The reality of capitalist production cannot be captured by the metaphysical “common sense” mode of reasoning, precisely because it is dialectical, it is a process of continual movement of contradictions, and simultaneity, in which inputs are simultaneously outputs, and outputs are inputs, and production does not stop at the end of the year, fixed and frozen for measures of profits to be made, as though time stops at that point, but continues beyond it.
“At first sight this mode of thinking seems to us most plausible, because it is that of so-called sound common sense. Yet sound common sense, respectable fellow that he is, in the homely realm of his own four walls, has very wonderful adventures directly he ventures out into the wide world of research. The metaphysical mode of thought, justifiable and even necessary as it is in a number of domains whose extent varies according to the nature of the object of investigation, invariably bumps into a limit, sooner or later, beyond which it becomes one-sided, restricted, abstract, lost in insoluble contradictions, because in the presence of individual things it forgets the connection between them; because in the presence of their existence, it forgets their coming into being and passing away; because in their state of rest it forgets their motion.” (p 26)
Metaphysics sees contradiction – as does the TSSI, for example – and so concludes that the hypothesis, itself, must be wrong, without, thereby, understanding that the contradiction exists, not within the hypothesis, but within the reality of what is being hypothesised, and so explained.
“... every organic being is every moment the same and not the same; every moment it assimilates matter supplied from without, and gets rid of other matter; every moment some cells of its body die and others build themselves anew; in a longer or shorter time the matter of its body is completely renewed, and is replaced by other molecules of matter, so that every organic being is always itself, and yet something other than itself.” (p 27)
This is also the description Marx gives of capital, and the capitalist production process. It is, every moment, the same and not the same, come commodities are consumed productively or personally, but, at each moment, they are also, simultaneously, replaced by other commodities.
“Further, we find upon closer investigation that the two poles of an antithesis, like positive and negative, are as inseparable as they are opposed and that despite all their opposition, they interpenetrate. In like manner, we find that cause and effect are conceptions which only hold good in their application to the individual case as such; but as soon as we consider the individual case in its general connection with the universe as a whole, they merge, they dissolve in the concept of universal action and reaction in which causes and effects are constantly changing places, so that what is effect here and now will be cause there and then, and vice versa.” (p 27)
And, again, this finds reflection in Marx's analysis of capital, in Theories of Surplus Value. Production and consumption appear as two poles, just as with supply and demand. Yet, as Marx sets out, in detail, in The Grundrisse, production is also consumption, and consumption production, whilst supply is demand, and demand is supply. Production of commodities involves the consumption of commodities in the form of materials, fixed capital, and labour-power. The consumption of commodities by the labourer, is also the production of the labourer, and so of labour-power.
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