Abstract
This chapter emphasizes the extent to which Marx’s conception of capitalist society captures its inherent and integral totality. It is in this regard that Capital (and before it the Grundrisse) reflects an approach that recalls Hegel’s method. What is crucial, however, is that the abstract, totalizing logic that exists in capitalism is not general to historical forms of class society, but is unique and specific to the capitalism social relations of production. The capitalist mode of production differs in this way, qualitatively, from all previous forms of society, both those based on class exploitation, and those in which class relations do not exist. While Marx’s references to historical societies often are grounded in fundamentally liberal conceptions, there are places in his critique of political economy where he originally draws attention to qualitative differences between capitalist and precapitalist forms of social relations. As he noted in the “Introduction” to the Grundrisse, “Human anatomy contains a key to the anatomy of the ape.” In recognizing the unique character of capitalist social relations, in their totality, they can be instructively compared with comparable but significantly different social relations in precapitalist societies, improving our understanding of the history of class societies as a whole.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Karl Marx, Grundrisse (New York: Vintage Books, 1973), 105.
- 2.
Ellen M. Wood, “Historical Materialism in ‘Forms which precede Capitalist Production’”, in Karl Marx’s Grundrisse: Foundations of the critique of Political Economy 150 Years Later, ed. Marcello Musto (London: Routledge, 2008), 79–92.
- 3.
Ibid., 83.
- 4.
Ibid., 84.
- 5.
Ibid.
- 6.
Karl Polanyi, Conrad M. Arensberg, and Harry W. Pearson, “The Place of Economies in Societies” in Trade and Market in the Early Empires, eds. Karl Polanyi, Conrad M. Arensberg, and Harry W. Pearson (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1957).
- 7.
Norman Levine, Divergent Paths: Hegel in Marxism and Engelsism (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006), 214.
- 8.
Marx, Grundrisse, 102.
- 9.
As previously noted, this Introduction actually was written for A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, but not published with it. The rest of the Grundrisse, begun immediately afterwards, similarly is not historical in structure, but starts with fully developed social forms.
- 10.
Ibid., 106–7.
- 11.
- 12.
Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, MECW, vol. 3, 280.
- 13.
Marx, Grundrisse, 103.
- 14.
Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, 282.
- 15.
Marx, Grundrisse, 514–5.
- 16.
Ibid., 497.
- 17.
Ibid., 507.
- 18.
Karl Marx, Capital, Volume III, MECW, vol. 37, 763.
- 19.
Ibid., 776–7.
- 20.
Ibid., 777.
- 21.
Ibid., 777–8.
- 22.
Marx, Grundrisse, 106.
- 23.
Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, MECW, vol. 6, 174.
- 24.
Ibid., 197.
- 25.
Marx, Grundrisse, 108.
- 26.
Frederick Engels, “Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy”, MECW, vol. 3, 430.
- 27.
E. P. Thompson, “The Poverty of Theory”, in The Poverty of Theory and Other Essays (London: Monthly Review Press, 1978), 169.
- 28.
Eric Hobsbawm, “Introduction”, in Karl Marx, Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations (New York: International Publishers, 1965), 14.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Comninel, G.C. (2019). Historical Materialism and the Specificity of Capitalism. In: Alienation and Emancipation in the Work of Karl Marx. Marx, Engels, and Marxisms. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57534-0_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57534-0_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-57623-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-57534-0
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)