Internal relations,the concrete universal,and historical materialism

Introduction

When is a Marxist a Marxist? And when is a Marxist not a Marxist? Clearly even Marx himself had concerns about what ‘Marxism’ is construed to be, as is evidenced by his famous comment: ‘All I know is that I am not a Marxist.’ The issue has become ever more puzzling in the decades since Marx’s death. Is there only one Marxism? Or are there two or three Marxisms, or many more? It seems to depend on whom you ask, and who responds.

A book by Alvin Gouldner, The Two Marxisms (1980), went a good way in sorting out the issue. Gouldner’s book reflects a tension in the existing literature about Marx concerning two major dimensions of his thought, which seem to conflict with, and even contradict, each other. The ‘two Marxisms’ that Gouldner speaks of are ‘critical Marxism’ and ‘scientific Marxism’. As characterised by Gouldner, ‘critical Marxism’ emphasises the continuity with Hegel, as well as the continuity between the early and late Marx. It focuses on ‘praxis’, alienation, and the new human being. It advocates a voluntaristic attitude toward social action. Moreover, it is antipositivist in tone. According to Gouldner, ‘scientific Marxism’, in turn, emphasises the discontinuity with Hegel, and holds to a split between the early and late Marx. It focuses on deterministic laws that somehow ensure the inevitability of socialism. It is much more passive in its attitude toward social action; and it has a decidedly positivist character (Gouldner, 1980: 32-63).

For my part, I do not dispute Gouldner’s distinction between the ‘critical’ and ‘scientific’ dimensions of Marx’s thought in his reading of the literature he explored, or that the literature he explored bears witness to an alleged conceptual conflict between the two dimensions of Marx’s thought. Moreover, I do not dispute that partisans of each dimension have been pitted against partisans of the other in their respective interpretations of Marx. However, the mere fact that such conflicting partisans allege a conceptual conflict between these two dimensions of Marx’s thought does not in itself mean that the alleged conceptual conflict is inherent in Marx’s own position. Furthermore, let me suggest that in addition to the two Marxisms Gouldner distinguishes, there is a ready claimant for a third class of Marxisms – namely Marxism as a critical science which embraces the essential philosophical continuity of the early and late Marx, as well as the philosophical harmony of the critical and scientific dimensions. ¹

It could well be that the alleged conflict between the ‘critical’ and ‘scientific’ dimensions of Marx’s thought can be explained if one or even both sets of partisans have fundamentally misconstrued the canons of interpretation of human reality with which Marx was working, as well as the mature method of explanation toward which he was working from early on. (My adoption of the phrase ‘canons of interpretation’ is meant to distinguish that which I intend from Kant’s ‘categories of the understanding’ which, for Kant, are the a priori categories that actively structure human experience of the natural world.) The canons to which I refer are the notions of the internal relation and the concrete universal – both of which, I contend, are at play in Marx’s early work, as well as in Marx’s mature method of explanation, which moves from the abstract to the concrete. ²

Such canons of interpretation contrast sharply with the very different canons of interpretation that have been dominant in mainstream Western thinking; namely the external relation and the associated notion of the abstract universal. In order to emphasise this contrast, let me draw from Brand Blanshard’s work, The Nature of Thought, 2 Vol. (1939). Therein, Blanshard gives extensive and masterful analyses of the deep conceptual connection between the external relation and the abstract universal on the one hand, as well as the internal relation and the concrete universal on the other (Blanshard 1939: vol. 2, 428-520). As Blanshard puts it at one point, there is ‘the most intimate connection between the doctrine of abstract universals and the doctrine that things may be related externally … And it is evident that just as the abstract universal and external relations are natural allies, so are the concrete universal and internal relations’ (Blanshard 1939: vol. 2, 459-60).

Just as the notions of the abstract universal and the external relation are interrelated canons at play in mainstream Western modes of thinking, so the notions of the concrete universal and the internal relation are intricately associated canons of interpretation at play in philosophical perspectives that understand human reality in terms of complexes of dynamically interconnected factors, or that construe reality at large in terms of dynamically interrelated processes, rather than in terms of metaphysical substances that are externally related to one another. In the ongoing development of this paper, I intend to make the meaning of the internal relation and the concrete universal as clear as possible for my reader; but let me note here that I construe the notion of the internal relation in Marx’s thought as having both epistemological and ontological relevance, while I construe the concrete universal as only having epistemological relevance in his thought.

Before addressing these themes again, however, let me indicate that there are other varieties of Marxism that do not into fit into the neat schemata of critical Marxism and scientific Marxism which Gouldner projects. For not only are there many varieties of humanistic Marxism, but also varieties of orthodox Marxism, which are not in accord with Gouldner’s schemata. Also, there are various ‘critical science’ interpretations of Marx. Focusing first on orthodox Marxism, let me suggest that a broad spectrum of varieties of orthodox Marxism can be discerned. These varieties have in common the fact that they all neglect, suppress, reject, or otherwise fail to take account of the rich humanism of the early Marx, and its many echoes in the later Marx. The broad spectrum of orthodox Marxisms I have in mind would situate the economistic reductionism of Stalinism at its far ‘right’ end, while it would situate the voluntarist variety of orthodox Marxism associated with Li Dazhao, the first prominent Chinese Marxist, at the far ‘left’ end of the spectrum; this variety stresses the central importance of human agency.

