Critique of Marx S 1857 Introduction Rafael Echeverria

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Critique of Marx's 1857 Introduction

Rafael Echeverria
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Volume 7 Number 4
November 1978
Contents
Rafael Echevarria
Marie Lavigne
Advanced socialist society
Grahame Thompson
Capitalist profit calculation and inflation accounting
RevieW article
John Mepham
The Grundrisse: method or metaphysics?
Notes on Authors
Volume Index
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Talal Asad University of Hull
University of Leicester
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Claude Meillassoux Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris
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Economy and Society V o l 7 No 4 November 1978
Critique of Marx's
7857 lntroduction
Rafael Echeverria
1 . Definition of the problem

From its beginnings, the Marxist tradition of thought has had to
confront the problem that Marx did not leave a clear and systematic
exposition of his logic of investigation. Apart from a few passages
in which Marx insisted upon the innovatory nature of his method,
and those in which he indicated that this method was based on an
inversion of the Hegelian dialectic, the necessary elements for an
adequate characterisation of it were not given.
Marx himself was apparently aware of this gap, expressing his
intention to write a work on the materialist dialectic. This project
was first mentioned in a letter dated 14th January, 1858 to Engels,
and reiterated eighteen years later in a letter to Dietzgen. In the
latter Marx stated :
When I have shaken off the burden of my economic labours, I
shall write a dialectic.'
Unfortunately, this project was never accomplished and its absence
has given rise t o different and contradictory interpretations.
In recognising this problem, Lenin suggested an approach t o its
resolution :
If Marx did not leave behind him a 'Logic' (with a capital
letter), he did leave the logic of Capital, and this ought to be
utilized t o the full in this q ~ e s t i o n . ~
According t o Lenin, Marx's logic of investigation can be extracted
from the logic exhibited and realised in Capital. Although this logic
is not systematised, it can be found there, in the specific treatment
of the object of analysis.
Lenin's suggestion entails two difficulties. The first of these,
pointed out by Marx himself, is that the method of investigation
is said t o be distinct from the method of exposition. This means
that if the exposition of Capital is t o be used to specify the method
of investigation which produces it, it is necessary t o specify the
existing relation between the logic of exposition realised in this
334
Rafael Echeverria
work anci the logic of investigation which, as Marx has warned us,
is distinct from the former.
The second obstacle is to be found in the discovery of an Introduction written in 1857, which Marx intended to precede his
major and still unwritten economic work. This text brings together
related methodological considerations which appear to redeem the
absence of an exposition of his logic of investigation. The discovery
of this text has meant that the search for the logic of Capital has
been subordinated t o the formulations asserted there, and thus the
problem has been defined in terms of determining the manner in
which Marx fulfils in Capital the criteria advanced in the 1857
Introduction. Therefore, the reading of Capital has assumed the
identity of the methodological criteria of both texts. As far as we
know, there are no exceptions t o this approach to the problem of
Marx's logic of investigation. The r'857 Introduction has been
elevated to the rank of an authority for decoding the logic of
Capital from different political and theoretical positions, producing diverse interpretations. Althusser located the Introduction
at the level of Marx's Discourse o n et hod.^ In general, the
content of this text has been treated uncritically as Marx's position
on his logic of inve~tigation.~
Given the import of these interpretations, any attempt t o
decode Marx's logic of investigation requires a careful examination
of the 1857 Introduction. One of the basic aims of this is t o
challenge the supposed identity of the criteria of the Introduction
with those of Capital, and thus to demonstrate the profoundly
problematic character of the Introduction. This Introduction was
written before Marx's appropriation of Hegel,5 and this will prove
to entail important effects. After a critical analysis of the 1857
Introduction, the distinction between the method of exposition
and that of investigation will be tackled. Only then can Lenin's
approach to the analysis of the logic of Capital be taken up.6
2. Critique of the 1857 Introduction

The Introduction was written between August and September of
1857, a period in which Marx proposed t o develop systematically
his analysis of capitalist society. It is not surprising that, as shown
by the content of the Introduction, a main preoccupation was
that of the method and order of analysis.
It must be made clear that Marx himself was not satisfied with
what he had written in this text, as two years later he replaced the
1857 Introduction with the well-known 1859 Preface. In the
Preface Marx criticised the Introduction recognising that it might
generate some misunderstanding:
335
I am omitting a general introduction which I had jotted down

because on closer reflection any anticipation of results still t o
be proved appears t o me t o be disturbing, and the reader who
on the whole desires t o follow me must be resolved t o ascend
from the particular t o the general. ( M E S W , 180)
Although Marx's critique of his lntroduction is not generally
considered, it, nevertheless, represents an important clue t o the
recognition of the problems contained in it. It is not a question of
rejecting everything that is put forward in the 1857 Introduction,
since in many respects the text illuminated some important
aspects in connection with his logic of investigation. However, in
order t o recognise its effective contributions, specific deficiencies
must also be identified.
2.1. Analysis o f the Introduction
In this section we will discuss the content of the 1857 Zntroduction according t o its own order of exposition. This may prove t o
be hard t o follow. Nevertheless, it has the advantage of providing a
more accurate reading from which t o develop our criticism. It is
necessary t o anticipate that we will pay special attention t o Marx's
use of the concepts of the abstract and the concrete, since we
consider that they are central to his position and basic t o any
assessment of this text.
The 1857 Introduction begins by indicating that
the object before us, t o begin with, is material production.
( G , 83)
This first statement is open to two interpretations. On the one
hand, it can be taken t o mean that Marx considered 'material production' in itself t o be the exclusive object of his analysis. In this
case 'material production' is both the point of departure and the
defined object of analysis. On the other hand, it could also suggest
that, envisaging a wider object of analysis than 'material production', Marx considered that the explanation of this wider object
should commence from the analysis of a restricted object, 'material
production'. In this case, it does not necessarily follow that
'material production' must be the first term of analysis, since, in
its turn, the analysis of 'material production' could well begin
from an even more restricted object, an object which, while
belonging t o material production is not, however, directly identifiable with it. The difference between these two possible interpretations then, lies in the fact that in the second case, 'material
production' as a first limited object of analysis, could in itself be
analysed by starting from something different from itself. If this
336
Rafael Echeverria
is accepted, it means that while Marx posited material production

