Marx and Contradiction

by Lawrence Wilde

Genres: Economics, Philosophy, Politics

126 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Lawrence Wilde is Professor of Political Theory at Nottingham Trent University, and Chair of the Political Studies Association Marxism Specialist Group, amongst many other bodies. He has published widely on Marx, ethics and radical politics and is widely recognised as an authority on ethical problems of Marxism

Reviews

[Anthony Buckley · Rating 5 out of 5]

“He saw that the water continually flowed and yet it was always there; it was always the same and yet every moment it was new. Who could understand, conceive this?” (Hesse, Siddhartha)

“We have to think pure flux, opposition within opposition itself, or contradiction” (Hegel, The Phenomenology of Mind)

Lawrence Wilde’s rather technical book is trying to track down whether Marx was consistent in his use of the word “contradiction”, and, indeed, what precisely he meant by it. He concludes that, according to Marx, all kinds of theoretical and practical contradictions exist and are more or less susceptible to resolution. However, when social conditions contradict an essentially cooperative human creativity, no eventual resolution is possible without human liberation. Human beings, Marx claims, are creative, cooperative beings, and this creativity will keep breaking out until it is finally liberated.

Even though Karl Marx had repudiated philosophical idealism in favour of materialism, he had retained from Hegel the notion of dialectic. Marx liked the critical perspective inherent in a philosophy which saw contradiction at the heart of every category. He also liked Hegel’s emphasis on motion. The established formal logic, inherited from Aristotle and St Thomas - based on “identity”, “non-contradiction” and the “excluded middle” - carried an unspoken implication that the object described would remain the same. Hegel, however, had noted that an object in motion (say, an arrow) was both present and not present at the same moment, and that similar contradictions could be found everywhere. Marx also liked the idea of totality, which was necessary for a proper understanding of contradiction.

Wilde differentiates between “existential” and “essential” types of contradiction in Marx’s thought. As examples of ‘difference of existence’, Marx cited north and south as opposite aspects of the polar essence, and men and women as opposite genders of the human essence. In these cases mediations were necessary, and Marx commented that in the case of man and woman ‘man is born only though the unifying of their polar differences’. (Marx thought there were entirely "illusory" contradictions between opposed but purely theoretical notions)

Essential contradictions however, were more central to Marx’s understanding. In contrast to other commentators, Wilde lays particular emphasis on Marx’s conception of the “human essence”. Marx explains that, unlike animals, human beings are creative. Whatever human beings do, and especially, whatever they make, they first create it in their minds before they begin production. This feat is entirely beyond even apparently creative animals, such as spiders or bees. “Essential” contradictions, therefore, are those which contradict or stifle the creative essence of human beings. Marx also makes clear that human beings are also essentially social beings.

Whenever practical conditions contradict human creativity, then any final resolution of that contradiction must remove the obstacle to that creative essence. The greatest obstacle to human liberty, claims Marx, is the division of society into opposed classes, formed in turn by the diverse relations people have to the means of production. Temporary resolution of these contradictions between classes is sometimes possible. Thus, for example, a particular industrial dispute or a particular economic or political crisis may be temporarily resolved. But if the contradiction between social circumstances and the creative essence of the worker is not resolved, then this essential contradiction will continue to surface. Capitalism, therefore, which is founded on the stifling of human creativity, must inevitably collapse.

Wilde’s book is erudite, persuasive, and, of its type, readable. I have long thought that any satisfactory anthropology must finally rest upon ideas of a common human essence. It is also transparent that human beings do indeed have creativity as part of that essence. This book asserts the point with great clarity.

[T · Rating 4 out of 5]

05/08/2024
Managed to buy my own copy on eBay. Would definitely recommend this volume to anyone trying to grasp what “dialectical” means with a particular focus on how the philosophical aspects of dialectics and contradiction coheres to Marx’s political, historical, and most importantly, economic, outlook. Wilde explains the how Marx deep involvement with German philosophy set the foreground for his method, and also where Marx’s method departs from his contemporaries. Wilde also attempts to engage critically with some of Marx’s interpreters, drawing on published and unpublished work to defend a humanistic form of Marxism, consistent with Wilde’s reading of Marx’s Collected Works.

01/08/2022 Turgid, but I wish I had my own copy so that I could reread it every few years. Wilde has clearly done a lot of deep reading, and manages to pull out the important philosophical parts of Marx from a political economy perspective. Steve Keen recommended this book in a recent podcast, but I think it's only worthwhile for those interested in Marx from an economic and philosophical perspective. If you've never hear of Schelling or Hegel, then this book won't be all that useful for you.