First, a brief critique of the Stalinist variety of orthodox Marxism. Now it does seem clear that Stalin’s economistic reductionist interpretation of historical materialism readily meshes with what Gouldner characterises as ‘scientific Marxism’. For at play in Stalin’s perspective is the projection of deterministic laws that somehow ensure the inevitability of socialism. Moreover, his perspective has a decidedly positivist character; and it is quite passive in its attitude toward social action. Consider, for example, some formulations which occur in the context of Stalin’s discussion of laws of social development as ‘having the validity of objective truths’. Stalin writes, ‘the material life of society is an objective reality existing independently of the will of men, while the spiritual life of society is a reflection of this objective reality, a reflection of being’ (Stalin 1940: 20). Elsewhere, Stalin attacks the view which holds that ‘only because of the conscious action of the Soviet citizens engaged in material production do the economic laws of socialism arise’ (Stalin 1953: 63). Stalin proclaims, ‘This opinion is absolutely incorrect [emphasis added] … Marxism holds that the laws of the political economy of socialism are a reflection in the minds of men of objective laws existing outside of us’ (Stalin 1953: 63).

Li Dazhao

I turn now to a consideration of Li Dazhao’s very different, voluntarist variety of orthodox Marxism, which, as already noted, I construe as being at the far left end of the spectrum of varieties of orthodox Marxism. ³ Li Dazhao became a highly significant figure in the China of the early 20^th century, and he greatly influenced the subsequent development of Chinese Marxism (Meisner 1968, Sung-K’ang 1965). Not only did he become an important Marxist theoretician, but he was one of the co-founders of the Chinese Communist Party. Moreover, he introduced Mao Zedong to Marxism, and served as his mentor (Meisner 1971: 377-79).

I find the development of Li’s interpretation of Marx’s thought to be especially interesting when contrasted with the way in which Marx’s thought has been so grievously distorted in positivist and reductionist directions in so many Western contexts. Perhaps by exploring how Li’s cultural background shaped the way he understood Marx, we can more readily discern how positivist and reductionist currents in the Western cultural background skewed the way Marx came to be understood in Western contexts. Moreover, I believe that by addressing the critical remarks directed at Li’s view of Marx by Maurice Meisner, the most prominent Western critic of Li, I will be able to clarify some dimensions of Marx’s thought concerning the centrally important interplay of ‘social being’ and ‘consciousness’.

Long before Li Dazhao encountered Marx’s thought, he had embraced the ancient Chinese tradition of Taoism. Li’s Taoist background is of special significance for understanding his interpretation of Marx, especially because of the role of internal relations in Taoist thought, wherein everything is construed to be what it is by virtue of mutually interacting energies and forces. After eventually discovering Marx’s thought, Li did not get caught in the traps of positivism and reductivism in which so many Western interpreters of Marx became ensnared, presumably because his Taoist background ‘gave him the eyes to see’ internal relations in Marx that so many others were culturally blind to. While Li was a Taoist long before he began serious study of Marx’s thought, he remained a Taoist even after he became a Marxist, seeing no contradiction at all between the Taoist understanding of reality and Marx’s ‘materialist conception of history’.

Li’s Taoist side comes out most prominently in Spring (Li, 2002), his great Taoist poem published in 1916, well before he took up the study of Marx. Just like the Dao De Jing, this poem is subtle, paradoxical, and mystical. A few selected excerpts from Li Dazhao’s poem should bring out its Taoist quality (Li, 2002: 292-303; sequence modified):

In this world the life of humankind / has not one single ksana [instant] which is not in Spring,

which is not part of endless Spring, /of the process of this endless Spring.

Change is the process of Spring, / nonchange is endless Spring.

In the same way, difference and identity, … / there-being and non-there-being,

relative and absolute, … difference and equality, / are all aspects of Spring

in her process and in her eternal endlessness.

Today the problem of humanity and of nations is not survival, / but a Spring-like resurgence.

The ego … [must] thus change to a Spring-ego.

I suggest that Li Dazhao’s phrases ‘endless Spring’ and ‘Spring-ego’ have to be interpreted epistemologically in terms of the internal relation and the concrete universal. In addition I surmise that ‘endless Spring’ connotes an ontological stance that views the natural world, and everything in it, to be in continual dynamic flux, and such that the apparent stability of all empirical forms is constituted by the interplay of ever-interacting forces and energies which are in dynamic equilibrium, at least temporarily, but without there being any enduring metaphysical substances at all. Thus ‘endless Spring’ connotes the never-ending, vibrant, dynamic, creative, and also destructive processes of nature – it connotes the Dao itself, I would say. Both the changing empirical particulars, and also the ever-recurring dynamic patterns of the Dao are aspects of ‘Spring’; and the differences of the particulars as viewed from the perspective of ordinary consciousness have a kind of unity when understood from the perspective of enlightened awareness, which views everything as being what it is by virtue of its networks of internal relations with other ‘things’. ⁴

I note that Li stresses the crucial significance of human agency in shaping the world of human affairs. The creative, flowing, dynamic well-spring of the Dao is the source of everything – including all human agency. Li seems to be suggesting that creative human agency, in the ongoing present, continually emerges from and can react back upon the ever-acting, ever-present, endless creative agency of the Dao. In this connection, Chinese scholar Lu Xiufen (2009) explains that the ‘tide of great reality’ (da shizai de pubu) is Li’s phrase for ‘the world as a ceaseless process of creativity … in which there is no bifurcation between cosmic forces and human activity’ (Lu, 2009). Thus it is a process that includes human consciousness, human spirituality, and human activity; a process in which, as Li puts it, ‘The material and the spiritual are originally one’ (Li, quoted in Lu, 2009).

As for the ‘ego’ of ‘Spring-ego’, it presumably cannot be the ego of ordinary consciousness. Rather, ‘Spring-ego’ suggests a Taoist-like mode of awareness in which one can experience the lived vitality of the creative present in a deeply felt and enduring way. Li calls for a transition from the ‘ego’ of ordinary consciousness to a ‘Spring ego’ that has the awareness and capacity to initiate a ‘Spring-like’ resurgence of creative activity in times of social crisis. Li makes an open and clear affirmation of active human agency as the necessary prerequisite for positive social change.