as a restricted object from which the analysis must begin, nonetheless, the problem of the actual starting point is still left to be
decided. The development of Marx's argument permits the deduction that the initial statement is to be interpreted in the second
sense for Marx is proposing the necessary recognition of the
determinant nature of material production in history, and therefore, the necessity of considering it as the initial object of his
study.
However, as an object of study, material production demands
certain specifications. There are three alternative ways in which
material production can be considered as an object of study:
(1) To define this object as production in general,
(2) To examine the historical development of production,
( 3 ) To concentrate upon a particular stage in this development,
e.g. capitalist production, and its theoretical characterisation.
In the first section of the Introduction, Marx concentrated on
dismissing the first option, i.e. the definition of 'production in
general'. He does this by criticising the way in which political
economy treats material production. His first critical observation
affirms the necessity of conceiving production not as an individual
activity, but in considering 'individuals producing in society' ( G ,
83), being, therefore, 'production by social individuals' ( G , 85).
The isolated individual is not the 'natural individual' conceived by
the economists. The fiction of the isolated individual is revealed
through an examination of history, which proves that even this
appearance is the product of highly developed social relations.
From this Marx deduced that production can only be referred
to 'at a definite stage of social development' ( G , 85). 'Production
in general', therefore, does not exist. This does not mean that a
general concept of production is void of content and theoretically
useless :
. . . all epochs of production have certain common traits,

common characteristics. Production in general is an abstraction,
but a rational abstraction in so far as it really brings out and
fixes the common element and thus saves us repetition. ( G , 8 5 )
In this first reference to abstraction Marx indicates that, whereas
production in general cannot be the object of study, the
general concept of production is useful in its capacity t o encompass certain common characteristics of all modes of production, despite their particular deter~ninations.In this sense, the
general concept of production constitutes a rational abstraction
and has therefore a positive function, even though restricted t o
337
merely avoid repetitions. It should be pointed out that the concept

of abstraction used by Marx in this passage refers to a particular
understanding of the construction of a concept, on the basis of
general characteristics. The general concept of production is
acceptable because it is sustained by the general character of
certain features in all particular forms of production. This gives
abstraction a markedly empiricist content, to the extent that it
involves a simple generalisation from observable characteristics in
reality.
Despite its positive function, the general concept of production,
in its application to different stages of the evolution of production,
must give way to the particular determinations proper to these
stages. It is precisely these particular determinations which are
theoretically important both in reference to the analysis of a
determinate form of society and in the understanding of historical
evolution. It should be indicated that Marx's treatment of the
relation between the general and particular determinants in the
Introduction differs from that presented later in Capital. In the
Introduction Marx is inclined to separate the general and particular determinants, making them independent of each other.
The particular is understood as that which is not accounted for by
the general. In Capital, on the other hand, the particular is defined
as the particular ordering of the basic and general elements of all
processes of production. Every form of production must unify, in
one way or another, the basic elements of the productive process
and the particularity of every productive stage corresponds to
particular forms of ordering general elements.
The specific manner in which this union is accomplished distinguishes the different epochs of the structure of society from
one another. ( K , 11, 36-7)
Having argued that production in general has no real existence
from a diachronic point of view, Marx then proceeds to demonstrate that it does not exist from a synchronic view point either.
At each particular stage, production can only be recognised as a
totality, or as a structured whole of particulars, but never in
general. Production is particular synchronically insofar as it refers
to particular branches of production: agriculture, cattle-raising,
manufacture etc. However, this does not mean that production
should be reduced t o its mere particular forms: '. . . production is
not only particular production' ( G , 86).
The branches of production are integrated in a structured totality,
forming a social body and a social subject, active in the diverse
branches.
After developing a critique of the use made by the economists
3 38
Rafael Echeverria
of the general concept of production, from which they derive

