Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2011 Marx's Concept of the Transcendence of Value Production Peter Hudis Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Hudis, Peter, "Marx's Concept of the Transcendence of Value Production" (2011). Dissertations. 204. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/204 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 2011 Peter Hudis LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO MARX’S CONCEPT OF THE TRANSCENDENCE OF VALUE PRODUCTION A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM IN PHILOSOPHY BY PETER HUDIS CHICAGO, IL AUGUST 2011 Copyright by Peter Hudis, 2011 All rights reserved ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank Prof. David Schweickart of the Department of Philosophy for his insightful comments and guidance in my development of this dissertation. He has been tremendously encouraging through all stages of its development. I also wish to thank Prof. Thomas Wren of the Department of Philosophy for his assistance and advice throughout my experience in the graduate program at Loyola University. They both have my heart-felt thanks. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi ABSTRACT vii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION: WHY EXPLORE MARX’S CONCEPT OF THE TRANSCENDENCE OF VALUE PRODUCTION? WHY NOW? 1 The Object and Approach of this Study 1 A Review of Recent Literature on Marx’s Philosophic Contribution 10 CHAPTER TWO: THE TRANSCENDENCE OF ALIENATION IN THE WRITINGS OF THE YOUNG MARX 53 Marx’s Beginnings, 1837-41 53 Marx’s Critique of Politics and Philosophy, 1842-43 63 Marx’s Critique of Economics and Philosophy, 1843-44 83 Discerning the Ideal Within the Real, 1845-47 112 Evaluating the Young’s Marx’s Concept of a Postcapitalist Society 125 CHAPTER THREE: THE CONCEPTION OF A POSTCAPITALIST SOCIETY IN THE DRAFTS OF CAPITAL 135 The “First Draft” of Capital: The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) 135 The “Second Draft” of Capital: The Grundrisse (1858) 147 The “Third Draft” of Capital: The Manuscript of 1861-63 194 188 CHAPTER FOUR; THE VISION OF THE NEW SOCIETY IN MARX’S CAPITAL 214 Volume One of Capital 214 217 Volumes Two and Three of Capital 245 CHAPTER FIVE: MARX’S LATE WRITINGS ON POSTCAPITALIST SOCIETY 265 The Impact of the Paris Commune on Marx 265 257 The Critique of the Gotha Program and “Notes on Wagner” 271 CONCLUSION: EVALUATING MARX’S WRITINGS ON POSTCAPITALIST SOCIETY 295 APPENDIX A: TRANSLATION OF MARX’S EXCERPT NOTES ON THE CHAPTER ‘ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE’ IN HEGEL’S PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT 306 BIBLIOGRAPHY 316 iv VITA 326 v ABBREVIATIONS MECW Marx Engels Collected Works (New York: International Publishers, 1975- 91) MEGA2 Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1972-90 and Amsterdam: Akademie Verlag, 2000-08). vi ABSTRACT Although the literature produced on Marx’s philosophic contribution over the past 100 years is immense, most of it has focused on his analysis of the economic and political structure of capitalism, the “materialist conception of history,” and his critique of value production. There has been very little discussion or analysis, however, of his conception of what constitutes an alternative to capitalism. One reason for this is that it has long been assumed that Marx’s disdain for utopian socialists and his strictures against inventing “blueprints about the future” meant that his work does not address the possible content of a postcapitalist society that transcends value production. Yet while Marx never wrote a single work addressing the alternative to capitalism, critically important comments and suggestions are found throughout his writings about the transcendence of value production and the contours of a postcapitalist future. This study subjects Marx’s discussions of an alternative to capitalism to critical scrutiny by exploring all four decades of his philosophic output—from his early writings of the 1840s, to his various drafts of Capital and Capital itself, as well as his late writings on postcapitalism. This study examines not only Marx’s major and well-known works, but also his notebooks, drafts, letters and marginalia that are now being compiled as part of the MEGA2 project. vii CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION: WHY EXPLORE MARX’S CONCEPT OF THE TRANSCENDENCE OF VALUE PRODUCTION? WHY NOW? The Object and Approach of this Study Two decades after the collapse of statist Communism in the USSR and East Europe, which many claimed had consigned Marx’s work to the dustbin of history, a new climate has emerged in which his ideas are subject to renewed philosophical discussion and re-examination. This change is due, in part, to the phenomenon of capitalist globalization, which has sparked