Li’s Taoist outlook on reality involves the notion of the internal relation as an ontological notion, as well as an epistemological canon of interpretation. That is, his perspective construes what exists as being constituted by complex dynamic shifting networks of mutually interacting and interdependent energies, forces, etc.; and it construes the various concepts employed in thinking and talking about such dynamic networks as conceptual strands whose meaning requires an active interweaving of any given conceptual strand with all the other conceptual strands in an associated theoretical web of concrete universals.

Clearly, then, Li’s concepts of ‘endless Spring’ and of ‘Spring ego’ cannot simply be understood in terms of the external relation of mainstream Western thinking, nor in terms of the abstract universal which is intricately associated with the external relation. Given Li Dazhao’s immersion in Taoist thought, it is no wonder that Li could readily discern the play of the internal relation (and by implication the play of the concrete universal) in Marx’s thought when he began to explore it, and especially in his reading of Marx’s views on historical materialism. Further, given his familiarity with such canons of interpretation, Li was able to understand that there is no conceptual conflict between his emphasis on the central importance of human agency and his interpretation of historical materialism.

Here let me cite a few telling passages from Li Dazhao’s writings which make clear that Li did indeed interpret Marx’s thought as involving a crucially significant emphasis on the importance of human agency, and of the possibility of breaking away from what Marx would call alienated activity.

There are some people who misinterpret the materialist view of history by saying that social progress depends only on natural material changes. [They therefore] disregard human activity and sit around to wait for the arrival of the new situation. Moreover, there are other people who are generally critical of the materialist conception of history who also use this as an excuse to talk [and take no action] and then say that fatalistic views of human life result from evil influences of the materialist conception of history. This is an especially great error [emphasis added] because the influence of the materialist conception of history on human life is precisely the opposite. (Li Dazhao, cited in Meisner 1968: 283-84)

Marx by no means rejected the noble aspirations of the individual. He simply pointed out that the average ethical characteristics of a society, as expressed at its moral level, cannot influence the collective action springing from the consciousness of economic interest. (Li Dazhao 1919: 28)

That is why we advocate the simultaneous reform of the human spirit by humanism and of the economic structure by socialism. Failing the reconstruction of the economic structure, it is fruitless to reform the human spirit, and without the transformation of the human spirit the reconstruction of the economic structure is not likely to succeed. Our aim should be the dualistic reform of matter and mind and the harmonious rebirth of body and spirit. (Li Dazhao 1919: 28)

Li Dazhao himself did all he possibly could to cultivate new attitudes and a new consciousness through education, through his writings, and through his work in labour movements early in 20^th century China. Among other things, while serving as director of Peking University Library, he established a Society for the Study of Marxism at the University in 1919 – where, incidentally, Mao Zedong was introduced to Marxism (Huang Sun-K’ang 1965: 27; Meisner 1971: 379). Importantly, Li held that ‘all progress is able to come only from the unity of progressive people … from the self-consciousness of … [one’s] own power, … [one’s] own position in society, and from the acquisition of new attitudes’ (Li Dazhao, cited in Meisner 1968: 283). It seems clear that Li deeply believed in the spiritual power of human beings to cultivate and hasten the process of cultural evolution. Even after he co-founded the Chinese Communist Party in 1921, he ‘continued to maintain that the liberation of the spirit was the basis of liberation from all other fetters’ (Huang Sung-K’ang 1965: 8).

Next, I refer to some comments critical of Li Dazhao. They come from Maurice Meisner, who is the most prominent Western critic of Li Dazhao. He openly rejects the position that Li’s Taoist understanding of reality and Marx’s materialist conception of history are compatible (Meisner 1968: 277-305). While recognising that Li Dazhao eventually embraced Marx’s notion of the ‘materialist conception of history’, Meisner argues that Li distorted Marx’s position so as to make the adjusted position cohere with Li’s focus on human agency, activism, and ‘revolutionary voluntarism’. In one of his influential essays, Meisner maintains that ‘the major premise of the materialist conception of history – the proposition that “being determines consciousness” – is profoundly inconsistent with the main tendencies of Chinese Communist ideology [which were profoundly shaped by the thought of Li Dazhao]’ (Meisner 1968: 277).

In response to Meisner, let me cite another passage from Lu Xiufen’s paper, cited earlier. She argues to the effect that Meisner’s critique of Li presupposes an economistic interpretation of Marx along the lines of a very narrow orthodox Marxism, which holds that alleged objective laws of social development will supposedly bring about the new socialist day all on their own, and presumably without sustained committed activity on the part of human beings struggling to bring it about. Lu Xiufen writes:

[W]hat Li took to be the central, and truly revolutionary, thesis of historical materialism was the claim that the driving force in history lies in the material life of society – that social change results from man’s efforts, not from outside forces … While events in history are determined, there is not a transcendental plan or mandate of heaven externally determining what will happen. Historical change is the result of human activity, including choices to be socially active … [I]n arguing that human choices and actions are part of the material world that can influence historical development, [Li] goes far beyond the narrow versions of historical materialism advocated by [other vintages of] orthodox Marxism. (Lu 2009)

I fully concur with Lu, and want to go on to comment on the phrase ‘being determines consciousness’, which Meisner characterised as ‘the major premise of the materialist conception of history’ (Meisner 1968: 277). Meisner’s phrase ‘being determines consciousness’ is a distorted gloss of some similar phrasing that occurs in a famous sentence in Marx’s ‘Preface’ to a Critique of Political Economy, which reads: ‘It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness’ (Marx 1977: 389). To bring out what I am trying to get at, focus on Marx’s phrase ‘[it is] their social being that determines their consciousness’. What does ‘social being’ mean for Marx? In brief, I suggest that it connotes praxis, the practical activity of conscious human beings who are consciously interacting with one another, and consciously acting upon various aspects of the natural world, and in so doing shaping themselves and their environment. ‘Social being’ connotes conscious social being for Marx; and ‘consciousness’ and ‘social being’ are dimensions of praxis that are internally related with one another.