certain general preconditions of all production, Marx concludes:
There are characteristics which all stages of production have in
common, and which are established as general ones by the
mind; but the so-called general preconditidns of all production
are nothing more than these abstract moments with which no
real historical stage of production can be grasped. (G, 88)
Despite Marx's acceptance of abstraction, he assigns it an insignificant role in its capacity for explanation of distinct historical
stages.
In the second section of the Introduction Marx examines the
relation between production, distribution, exchange and consumption, criticising both the political economists for separating
these inadequately, and those he calls 'socialists, belletrists and
prosaic economists', who consider these moments as identical.
Once again, Marx's position is based on the concept of totality.
The conclusion we reach is not that production, distribution,
exchange and consumption are identical, but that they all
form the members of a totality, distinctions within a unity.
Production predominates not only over itself, in the antithetical definition of production7, but over the other
moments as well. ( G , 99)
Each moment leads to the next, but this does not impede recognition of the primacy of production. This reinforces the priority of
production as the restricted object of study, even at the level of
the economic structure itself.
In this second section there are two critical references to the
concept of abstraction. The first refers to: 'humanity in the
abstract' (G, 94), rejecting the false identity of production and
consumption. The second emphasises the importance of the
recognition of distribution within production, which, if overlooked, leaves an 'empty abstraction', a concept lacking sense.
The third section of the Introduction entitled 'The Method of
Political Economy', is undeniably the most important, and it is
within it that the deficiencies of the text are most apparent. Here
Marx approaches two distinct questions. The first is his relation to
the discussion of the two options left open for the determination
of the restricted object of study after the dismissal of what has
been referred to as 'production in general'. The second refers to
the logic of investigation once the problem of the object of study
has been resolved.
This section begins with a hypothetically constructed argument.
When Marx confronts the object of study of political economy,
339
i.e. the politico-economic analysis of a determinate country, he

indicates that appearances suggest the correct method consists in
taking population as a point of departure, representing that real
and concrete being the basis and the subject of the social act of
all production. This is t o say that Marx locates himself within the.
perspective of a defined object of study, examines the method of
analysis imposed by appearance, indicating its point of departure.
Having formulated this hypothetical argument, he then moves t o
its critique.
The argument is as follows: although the population is a real
concrete, it proves t o be an abstraction if, for example, the social
classes of which it is composed are dispensed with. Social classes
in their turn are demonstrated as 'an empty phrase' (note the
previous allusion t o 'empty abstractions') without consideration
to their constituent elements: wage labour, capital, etc. These
elements themselves are deficient without consideration of exchange, division of labour, prices, etc. Therefore, as a starting
point, population 'would be a chaotic conception of the whole'
(G, loo), demanding an analytical movement towards even more
simple concepts
from the imagined concrete towards even thinner abstractions
until I had arrived at the simplest determination. ( G , 100)
This would entail working back t o the concept of the population
but this time not as a chaotic conception of the whole, but as a
rich totality of many determinations and relations. (G, 100)
Marx argues that this two-way road is followed by the economists
of the seventeenth century, in the origins of economic science.
They began from the concrete whole, i.e. the population, only t o
return t o it. However, according t o Marx, the initial endeavour is
completely unnecessary and can only be justified as a search for a
few abstract and general definitions, which once attained, permit
the return. Therefore, despite appearances, correct scientific
method should obviate the first endeavour and be directed from
these abstract and general definitions towards the concrete:
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. ( G , 101)
Marx indicates that this is the proper way t o reproduce the concrete
in thought.
340
Rafael Echeverria
A close examination of Marx's argument is necessary. First, it

must be recognised that the logical trajectory proposed in the
Introduction is neither different, nor critical with respect t o that
followed by classical political economy. On the contrary, by
criticising only the logic of investigation used in the origins of
economic science in the seventeenth century, Marx proposed a
direction which coincides with that of Smith and Ricardo. Smith
initiates his analysis with the division of labour, and Ricardo with
the examination of value or exchange value. Both starting points
correspond t o abstract and general determinants, exactly as Marx
proposed and, therefore, his position is simply endorsing the
methods of classical economy.
On the other hand, it is evident that the whole argument is
based on the simultaneous and contradictory presence of two
different concepts of abstraction. If the population is criticised as
a starting point because it is abstract, it is not possible t o conclude
that the analysis should be initiated from abstract and general
definitions without a resulting introduction of a new and completely different concept of abstraction. This point has been
generally ignored in the interpretations of this text, which vainly
attempts t o attain a consistency between two opposing concepts
of abstraction. The 1857 Introduction is a text in transition
between a conception of science with Feuerbachian undertones
and a completely different conception, which will be inaugurated
as a stable position in 1858. Yet, as a transitional text, the 1857
Introduction anticipates, albeit in a contradictory manner, some
aspects of the later conception. Marx's defence of abstract and
general definitions clearly indicates his shift towards the adoption
of a position in which abstraction will be considered as an indispensable recourse for scientific work.
The 1857 Introduction illustrates Marx's move towards certain
positions contained in Hegel, although Marx did not have access t o
the Science of Logic when writing it. This was sent t o him in
October, 1857, after he had finished the Introduction and there is
only evidence of reappraisal at the beginning of 1858. Nevertheless, Marx examined some of Hegel's arguments in the Introduction and asserted that, despite questionable and mistaken conclusions, these possessed a certain merit. However, Hegel's influence
is not limited t o explicit reference and it is even strongest when it
is not openly acknowledged. One instance, as demonstrated by
Carver, occurs in the final section of Marx's argument. When Marx
refers t o the concrete he is almost directly paraphrasing Hegel,
who had written in the Science of Logic:
The concrete totality which makes the beginning contains as
such within itself the beginning of the advance and develop-
341
ment. As concrete, it is differentiated within itself; but by

