Chapter II, The Metaphysics of Political Economy, Fourth Observation - Part 1 of 6

Fourth Observation

Proudhon believes he is applying the dialectical method to his analysis, but the method consists only in an application of Kantian Moralism, of the division of phenomena into opposing “good” and “bad” sides. It is the method of petty-bourgeois, moral socialism, still seen to this day. As Marx points out, the Hegelian dialectic is amoral. It sets itself no problems to resolve, no moral imperative to achieve.

“Hegel has no problems to formulate. He has only dialectics. M. Proudhon has nothing of Hegel's dialectics but the language. For him the dialectic movement is the dogmatic distinction between good and bad.” (p 105)

The Marxist dialectic is also amoral. Socialism is not considered as some “good” moral imperative that socialists must strive to achieve, in the way of Christians achieving the Kingdom of Heaven, but as simply the scientifically determined culmination of human social evolution, as uncovered by the theory of historical materialism, and driven by The Law of Value, just as biological evolution is explained by the theory of evolution, driven by The Law of Natural Selection.

The differences and consequence can be seen in Marx's discussion of the difference between Sismondi and Ricardo, in Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 9. Sismondi's moral socialism led him to see the “good” side of capitalism in its development of the productive forces. However, he saw that this led not only to the dispossession of means of production from the small producer, but also leads to an overproduction of commodities that creates misery. In order to avoid this “bad” side, he advocated his “anti-capitalist” agenda, based on slowing down economic development, and seeking to maintain small-scale, independent, petty-bourgeois production. The same approach was taken by the Narodniks, and can be seen in the politics of various “green” organisations, as well as various “anti-capitalist” and “anti-imperialist” groups. As Marx and Lenin describe, it is a thoroughly reactionary ideology.

By contrast, Ricardo argued for “production for production's sake”, and the most rapid development of the productive forces. He, along with Mill and Say, rejected the idea that this could lead to a general overproduction of commodities, which, at the time he was writing, had not yet been witnessed. Marx, in Theories of Surplus Value, Chapter 17, sets out why they were wrong in that assumption, and Sismondi was right, though not for the reasons he describes, and yet Marx still describes Ricardo's position as progressive. The reason being that the solution to the problem Sismondi identified comes not from trying to hold back social development, but from the more rapid progress that Ricardo promoted.

That progress not only creates the productive forces required for a much more developed form of social organisation, creates a global economy, and monopolies whose production can be more easily planned and regulated, but also creates the working-class as the progressive agent that brings about this change in society. Yet, on the basis of the moral socialist philosophy, this working-class would be seen as “bad”, to be eradicated, because of its dispossessed, and impoverished condition.

Indeed, as Marx sets out, later, it is always this “bad” side of phenomena that acts as the progressive element. It was, for example, the serfs that provided the basis of the independent commodity producers that differentiated into bourgeois and proletarians, and drove society forward from feudalism to capitalism.

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