To further support this way of interpreting the relation between ‘consciousness’ and ‘social being’, let me draw from Patrick Murray’s fine work, Marx’s Theory of Scientific Knowledge, which also argues for a ‘critical science’ interpretation of Marx. He writes:

Marx opposes both the one-sided domination of consciousness over being [which he attributes to the speculative philosophy of Hegel and the Young Hegelians] and speculation’s rift between the two. Certain of Marx’s statements and phrases key on this second, often overlooked, point. For example, in the ‘Theses on Feuerbach’, Marx strives, with such phrases as ‘sensuous human activity’, ‘praxis’, ‘objective activity’, and ‘revolutionary, practical critical-activity’, to disrupt the clean dualism of consciousness and being that the materialists and idealists shared. (Murray 1990: 69-70)

Given the crucial significance of these issues, let me here bring into focus the wider conceptual context within which Marx’s contention about social being determining consciousness is situated.

In the social production of their life men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production that correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political, and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production … within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. (Marx 1977: 389, emphasis added)

I will return to this passage following some methodological considerations ahead; but let me say here that this abstract summary formulation of historical materialism that Marx gives in his famous ‘Preface’ has unfortunately been widely misconstrued, so as to make Marx appear to be an economistic reductionist. This is a radical distortion of Marx’s thought, in my view. Those who misconstrue it in this way seem to have no clear awareness of the play of internal relations in Marx’s thought, or of his methodology of explanation, which moves from abstract to more concrete levels of exposition that bring into play more and more internally related complicating factors.

Before leaving Li Dazhao, though, a brief qualification. I agree that Li’s emphasis on human agency and revolutionary consciousness is entirely compatible with Marx’s materialist conception of history. Moreover, I would argue that the Communist Revolution that occurred in China some two decades after Li’s death by execution in 1927 can be readily explained within the framework of Marx’s conception of history. I say this mindful of the facts that a capitalist stage did not precede this revolution in China, and that it was basically the peasantry rather than the industrial working class that acted as the revolutionary agency here.

The case that the Chinese peasantry was the only viable revolutionising agency in the China of his time was initially adopted by Li himself, and later worked out by Mao (Meisner 1971: 379-80). Importantly, though, this does not mean that the revolution which did in fact occur in China came any where near to the realisation of Marx’s ideal of an unalienated and humanised socialism. On the other hand, Li Dazhao’s thought seems to be significantly influenced by currents of humanism in the Chinese tradition – especially humanistic currents in Taoism, Confucianis, and Buddhism.

At this juncture, exponents of orthodox Marxism on the ‘right end’ of the spectrum of variants of Marxism might retort as follows: Li obviously projected internal relations onto Marx, thereby distorting his thought! To this I respond that Marx’s thought is deeply shaped by canons of interpretation he adopted from Hegel – especially Hegel’s canons of the internal relation and the concrete universal. To be sure, Marx famously said in his ‘Afterword’ to the second edition of Capital that ‘with [Hegel] [dialectical thinking] is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell’ (Marx 1967, vol. 1: 20).

However, by this metaphor Marx did not imply that in standing Hegel’s dialectical thinking on its head he was thereby eviscerating the play of the internal relation and the concrete universal from the ‘uprighted’ dialectical thinking. In the same ‘Afterword’, Marx also writes, ‘The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner … I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker’ (Marx 1967, vol. 1: 19-20). Marx, the ‘pupil’ of Hegel, continued to embrace his teacher’s canons of interpretation. And as B. Ollman pointed out years ago, ‘Marx never wavered from the relational conception bequeathed to him by Hegel’ (Ollman 1971: 25).

Methodological considerations

Let me now turn to further methodological considerations that will hopefully clarify how a full recovery of Marx’s notion of praxis can open up the path to an appreciation of the play of the internal relation and the concrete universal in Marx’s thought, and to an appropriate integration of the early and the late Marx. For in my judgment, the strongest case for holding that Marx’s life work is actually an integral whole involves bringing into play Marx’s mature method of dialectical explanation that moves from the abstract to the concrete – so as to show the interconnection between the early and late Marx. However, in this present context I can only make some brief projections about this method, since the full exposition and philosophical elaboration of it is much too long and complex to be given here. ⁵

I set out from some methodological reflections that Marx made in his Introduction to the Grundrisse (Marx 1973). It is a major part of Marx’s work, but unknown even to Lenin; it was not published in any language until it was published in German in 1939; and the first full English translation (893 pages) was not published until 1973. The Grundrisse brings into serious question most interpretations of Marx’s thought, not least on account of its humanistic dimensions and its methodological import. Here is one telling passage from Marx’s Introduction to it:

[T]he method of rising [moving] from the abstract to the concrete is only the way in which thought appropriates the concrete, reproduces it as the concrete in mind. But this is by no means the process by which the concrete itself comes into being … The concrete is concrete because it is the concentration of many determinations, hence unity of the diverse. It appears in the process of thinking, therefore, as a process of concentration, as a result, not as a point of departure, even though it is the point of departure in reality and hence also the point of departure for observation and conception. (Marx, 1973, p. 101; emphasis added)

The distinction between the ‘concrete in mind’ and the ‘concrete itself’ must be clearly grasped here. Commenting on this passage long ago, Louis Althusser cautioned on the danger that we might:

confuse two different concretes: the concrete-in-thought which is a knowledge, and the concrete-reality which is its object. The process that produces the concrete-knowledge takes place wholly in theoretical practice: of course it does concern the concrete-real, but this concrete-real ‘survives in its independence after as before, outside thought’ (Marx) without it ever being possible to confuse it with the other ‘concrete’ which is the knowledge of it. (Althusser 1970: 186)