reason of its first immediacy the first differentiated determination~are in the first instance merely a diversity. The
immediate, however, as self-related universality, as subject, is
also the unity of these diverse determinations.
The differences notwithstanding, there is undoubtedly common
ground between the positions held by Hegel and Marx. However,
an important displacement between both arguments should be
noted. Whereas Hegel makes allusion t o the concrete totality,
Marx refers only t o the concrete. Marx discards the concrete as a
starting point, i.e. population, indicating that this represents the
terminal point of the analysis. Marx twice recognises that the
population, as concrete reality, refers t o the 'whole', asserting also
that it represents the basis and the subject of the entire act of production. Its 'emptiness' as a starting point actually results because
it expresses totality, this being the reason why it would be the
terminal point of the analysis, in which it is revealed as a concentration of many determinations and a unity of diversity. However,
the inadequacy of the population as a starting point in relation to
the concrete totality does not allow the deduction that the starting point should not be concrete, and even less that it should be
abstract. This could only be asserted via a reduction of the concrete
totality t o every concrete, which is a legitimate procedure only
from an idealist Hegelian standpoint. From a Hegelian point of
view, the reduction of the concrete totality t o the concrete is a
function of the idealist premise that that which is concrete is the
truth. The 1857 Introduction oscillates between a Feuerbachian
and a Hegelian position, without being able to conciliate both
epistemological perspectives. The population is first considered to
be concrete because it is real in Feuerbachian terms; and then it is
considered to be abstract because it is still theoretically indetermined, in Hegelian terms. This results in an impossible conciliation.
The ambiguous presence of the concept of concrete totality in
Marx's argument, clear in that of Hegel, impedes the distinction
between the particular concrete and the concrete totality, as will
be drawn later in his position, and this is the source of ambiguity
in his argument. It will be superseded not by a mere superposition
of the Feuerbachian and the Hegelian epistemological standpoints,
but by a critical and rectificatory appropriation of Hegel, which
will produce an original Marxist distinction between the concrete
and the abstract.
This can be seen as the principal logical inconsistency of the
1857 Introduction, recognised by Marx in the 1859 Preface and
rectified in Capital. In indicating in the Preface his decision t o
abandon the Introduction, on account of its disturbing effects and
342
Rafael Echeverria
in the necessity t o move 'from the particular t o the general', Marx

distinguished the particular in the analysis of the concrete, moving
away from his previous reduction of the concrete t o the concrete
totality.
Captive in that logical inconsistency, Marx was forced t o confront the problem of the scientific basis of those abstract and
general definitions which he saw as a fitting starting point for his
analysis. Given his materialist premises, these constitute a problem
which could remain unanswered. The solution presented in the
Introduction is the assertion that the abstract and general are
known t o be the result of observation and conception, processes
in which concrete reality now becomes a real starting point. This
argument is based on the recognition of three different instances:
observation, conception and thought, (the functions of thinking
and comprehending within thought are distinguished later). Also
in this argument Marx is looking t o Hegel since in the Logic of the
~ n c ~ c l o ~ a e d i aHegel
:
had also distinguished between Sense, Conception and Thought. Whereas for Hegel this distinction is not
problematic, t o the extent that he conceives of the concrete as the
product of thought, it is problematic for Marx who asserts not
only the independence of concrete reality with respect t o the
activity of thought, but also the practical determination of thought.
The affirmation that abstract and general definitions are the
product of observation and conception, necessitates a relation of
unproblematic continuity between conception and these abstract
definitions. These are considered t o be directly based on the
immediate, wherein the solution acquires empiricist roots, contrary
t o the position Marx was t o assume later. Concepts such as value,
surplus value, abstract labour, etc., Marx later recognised as without direct references in the immediate, but rather t o be in an
initially negative relation t o immediate referents. The empiricist
basis of the solution offered ~ e r m i t sMarx t o locate at the same
level of abstraction, concepts that will later be considered as
having a distinct theoretical status, such as value, price and money
( G , 100). Price and money will n o longer be conceived as abstracts
in contradistinction t o value.
The rest of the third section suffers from the absence of an
adequate distinction between the concrete particular and the concrete totality, and the presence of two contradictory concepts of
abstraction without 'the more rigorous concept of abstraction used
later by Marx. In most of this section Marx examines the problem
of the relation between that which he calls simple and abstract
categories and concrete categories. The problem of the determination of concrete reality and abstract definitions is also posed. Concepts such as exchange value, possession, and money are treated as
343
simple and abstract categories in an apparent identification of the

dimension of simplicity with that of abstraction. This was later t o
be rectified with the recognition of simple concretes such as commodities. In the same way the simple and abstract are identified
with the scientific category.
Marx then proceeds t o examine the concept of labour as a
simple, scientific category. Here he maintains that economic
science is from its origins related t o the capacity of the category of
labour to express a simple abstraction detached from the particular
and concrete aspects of labour. This is first achieved by the classical
economists, particularly Smith and Ricardo. Nevertheless, Marx
understood that the conditions of possibility for the emergence of
this abstract category of labour should be sought in objective
reality. These conditions are met with the development of capitalist relations of production, within which labour attains in practice
a high degree of indifference t o its qualitatively concrete content,
and also achieves extensive mobility.
Hence, then, for the first time, the point of departure of
modern economics, namely the abstraction of the category
'labour', 'labour as such', labour pure and simple, becomes true
in practice. The simplest abstraction, then, which modern
economics places as the head of its discussions, and which expresses an immeasurably ancient relation valid in all forms of
society, nevertheless achieves practical truth as an abstraction
only as a category of the most modern society. (G, 104-5)
This conclusion is of great importance within his general theory.
At this stage, however, Marx's analysis lacks his later rigorous distinction between concrete labour and abstract labour, different t o
that presented in the 18.57 Introduction and, which he will consider as one of his two most important scientific discoveries. Marx
was later t o affirm the importance of the concept of abstract work
without underestimating the analytical importance of the concept
of concrete labour (MESC, 180).
On the basis of this conclusion, Marx once more encountered
the problem of the definition of his object of study, in the sense
of opting for the historical sequence followed by production or
concentrating on a particular stage. As we will recall, the first
option, i.e. that of production in general, had already been discarded. His response t o the remaining options will favour the
necessity of concentrating upon the production of capitalist society.
His basic argument is as follows:
Bourgeois society is the most developed and the most complex
historic organization of production. The categories which express its relations, the comprehension of its structure, thereby
344
Rafael Echeverria
also allows insights into the structure and the relations of

