' (Gr., 151/85-6). The 'new' Hegelian Marxists have by and large not heeded this warning - with the result that for Marx's explanations of economics forms they have in the name of 'dialectical' sophistication tended to substitute mere pseudo-explanations.7

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????????1. Cf. En.L, §131, add.: 'Merely to be appearance, this is the proper nature of the immediate objective world itself, and insofar as we know it to be so, we recognize at the same time the essence which remains neither be hind nor beyond appearance, but rather precisely manifests itself as essence in that it derogates this world to pure appearance.' Cf. too En.L, §50, add.: ' . . .it lies in the very fact that the world is contingent that it is merely something transitory, phenomenal and in and for itself null'.

????????2. Tony Smith, The Logic of Marx's Capital (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), p. 37. Symptomatically, the cited passage occurs in a chapter on 'Dialectical Logic in Marx’s Work’.

????????3. There is one infelicitous passage from the so-called 'Urtext' of the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, an 1858 draft of the latter text, in which Marx writes of a 'deeper process’ lying behind the 'form of appearance’ provided by the sphere of simple circulation (cf. Grundrisse, [Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1953], pp. 922-3) and also another cognate passage in the Grundrisse (Gr., 247/173). Such formulations exhibit a distinctly groping quality and what is especially significant about them is only that they disappear from Marx’s subsequent finished texts.

????????4. See, for example, Christopher J. Arthur, 'Hegel’s Logic and Marx’s Capital', in Fred Mosely, ed., Marx's Method in Capital: a Re-examination (New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1993).

????????5. Arthur, p. 78.

????????6. Cf. Jairus Banaji, 'From the Commodity to Capital: Hegel's Dialectic in Marx's Capital', in Diane Elson, ed., Value: the Representation of Labour in Capital, (London: CSE Books, 1979), p. 28 and passim.

????????7. Other authors whose work could be cited as representative of what I have here described as 'new' Hegelian Marxism are, for instance, Michael Eldred, Geert Reuten, and Michael Williams. Many of the earliest English-language writings in this vein bear the influence of the West German Hegel-Marx scholar Hans-Georg Backhaus. (For samples of Backhaus's own writings, cf. 'Zur Dialektik der Wertform', in Alfred Schmidt, ed., Beitrdge zur marxschen Erkenntnistheorie [Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1969] and 'Materialen zur Rekonstruktion der Marxschen Werttheorie' in Gesellschaft. Beitrdge zur Marxschen Theorie, vols. 1, 2 and 11 [Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1974, 1975, 1978].) By now it is fair to say, however, that the 'new’ Hegelian Marxism, like the 'old’, constitutes a full-fledged 'discourse', and scholarly texts drawing upon its norms appear with a certain regularity from diverse sources. The 'new' Hegelian Marxism is, so to speak, 'in the atmosphere' - albeit, of course, only in the quite rarified atmosphere of academic Marxist debates. It should not need to be added that the intellectual quality of individual contributions to this literature varies greatly from case to case.