As Marx puts it, the ‘concrete-in-thought [is] in fact a product of thinking and comprehending; but not in any way a product of the concept which thinks and generates itself outside or above observation and conception; a product, rather, of the working of observation and conception into concepts’ (Marx 1973: 101). Thus the explanatory movement from the abstract to the concrete-in-thought is not a movement in which the concrete-in-thought is deductively derived from the abstract. Rather,

the explanatory method of moving from the abstract to the concrete is a method for systematic presentation of the results of prior dialectical-empirical research … Through all phases of the movement from the abstract to the concrete-in-thought the particular content of the particular relations that are introduced into the movement as factors is a content that derives from the findings of prior dialectical-empirical research. The research preceding the explanatory movement is of course undertaken and interpreted within a framework that comprehends reality as a developing process of internally related aspects. (Brien 1978: 82-83; 1986: 18-19)

Let me employ an analogy to bring out what Marx is getting at in the preceding passage. Imagine a magnificent natural environment, such as Guilin in southwestern China. Imagine such an environment in all its concrete diversity – that is, as a concrete ‘concentration of many determinations’. Imagine the huge, unusually-shaped limestone rocks soaring into the vast sky; sometimes bare rocks, sometimes rocks covered with jade/emerald flora. Imagine a long band of luxuriant trees running along the base-line of the soaring limestone rocks; then, roughly parallel to the band of trees but further away from the great rocks, imagine a band of sand and small river rocks; and also imagine a silver-gray-greenish undulant river that follows the contours of these bands.

Now imagine an artist who visits this complex natural environment with the intention of creating a realistic drawing of it. Careful observation of the scene would come first – that is, observation from many different vantage points, whether from closer or further away, whether from this approach or that, whether in this sort of light or that. Not just careful observation, but also careful reflection as to how the scene constitutes a sort of aesthetic unity, and as to how to effectively represent this unity in the drawing. Eventually the artist inscribes a few lines on paper – lines that might seem completely haphazard to someone watching the artist work. But they are not haphazard to the artist, for they are intended as a simplified abstract delineation of a sort of matrix, within and around which the artist will inscribe more and more lines, so as to concretely develop the matrix, and successively bring out more and more detail in the drawing. For the artist, any given stage in the development of the drawing functions as an intentionally projected schema within which the next more fully developed stage is elaborated as more and more lines are added to the drawing until it is completed.

In a fashion similar to that of such an artist, Marx in his monumental work Capital elaborated his artistic dialectical explanation of the capitalist system by first articulating an abstract conceptual matrix that was intentionally oriented toward more concrete levels of elaboration that would be explicitly articulated as he brought more and more complicating factors into his developing explanation. Thus the analysis of Capital begins with a focus on the commodity, and the associated distinction between the use value and exchange value of commodities. Marx’s notion of the commodity serves as the abstract conceptual schema in relation to which Marx carried out his dialectical explanation of the capitalist system. Any given stage in this dialectical explanation of capitalism functions as an intentionally projected schema within the conceptual framework of which the next more fully elaborated stage of the explanation is articulated, as more and more complicating factors associated with the capitalist system are introduced into the explanation. The explanatory process continues in this way so that the dynamic patterns at play in the ‘concrete concentrations of many determinations’ constitutive of the empirically existing capitalist system are systematically brought into focus in the ongoing dialectical explanation.

The choice of the first abstract lines inscribed as the beginning of the drawing by the artist, and also Marx’s choice of the commodity as the first abstract conceptual strokes for the beginning of his dialectical explanation of the capitalist system, are both judgment calls made against the background of observation, experimentation, and reflective inquiry – which in Marx’s case involved a prior gathering of a massive amount of empirical data about the capitalist system, as well as very extensive empirical inquiry and deeply probing reflective inquiry about this system ranging over more than 30 years. Moreover, they are judgment calls about how to most effectively explain and represent the ‘concentration of many determinations’ and the ‘unity of the diverse’ – of the natural scene in the case of artist; and of the capitalist system in the case of Marx.

The test for the viability of Marx’s having begun his explanation with a focus on the commodity is his subsequent success in carrying out the process of dialectical explanation in a systematic, level-by-level manner that brings more and more complicating factors into the explanation at each subsequent level – all within the framework of the intentionally projected matrix of the preceding level; in a way that eventually provides a comprehensive understanding of the capitalist system by addressing all the available relevant evidence gathered about this system in the course of preceding dialectical-empirical research, and that discloses the structural dynamics of the system in an understandable way.

Let me emphasise the canons of interpretation at play in Marx’s methodology of dialectical explanation, and at play in his comprehension of human reality. First, one must interpret the notion of praxis in terms of the concrete universal and the internal relation as the appropriate canons of interpretation. Second, one must also recognise that the notion of praxis projects deep internal relations (that is, internal ontological relations) between human beings and their social and natural environments. This means that the very nature, the very being of specific human beings is constituted by some specific array of dynamic interactions obtaining among those human beings, and between them and their natural environments.

Next I mention that almost all the various interpretations of orthodox Marxism either completely fail to realise that Marx is working with the concrete universal and internal relations as canons of interpretation throughout his corpus, or do not give adequate explicit attention to such realisation. In my judgment, most of the variants of orthodox Marxism have all egregiously distorted Marx’s thought by blindly substituting totally inappropriate canons of interpretation for the ones that Marx was actually employing. Also widespread failure to understand Marx’s dialectical method of explanation, and the canons of interpretation associated with it, has significantly contributed to the mistaken view that there is a radical split between the work of the early and the late Marx; and it has also contributed to the widespread misunderstanding of his economic theory.

But how to understand the concrete universal, and how to understand praxis in relation to the concrete universal as the operative canon of interpretation? As a first approach, let me consider a contrasting situation in which the abstract universal would be the appropriate canon of interpretation. Consider the essence of a Euclidean triangle. To convey an understanding of such a triangle along the lines of the abstract universal, one would list the full set of attributes which taken together constitute the essence of such a triangle: plane figure, three straight lines, three angles, etc. Assuming one lists all the essential attributes, and also comprehends them as a package, one understands the essence of a Euclidean triangle – and one does so in abstraction from any specific example of such a triangle. Moreover, while I grant there exists no triangle-in-general (pace Plato) the contingencies of specific examples of triangles – that is, length of sides, configuration of angles, and area – are not constitutive of the essence of any specific examples of Euclidean triangles; for that is fully captured by the abstract universal.