production of all the vanished social formations out of whose
ruins and elements it built itself up, whose partly still unconquered remnants are carried along with it, whose mere
nuances have developed explicit significance within it, etc.
Human anatomy contains the key to the anatomy of the ape.
The intimation of higher development among subordinate
animal species, however, can be understood only after the
higher development is already known. The bourgeois economy
supplies the key to the ancient, etc. ( G , 105).
Once Marx has decided with respect to the options opened in

connection with the object of study, he must confront the problem
of the order in which the categories necessary for the study of the
said object should be placed. Once again, Marx relies on a hypothetically constructed argument in order to develop his response:
. . . nothing seems more natural than to begin with ground

rent, with landed property, since this is bound up with the
earth, the source of all production, and of all being, and with
the first form of production of all more or less settled societies
- agriculture. But nothing would be more erroneous. In all
forms of society there is one specific kind of production which
predominates over the rest, whose relations thus assign rank and
influence to the others. It is a general illumination which bathes
all the other colours and modifies their particularity. It is a particular ether which determines the specific gravity of every
being which has materialized within it. . . . In bourgeois society
. . . agriculture more and more becomes merely a branch of
industry, and is entirely dominated by capital. Ground rent likewise. In all forms where landed property rules the natural relation
is still predominant. In those where capital rules, the social, historically created element. Ground rent cannot be understood
and is entirely dominated by capital. Ground rent likewise. In
all forms where landed property rules the natural relation is
still predominant. In those where capital rules, the social, historically created element. Ground rent cannot be understood
without capital. But capital can certainly be understood without ground rent. Capital is the alldominating economic power
of bourgeois society. It must form the starting point as well as
the finishing point, and must be dealt with before landed
property. ( G , 106-7)
At this stage Marx is able to outline the global project of his work,
indicating that as a result of these conclusions the logical sequence
of analysis to be:
Critique of Marx's 1857 introduction
345
(1) the general, abstract determination which obtain in more or

less all forms of society, but in the above-explained sense.
(2) The categories which make up the inner structure of
bourgeois society and on which the fundamental classes rest.
Capital, wage labour, landed property. Their inner relation.
Town and country. The three great social classes. Exchange
between them. Circulation. Credit system (private). ( 3 ) Concentration of bourgeois society in the form of the state. Viewed
in relation t o itself. The 'unproductive' classes. Taxes. State
debt. Public credit. The population. The colonies. Emigration.
(4) The international relation of production. International
division of labour. International exchange. Export and import.
Rate of exchange. ( 5 ) The world market and crises. ( G , 108)
A demonstration has been attempted here of the deficiencies of
Marx's argument in relation t o the problem of method. In general
terms it should be recognised that the 1857 Introduction is contradictory in that, on the one hand, it manifests traces of empiricism, whereas on the other, it attempts t o supersede these.
This is clearly manifested in two different concepts of abstraction, through which Marx defines abstraction as a theoretical
deficiency at the same time as affirming that this deficiency can
be superseded through abstraction itself.
The project of a logical sequence of analysis which results from
this position expresses the problematic nature of the standpoint
on which it is based. The plan proposed recognises at least two
important problems. Firstly, it offers a flawed solution with
respect t o the starting point of systematic exposition. Secondly,
it establishes an inadequate logical relation between capital, wagelabour and landed property, which are considered as independent
units of analysis, t o be treated consequatively. The best way of
clarifying these two problems consists in confronting their projects
of resolution in the 1857 Introduction with their actual theoretical resolution, effected in Capital, and with Marx's later commentaries on the method followed therein.
Before starting this analysis a brief reference should be made t o
the fourth and last section of the Introduction. This consists of a
list of themes and problems (with brief commentaries) which refer
t o the role of war; the relation between the real and the ideal type
of historiography hitherto developed; the materialist nature of
Marx's theory; the dialectical relation of the concepts of the
forces and relations of production; the relation between the
development of material production and artistic production; the
necessary and contingent nature of historical development, etc.
The last point of the list is the following:
346
Rafael Echeverria
(8) The point of departure obviously from the natural characteristic; subjectively and objectively. Tribes, races, etc.
( G , 110)
It is undeniable that this point of departure does not refer either