interest in Marx’s analysis of the inherently expansionary and global nature of capital, which he defined as “self-expanding value.” It is also due to the emergence of a global justice movement over the past two decades, which has called attention to the economic inequality, social instability and environmental destruction that have accompanied the global expansion of capitalism. The new climate of discussion on Marx also owes much to the financial and economic crisis that began in 2008, the most serious to afflict the world economy in the past 70 years. As a result of these and related developments, a number of new works on Marx have appeared, many of which explore heretofore neglected aspects of his thought—such as his writings on the world market, economic crisis, race and gender, non-Western societies, and the philosophical underpinning of his analysis of the logic of capital. These studies have appeared while a new edition of Marx’s complete works is being issued, the 1 2 Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe (known as MEGA2), by an international team of scholars coordinated by the Internationale Marx-Engels-Stiftung in Amsterdam. MEGA2 will for the first time make Marx’s entire body of work available for scholarly analysis, in 114 volumes.1 It provides us with a new vantage point for exploring Marx’s work unencumbered by the partisan affiliations and polemical battles that have governed generations of earlier discussions of Marx’s philosophical contribution. Although the literature produced on Marx over the past 100 years is immense, most of it has focused on his analysis of the economic and political structure of capitalism, the “materialist conception of history,” and his critique of value production. There has been very little discussion or analysis, however, of his conception of what constitutes an alternative to capitalism. The lack of discussion of this issue has persisted in the face of the growth of the global justice movement, which has sponsored a series of forums, gatherings and conferences since the 1990s devoted to the theme “Another World is Possible.” This diverse movement indicates that despite the notion, which became widely voiced after 1989, that “there is no alternative”2 to capitalism, considerable numbers of people around the world are searching for such an alternative. 1The first Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe was issued in 12 volumes from 1927-35. It is known as MEGA1. The new Gesamtausgabe, or MEGA2, began appearing in East Germany in 1972 and has been issued since 1990 by the Internationale Marx-Engels- Stiftung in conjunction with the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam. It will eventually include everything Marx ever wrote, including his voluminous excerpt notebooks, most of which were unknown until recently. It is the only edition of Marx’s writings that meets the rigorous standards of modern textual editing. 2Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher first coined this phrase in the early 1980s. For a discussion of its ideological impact, see István Mészáros, Beyond Capital (New York: Monthly Review Books, 1995). 3 However, there appears to be little or no consensus within the global justice movement as to what such an alternative might consist of. It is even hard to find consensus as to what theoretic resources need to be explored in thinking one out. As a result, the discussion of alternatives to capitalism at events sponsored by the global justice movement tends to remain rather abstract and limited to statements of intention. In some respects today’s situation has not changed much since 1918, when Otto Neurath of the Vienna Circle became planning minister of the short-lived Bavarian Socialist Republic. He wrote shortly after the collapse of this early effort to develop a postcapitalist social system: At the beginning of the [1918] revolution people were as unprepared for the task of a socialist economy in Germany as they had been for a war economy when war broke out in 1914. Any preparation for consciously shaping the economy was lacking. The technique of a socialist economy had been badly neglected. Instead, only pure criticism of the capitalist economy was offered and the Marxist pure theory of value and history was studied.3 It would be no exaggeration to say that 100 years later, the situation described by Neurath continues to largely define contemporary discussions of the issues raised by Marx’s work. There are several reasons for the lack of theoretical reflection and discussion of Marx’s view of the alternative to capitalism. Perhaps of foremost importance is the claim that he simply never addressed the issue. It has long been assumed that Marx’s disdain 3See Otto Neurath, “Experiences of Socialization in Bavaria” [1920], in Empiricism and Sociology, ed.