However, one cannot understand the notion of praxis as an abstract universal, as one might understand the essence of a Euclidean triangle. Rather, one must understand the abstract notion of praxis as a concrete universal that is oriented toward its more concrete expression in the concrete-in-thought. Let me make a significant distinction, though, between the notion of praxis construed in a way that is implicitly oriented toward the concrete-in-thought, versus a way that is explicitly oriented toward the concrete-in-thought.

Consider again the abstract formulation of praxis that I gave earlier in this paper. Praxis connotes ‘the practical activity of conscious human beings who are consciously interacting with one another, and consciously acting upon various aspects of the natural world, and in so doing shaping themselves and their environment’. If one were to come across such a formulation in isolation from Marx’s thought, one might initially be tempted to construe it in terms of the abstract universal. Upon reflection, however, one would see that the essential meaning of this formulation involves discernment of an implicitly projected, unfolding ‘story’ concerning the mutually shaping, dynamic interrelations between and among human beings and their social and natural environments – and this prior to any shift to specific and determinate forms of praxis.

So much for a brief account of how to construe the notion of praxis as implicitly oriented toward the concrete-in-thought. How then to construe the notion of praxis in a way that would be explicitly oriented toward the concrete-in-thought? To explain this, it will perhaps be helpful to go on a brief tangent concerning Marx’s notion of the commodity, and the way it comes into play in Capital. As noted previously, Marx begins his dialectical explanation of the capitalist system with his notion of the commodity, which serves as a conceptual schema in relation to which he carries out the ongoing analysis of Capital.

In his Introduction to the Grundrisse, Marx contrasts his own explanatory practice in Capital with the approach of various ‘economists of the seventeenth century’ whom, he maintains, began their explanations with the whole population (i.e. with a ‘chaotic concept of the whole’), and subsequently took a path whereon ‘the full conception was evaporated to yield an abstract determination’ (Marx 1973: 100). As opposed to this path, Marx explains that the ‘scientifically correct method’ is the path whereon ‘the abstract determinations lead towards the reproduction of the concrete by way of thought’ (Marx 1973: 101). In close association with these positions, Marx maintains, with respect to any historical, social science, that ‘even the most abstract categories despite their validity – precisely because of their abstractness – for all epochs, are nevertheless, in the specific character of this abstraction, themselves likewise a product of historic relations, and possess their full validity only for and within these relations’ (Marx 1973: 105; emphasis added).

Marx’s notion of the commodity is the first of the ‘abstract determinations [that] lead towards the reproduction of the concrete by way of thought’ in Capital. His notion of the commodity is a kind of master conceptual knot back to which all the conceptual strands of Capital are tied, directly or indirectly. But it is not that these conceptual strands were deductively derived by Marx from the notion of the commodity taken in isolation, or that Marx simply spun them out of thin air. How then did he arrive at the commodity as such a conceptual knot? The explanation has already been given above. It was a judgment call made by Marx against the background of his intense study of economists from the 17^th century up to his own time, of deeply probing reflective and empirical inquiry about the capitalist system ranging over very many years, and of his collection of a massive amount of empirical data about this system.

All this, together with a heart of extraordinary compassion for suffering humankind, and the synthetic mind of a genius scientist/philosopher, who could discern complex networks of conceptual interrelations coming together in the rich, teeming field of his empirical and theoretical research; who could gradually discern larger distinct patterns concerning the economic categories with which he was working; who could discern which conceptual knots in the field of meanings sprouting from his empirical and theoretical research would be the most serviceable for organising the theoretical web of Capital, and doing so in accordance with his dialectical method of moving from abstract determinations to the fully articulated concrete-in-thought; and who could intuitively discern that his notion of the commodity would serve as his master conceptual knot.

Most importantly, though, he does not rip this master knot entirely out of the field of meanings, and the complex conceptual interrelations it has with the skein of other knots and conceptual strands in such a field of unorganised meanings. Rather, the notion of the commodity as his master knot always retains its underlying conceptual interrelations with this field of meanings. In constructing the theoretical web of Capital, Marx successively selected other conceptual knots and strands from the rich field of meanings that issued from his empirical and theoretical research, and then explicitly spliced them to his master knot of the commodity, either directly, or indirectly via other ‘abstract determinations’ already spliced to the master knot in a systematic level by level way, so as to carry out the ‘reproduction of the concrete by way of thought’ – that is, the whole theoretical web of Capital. My thesis is that Marx’s notion of the commodity can only properly be understood as a concrete universal that is intentionally oriented toward the unfolding organised concrete-in-thought constituted by his work Capital.

Furthermore, just as the commodity is the master conceptual knot Marx choose with which to systematically order his dialectical explanation of the concrete-in-thought of Capital, I take praxis to be the master conceptual knot for ordering an integrated understanding of Marx’s earlier and later work in accordance with Marx’s own mature model of dialectical explanation that moves from the abstract to the concrete in thought. I construe praxis as a concrete universal, a sort of structured matrix of internally related factors that is intentionally oriented toward a wide spectrum of more concrete elaborations. Getting a handle on the more concrete elaborations which introduce more and more explanatory factors on successive levels of analysis is necessary. That is, the abstract notion of praxis can only be fully understood when it is conceptually interconnected with a complex array of more concrete elaborations. In my view, it cannot be adequately understood in its abstraction.