t o the problem of the logic of investigation, which Marx had
considered to be resolved through abstract and general determinants, or to the initial object of study, which he defined as
capitalist production, and even less to the process of production
of the fundamental scientific categories which he had indicated as
emerging from the observation and conception of objective reality
in the more developed societies. He is dealing, therefore, with a
point of departure somewhat different from those mentioned
above. This is none other than the global object of study through
which Marx defines his theoretical activity: history. The themes
mentioned by Marx in this fourth section emphasise that his
ultimate concern was not limited to the explanation of capitalist
society, but t o the explanation of all historical development,
which through the necessity of starting from its most developed
stage, has its real point of departure in those natural characteristics
which relate t o the first tribes and races.
2.2 The 1857 Introduction and 1859 Preface
Considering what has been said above, it is not surprising that

when Marx perceived the deficiencies of the 1857 Introduction
and replaced it with the 1859 Preface, he decided t o present there
the basic conceptual s t w w e of his theory of history. His aim
was t o emphasise that his theoretical endeavour was not only restricted t o the particular results of a determinate historical stage.
These results represent only the completion of the initial stage of
a more ambitious project.
Although Marx replaced the Introduction with the Preface, the
content of the Preface was not the same as that of the Introduction. This leaves unresolved an important aspect in the relation
between the two texts. Having specified their negative relation
(the reason behind their replacement), it is still necessary t o
establish their positive relation, in which two different contents,
referring t o different problems, have both been considered as
alternative introductory texts through which the analysis of
capitalist production is situated.
It has been demonstrated that both texts fulfil the objective of
locating history as the final object of analysis, although they do so
in different ways. Curiously, although the Introduction was
written first, its contents presuppose those of the Preface. But, on
a closer consideration, this proves t o be reasonable. Marx's exposi-
347
tion in the Preface is not the result of conclusions he had reached

during that period, but of those of the 1840s. At that time, with
his break with Feuerbach, he came t o the position that history, its
different stages and developments, needed t o be understood
through an analysis of the forms of production, the specification
of. the nature of the diverse modes of production, and the contradictions developed within them. These refer t o the examination
of the relation between the forces of production and the relations
of production, also expressed as relations of property. The totality
of the structure of society and forms of consciousness are based
on and determined by the predominant mode of production. This
is the conclusion developed in the 1859 Preface.
Whilst the 1857 Introduction starts from this conclusion, stating
that material production constitutes the initial object of analysis,
it does not develop this argument. Its fourth and last section
brings together many of the problems generated from this premise,
problems which Marx examines and explains in the Preface. Therefore, this fourth section results from the absence of a sufficient
explanation in connection with the initial premise. This explanation is the theoretical core of the 1859 Preface.
By taking the primacy of production in history as a premise and
point of departure, the Irztroduction discusses other problems.
These refer t o the alternative method of analysis through which
material production can be studied. The Introduction is the first
text in which Marx formulates the problems of the logic of investigation, an issue which is not present in his earlier writings. The
German Ideology, for example, is not only deficient on account
of some important conceptual weaknesses (absence of the concepts of relations of production. and of private property of the
means of production1 O ), but also because of a logical disorientation. This work is based on the assumption that it is possible t o
adopt the approach of 'production in general' for the study of
history. The 1857 Introduction shows that this is mistaken. Its
importance as a text resides in the understanding of different
logical alternatives which are examined in order t o discard two of
them and t o accept a very determinate logic of investigation. Marx
argues that production cannot be conceived in general (the view
taken in The German Ideology), nor is it possible t o start the
analysis from the first stages of production. Capitalist production
must be taken as the first object of study and from there t o proceed t o the explanation of past historical periods. This is argued t o
be so since such an understanding provides the basic theoretical
structure necessary for the analysis of previous modes of production.
This shows that the synthesis provided in the Preface does not
348
Rafael Echeverria
represent Marx's complete position in relation t o the problems of

history as the final object of analysis. The contribution of the
1857 Introduction is not picked up in the Preface t o the extent
that, in this later work, the problem of the logical alternatives for
the study of history is absent. Only a combined examination of
both texts provides Marx's position on the problem of history as
his object of study. This also demonstrates that Marx was only
able t o fulfil the first stage of his final objective. His logical design
for the study of history was only completed for the stage of capitalist production and even restricted t o the level of development it
had reached at that time.
The partial fulfilment of Marx's global object of study does not
mean that his contribution should be reduced t o the analysis of
capitalist production. It also involves the bases from which other
historical stages should be studied. These bases result from the
combination of the conclusion synthesised in the 1859 Preface
with those of the 1857 Introduction on the logical foundations
for a global scientific explanation of history. Marx's contribution
t o the study of history is incomplete unless both texts are taken
into account. However, in order t o incorporate the contributions
made by the 1857 Introduction, its logical deficiencies must be
clearly located.
Engels correctly indicated the necessity of considering two
central discoveries in his account of Marx's theoretical work
(MESW, 370-74). First, 'a whole conception of the world history';
secondly,
the demonstration how, within present society and under the
existing capitalist mode of production, the exploitation of the
worker by the capitalist takes place.
Although these two dimensions of Marx's theory should be recognised, they are of quite different character. It is evident that if
Marx had achieved the first, the second would not have been
necessary, since it would have been assimilated within the 'whole
conception of history', from which it is a part. If it is valid t o
mention both, this is because the first was not actually fulfilled.
Marx having provided the bases from which it should be accomplished. Marx's conception of history does not constitute the
specific explanation of history. The latter is still t o be done.
What has been said also explains why Marx did not define himself as an economist. Although he appropriated many of the theoretical developments effected by political economy and considered
that he had resolved many of the problems this left unanswered,
Marx's object of study goes beyond the boundaries of economic
science. This is due t o the fact that when analysing capitalist
349
economy, this is only a restricted aspect of a broader concern