Moreover, in the course of concretely elaborating the abstract notion of praxis, one must eventually interconnect and integrate it with the thesis of historical materialism, and also with the more concrete elaborations of this thesis, if one is to comprehend Marx’s thought about human cultural evolution. Here I refer again to the famous summary formulation of the general thesis of historical materialism that Marx projects in his ‘Preface’ to a Critique of Political Economy’ (Marx 1977). For many people, this summary formulation seems quite straightforward, in the sense of being readily and easily comprehensible. But I maintain that this is an illusion brought about by an ongoing commitment to certain idols of the philosophical tradition – namely, the abstract universal as a canon of interpretation, and the associated canon of the external relation. For my part, I maintain that one can only comprehend this thesis, in the way Marx intended it, if one employs both the concrete universal and the associated canon of the internal relation in its interpretation. Furthermore, I also maintain that adequate comprehension of the thesis of historical materialism, and of its conceptual interconnection with Marx’s notion of praxis, requires cognisance of the dialectical method of explanation that Marx was working toward all along, but which was brought fully into play only in Capital – that is, the dialectical explanatory movement from the abstract to the concrete (Brien 2006: 17-44).

This is an explanatory movement that involves commitment to the concrete universal and the internal relation as canons of interpretation. Employing these canons of interpretation, the explanatory movement organises the internally related explanatory factors in a movement from more abstract levels of comprehension to more and more concrete levels of comprehension that are elaborated within the projected structural matrix of the more abstract levels. With all this in mind, let us now look at the conceptual interconnection of the abstract notion of praxis and the thesis of historical materialism.

If the human being is a being of praxis, and if praxis is an ongoing internally related activity through which human beings shape their very being as they shape their environment, then human reality must be understood as a process. In order to comprehend human reality, one must comprehend this process and the way in which transitions from one stage to another in such a process come about. For the potentialities of human beings are not exhausted by the particular form and by the particular mode of interrelations that characterise them at a particular time. Thus, one may not legitimately identify human nature as such with its particular form at some particular stage.

So how understand this process, then? Well, as many readers will already realise, Marx understands this process in terms of the interplay between what he refers to as the forces of production, the social relations of production and reproduction, and the social superstructure. Importantly, the ‘forces of production’ and the ‘social relations of production and reproduction’ cannot be understood apart from conscious activity in the world – that is, they are inseparable from it. They can perhaps be thought of as two dynamically interacting currents within the stream of praxis – but construing ‘currents’ non-dualistically, here. And these two interacting currents mutually shape, and are shaped by, still another current (or complex of currents) of conscious activity in the world – a current which is frequently referred to as the social superstructure: that is, the modes of consciousness, the predominant ideas, the political and legal institutions, the forms of the family (etc.) that come into being.

Here let me add a caution that the metaphor of the social superstructure and the economic base are all too often construed too literally, as if they were externally related to one another – analogously to the way a bag of carrots might be set on top of a large box of potatoes. But for Marx, they are all internally related with one another; for each dimension is what it is because of its shifting internally related dynamic interplay with the other dimensions. Thus the development of the forces of production and the development of the social relations, together with the development of the associated modes of consciousness and predominant ideas – all of this is the development of praxis. The tensions and conflicts, which obtain within and between these mutually interrelated developments, are tensions and conflicts that obtain in human conscious activity in the world; and the development of conscious activity in all these dimensions is the development of human nature in history.

So far, I have tried to bring out the methodological interrelation between the abstract notion of praxis and the general thesis of historical materialism. I have argued that the abstract notion of praxis, which itself has to be understood in terms of internally related factors, is to be construed as a sort of structured matrix that is intentionally oriented toward more concrete levels of elaboration, that include the various factors projected in the general thesis of historical materialism. Furthermore, I have suggested that the general thesis of historical materialism must itself be understood as a structured matrix intentionally oriented toward still more concrete levels of elaboration introducing additional complicating internally related explanatory factors – with the factors explicitly mentioned in the thesis of historical materialism, all being construed as internally related, and all being interpreted as concrete universals; and all other general explanatory factors introduced at more concrete levels of elaboration being so interpreted as well. It is especially important to become clear about this, if one is to comprehend the dynamics of transitions from one sort of social formation to another as Marx understands them.

Here let me draw attention to the last few sentences of the passage from Marx’s ‘Preface’, cited above, that concern transitions from one social formation to another:

From forms of development of the productive forces these relations [of production] turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed.

The factors at play in these formulations cannot be understood as Marx intends them, if one construes them as externally related factors arranged in some kind of linear causal sequence. However, when these formulations are interpreted in keeping with the internal relation and the associated concrete universal, the theoretical situation is very different. For one is then oriented toward more concrete levels of elaboration that would bring into focus the dynamic patterns of various internally related dimensions of human social praxis – that is, the ‘social being’ of specific groups of interacting, and conflicting, human beings – and all that this involves.

Thus, in order to understand what Marx intends here, one must direct one’s attention toward the actual practice of specific groups of conscious human beings who are interacting in specific ways with one another and with the natural environment. For thereby, such specific groups of conscious human agents shape and reshape themselves in specific ways; but they do so amidst specific historically conditioned circumstances, which are largely the repository of the cumulative activity of past human activities. Importantly, though, these circumstances undergo continual change due to present human activity – ranging from relatively small-scale changes ordinarily, all the way to changes in phases of dramatic and extended crisis that are sometimes momentous. Marx differentiates these circumstances into three broad dynamically interacting dimensions: ‘forces of production’, ‘social relations of production’, and ‘social superstructure’.

The ‘forces of production’ are constituted by the specific activities of specific groups of conscious human beings, that is by the specific modes of their labour: a) involving specific sets of skills, techniques, and knowledge; b) employing specific tools and instruments of production; c) working up specific kinds of raw and semi-finished materials – all for the satisfaction of developing human needs. Moreover, the forces of production develop over time as new needs come into play, as new knowledge and technical skills are acquired, as new tools and instruments are invented and employed in the production of goods and services.

Also, let us not forget the praxis of the multiplicity of workers in the past whose activities have been objectified, externalised, and crystallised in all the existing non-human instruments of production, as well as all the physical facilities in which they swing into motion, and all the other facilities that support them – including all the tools, machines, factories, buildings, and the vast array of other things that make production possible in given circumstances. Here, it would be well to recall a reminder from The German Ideology that within capitalism, ‘the productive forces appear as a world by themselves independent of, removed from, and alongside individuals because the individuals whose forces they are, exist as split up and opposed to one another. On the other hand these forces are only real forces in the interaction and association of the individuals’ (Marx, 1997: 466, emphasis added).

Furthermore, such forces of production are set in motion within the context of specific ‘social relations of production and reproduction’ that include among other things: a) specific divisions of labour; b) specific class structures; c) specific patterns of distribution of wealth, resources, property, etc; and d) specific patterns of management and control of workers – including in our own time specific local, national and international corporate structures. If the specific configuration of such social relations of production is dynamically adapted to the forces of production at a given stage of their development, then the ongoing development of these forces will take place without serious structural consequences. However, when these forces develop in such a way that a steadily increasing conflict builds up between the developing forces of production and the social relations that have been in place, then the ongoing development of these forces becomes impeded or fettered in various ways. Most importantly, if such a steadily increasing conflict becomes severe enough, and for a long enough time, a sort of ‘social bifurcation point’ could be reached that could lead to a restructuring of the social relations of production.

But what does Marx mean when he says that a given configuration of social relations of production can turn into the ‘fetters’ of the forces of production? Well, here one must keep in mind that for Marx the concrete activities of specific collectivities of conscious human beings, engaged in the multiplicity of specific kinds of production of goods and services, are the primary constituent of the active forces of production. But also, the specific collectivities of conscious human beings not presently active in the labour force through no fault of their own, the unemployed and latent labour force, are also a significant dimension of the forces of production. Thus, the fettering of the forces of production has to be understood primarily as the fettering of specific collectivities of conscious human beings within a given social formation, that is the actual structural negation of vast numbers of conscious human beings in so many interrelated ways.

Some of the major ways in which conscious human beings are fettered in the capitalist system were poignantly brought out by Marx in his Economic Manuscripts of 1844 (1964: 106-46), where he disclosed the interrelated dimensions of the alienation of wage labourers within capitalism – namely, alienation from their own life activity, the products of their activity, other people, the natural world, etc. In capitalism, wage labourers are chained/fettered to an economic system that structurally forces workers to adapt to alienated, self-negating activity – either that, or suffer even worse consequences. But the fettering of workers in capitalism does not end here. For workers are not simply workers, they are conscious human beings with needs of various sorts – including needs for food, shelter, clothing, safety, etc.; but also a panoply of what one might call existential needs, such as needs for meaning, a viable value system, community with other people, community with nature and with reality at large, a need for creative self expression, etc. ⁶

For Marx, the fettering of the forces of production means the fettering of the life activity of specific collectivities of vast numbers of conscious human beings. Such fettering of life activity is manifested in many different ways, including: increasing alienation in all its various modes; a wide range of insecurities generated by the capitalist system with respect to potential job loss from downsizing, outsourcing, etc.; underemployment, very low wages, and unemployment for so very many human beings within the capitalist countries; threats concerning their present and future livelihoods; the impact of the capitalist system on developing countries whose peoples and resources become the victims of obscene levels of exploitation which, while temporarily offsetting the consequences of the ‘tendency toward the falling rate of profit’ within the capitalist countries, also intensifies a mounting world crisis (Marx 1967, vol. 3: 211-266; Brien 2006: 91-114); widespread apprehension, fear, anxiety, depression, despair, misery, and other types of physical and emotional pain experienced by suffering humanity within the capitalist countries and without (Brien 2006: 114-126).

Now some brief comments to indicate how an increased fettering of the forces of production can affect the ‘social superstructure’ of any social formation – that third main dimension of ‘social being’ that dynamically interacts with the other two main dimensions. Almost everyone who has any inkling of Marx’s thought would realise that he holds that the ruling ideas of any social formation reflect the dominant economic practices of that social formation (Marx 1997: 416-433). However, this does not mean that Marx construed the ideas at play in the superstructure to be a mirror image of the economic base. There is always a dynamic interplay between base and superstructure; and, as Marx understands things, even in periods of relative social stability the superstructure is never completely determined by the base. Moreover, in crisis conditions, elements of the social superstructure can have a relative dominance in shaping developmental processes (Brien 2006: 45-126).

For as conflicts intensify between the developing forces of production and existing social relations, such conflicts are directly manifested in the lived conscious experience of large numbers of the people, and they are also manifested in an increasing proliferation of new ideas bubbling up out of the maelstrom of such intensifying conflicts. Moreover, when any given social formation undergoes severe enough and long enough systemic crises, such new ideas can begin to erode the viability and dominance of the hitherto ruling ideas, and an epoch of social revolution can sometimes begin. When this does occur, it is very clear that Marx believed there would be shifts in the relative dominance of the interacting factors associated with the social crisis and that, in the appropriate circumstances (Marx 1997: 427-32), elements of the social superstructure would have a temporary relative dominance over other factors, such that an emerging transformational revolutionary consciousness would take hold, and eventually culminate in a shift to a new complex of social relations of production; and subsequently to a transformation of the rest of the superstructure.

If I may, a final note about class struggles. Planet Earth has been riven by class struggles throughout recorded history – and it continues to be so riven. Nothing I have said in this paper is intended to mask the importance of, or necessity for, class struggles in our time. We all live in the midst of them in one way or another. But the manner in which class struggles are undertaken both within and between classes is most important. To my way of thinking, education, non-violent activism, and dialogue guided by the following principles are in the long term the most effective instruments for carrying out class struggles.

Act so that the tendency of your action is to cultivate an environmentally sustainable,

non-violent, non-exploitative, non-oppressive, non-sexist, non-racist,

mode of being-in-the-world that could be concretely

and universally adopted by all peoples.

(Brien 2013: 60)