which extends t o the whole of capitalist society as well as
to other historical stages. This dimension of his theoretical undertaking enables Marx to recognise the historical and, therefore,
transitory nature of the capitalist relations of production. Unlike
political economy, Marx can recognise that previous societies are
based on specific historical forms which cannot be accounted for
as mere imperfections in relation to capitalist categories. In the
same way, he is able to assert the historical and unnatural character
of these later categories.
The recognition of the inadequacy in defining Marx as an economist has often produced an alternative procedure to account for
his theoretical contribution. Accepting that the definition of
economist is restricted, an attempt is made to supersede this restriction by adding new theoretical perspectives to it. Thus, Marx
is also depicted as being an historian, a sociologist, a philosopher,
etc. and when the list does not seem to exhaust the character of
his undertaking, he has even been described as a prophet.' However, this procedure is deficient in its partialisation of dimensions
inextricably related within his thought. Marx's essential difference
with the political economists is that of a difference of object. It is
because his object is history, that a multiplicity of dimensions
(which traditional social sciences tend to isolate as autonomous
disciplines) are incorporated within his conception.
The broadening of the object of study of political economy,
i.e. capitalist economy, in the posing of history as Marx's object,
is confirmed by his study of early societies, once he had finished
his analysis of capitalist production, as shown in his last manuscripts.
'
2.3 Problems o f the Introduction and their resolution
The project of logical sequence presented at the end of the third

section of the Introduction has been said to contain at least two
important failings later rectified by Marx. These are:
( 1 ) an inadequate resolution of the problem of the point of departure for his systematic exposition, and
(2) an inadequate logical relation between capital, wage labour
and landed property.
Marx's attempt t o resolve these two problems and the analysis of
his definitive solutions will now be examined.
It should be taken into account that when Marx finished the
Introduction in the middle of September, 1857 he did not begin
writing the projected work which this text was intended to introduce. A year intervened during which Marx wrote the Grundrisse,
350
Rafael Echeverria
a collection of manuscripts in which he resolved important theoretical problems. Marx never intended to publish these manuscripts, which do not represent a systematic exposition of his
positions, and amidst which can be found criticism, positive theoretical analysis and projects of his future work.
During this year Marx modified the original project of the Introduction. The first modification is found in the second notebook of
the Grundrisse, written in November, 1857. Marx wrote:
In this first section, where exchange values, money, prices are
looked at, commodities always appear as already present.
. . . The internal structure of production therefore forms the
second section; the concentration of the whole in the state in
the third;. . . ( G , 227)
continuing t o detail the already known project of the Introduction.

This was the first indication that Marx was again preoccupied with
the problem of the point of departure of exposition. In this period
Marx was moving towards the initiation of an analysis of the concept of value and recognised the presence of the commodity within its treatment. This position tends t o coincide with Ricardo's
starting point. It is later reiterated in the same notebook:
It is commodities (whether in their particular form, or in the
general form of money) which form the presupposition of
circulation; they are the realization of a definite labour time
and, as such, values; their presupposition, therefore, is both the
production of commodities by labour and their production as
exchange values. This is their point of departure, and through
its own motion it goes back into exchange-value - creating
production as its result. We have therefore reached the point of
departure again, production which posits, creates exchange
values; but this time, production which presupposes circulation
asa developed moment and which appears as a constant process,
which posits circulation and constantly returns from it into
itself in order t o posit it anew. ( G , 25 5)
Marx was aware that the explanation of capitalist production is
founded in the explanation of capital. In the Introduction he had
already recognised that the historical conditions which made
economic science possible are found in the practical character of
abstract labour, established by the capitalist relations of production. The result of these two conclusions is that in the Introduction Marx tended to assimilate ambiguously the problem of the
practical determination of economic thought within the problem
of the logic of investigation of the analysis of capitalist economy.
Nevertheless, Marx later proved these two problems to be distinct
Critiaue of Marx's 1857 Introduction
351
and showed that capital is not reached through the abstract concept of labour. He recognised that this was only possible through
value :
To develop the concept of capital it is necessary to begin not

with labour but with value, and precisely, with exchange value
in an already developed movement of circulation. It is just as
impossible to make the transition directly from labour to
capital as it is t o go from the different human races directly to
the banker, or from nature t o the steam engine. ( G , 259)
Although value is maintained as an adequate starting point, the
initial criterion of starting the analysis from abstract and general
definitions begins to show its weakness. Marx came t o the position
that not all of these, at least not labour in itself, could be the
necessary starting points that could lead t o the more concrete
concepts that he has to explain. The concept of the division of
labour suffered the same fate. Nevertheless, Marx continued t o
maintain the necessity of an abstract point of departure and when
he affirms the importance of value, despite the fact that the concept of commodity tends t o move in, it is still to value that Marx
is giving logical priority.
The decision t o abandon the possibility of a starting point based
on labour and his option for value entailed the transference of the
level at which analysis is initiated from production to circulation.
It also became necessary t o distinguish the problem of the order of
determination of the different moments which compose the economic totality from the problem of the logical order of the analysis
of that totality. Without denying that production is the determinant instance of circulation, exchange and distribution, the explanation of production requires an analysis that starts from the
level of circulation in order to return, once production is explained,
t o the sphere of circulation.
In that same notebook of the Grundrzsse, Marx returns to formulate new outlines of logical sequence in his work. ( G , 264 and
275). Both projects omit the problem of the point of departure,
starting with an extended breakdown of the analysis of capital and
its logical sequence. In the first of these projects, since the second
refers t o the particular structure for the analysis of capital without
extending t o later themes, Marx continues to maintain the need
for an independent analysis of the three elements on which the
social classes of capitalist society are based: capital itself, landed
property and wage labour. At this moment, however, the order of
consecutive treatment is no longer as proposed in the Introduction.
Landed property is located in second place and wage labour in the
last. The structure of extended analysis proposed for capital in-
352
Rafael Echeverria
dicated that it should be studied first as a general concept, next in

its particularities, and finally with the analysis of individual
capitals.
Marx introduces a new modification in his letter to Lassalle
dated 22nd February, 1858. This was the incorporation of the
first and most abstract section within the general concept of
capital.
The whole work is divided into six books.
(1) Capital (contains some introductory chapters).
(2) Landed property. (3) Wage Labour.
(4) The State. ( 5 ) International Trade.
( 6 ) World Market. ( MESC, 96)
This plan was described in more detail in a letter to Engels dated
2nd April of the same year. After reiterating what he had outlined
to Lassalle, Marx elaborated :
I. Capital contains four sections: (a) Capital in general (this is

the subject-matter o f the first part). (b) Competition . . .
(C) Credit . . . (d) Share Capital. . .
Marx continues to detail the first of these sections:
I. Capital. First section: Capital in general . . . ( 1 ) Value
(2) M o n e y . . . (3) Capital. (MESC, 97-101).
..
This illustrates Marx's extension of the scope of capital towards

the origins of his exposition, although it is not defined as the
chosen point of departure. Marx is still situating the concept of
value, as the starting term of his equation, within the bracket of
the general concept of capital. However, beyond the change in the
structure of his project, the letter to Engels reveals Marx's reappraisal of his original contention of the necessity of starting his
analysis from an abstraction:
The most abstract definitions, when more carefully examined,
always point to a further definite concrete basis (of course since they have been abstracted from it in this particular form)
(MESC,
99, our emphasis).
Although he recognises the problem of the relation between the
abstract and the concrete, the terms within which the problem is
located do not clearly distinguish the determination of the abstract
by the concrete from the logical order of these moments in the
sequence of the analysis.
In June, 1858, in the seventh notebook of the Grundrisse, Marx
wrote:
The first category in which bourgeois wealth presents itself is
353
that of the commodity. The commodity appears as the unity of

two aspects. I t is use value, i.e. object of the satisfaction of any
system whatever of human needs. This is its material side, which
the most disparate epochs of production may have in common,
and whose examination therefore lies beyond political economy.
. . . Now how does use value become transformed into commodity? Vehicle of exchange value. Although directly united in
the commodity, use value and exchange value just as directly
split apart. Not only does the exchange value not appear as
determined by the use value, but rather, furthermore, the commodity only becomes a commodity, only realizes itself as exchange value, in so far as its owner does not relate t o it as use
value. He appropriates use values only through their sale, their
exchange for other commodities. Appropriation through sale is
the fundamental form of the social system of production, of
which exchange value of the commodity is presupposed, not
for its owner, but rather for the society generally. ( G , 881-2)
Then Marx opens a bracket which he will not close because he
abandons the text. The Grundrisse end with the discovery of the
commodity as the point of departure for his systematic exposition.
The commodity became the first category in Marx's analysis, preceding value in the logic of exposition, this latter being expressed
by exchange value as 'the simplest and most abstract expression'.
Marx was now able t o initiate his projected work, returning t o it
between September and October of 1858, after two months of ill
health. He began t o write his A Contribution to the Critique of
Political Economy, published early in 1859. Both in this work and
later in Capital, in which the first is further elaborated, the commodity became the point of departure for his exposition.
The discovery of June, 1858 was communicated in a letter
written t o Engels on 29th December of that year:
. . . the first part has grown bigger, since the first two chapters,
of which the first: The Commodity, has not been written in
rough draft, and the second: Money or Simple Circulation, is
only in quite short outline; the first part has been argued more
elaborately than I originally intended.'
This was reiterated in Marx's letter t o Engels ( 13 th-15 t h January,
1859) and t o Weydemeyer (1st February).
The history of the resolution of the problem of the point of departure is not completed in 1858, since Marx introduced several
modifications after his affirmation of the commodity as the initial
term of his exposition. The first of these is located in the first
edition of the first volume of Capital of 1867. In 1872, in the
354
Rafael Echeverria
second German edition of the same volume, Marx again modified

the first part, which he always considered to be the most complex.
Therefore, in accordance with the order of investigation, the point
of departure of his exposition, and the treatment of its related
problems, were the last to attain resolution. Marx recognised this
displacement between the order of investigation and the order of
exposition in a letter t o Sigmund Schott in November, 1877:
Confidentially, I indeed began 'Capital' in exactly the opposite

sequence (beginning with the third and historical part) to which
it was shbmitted t o the public, only with the qualification that
the 1st volume, which was started last, was prepared for printing straight away whilst the others remained in the rough form
which all research has at the beginning. . . . l
The adoption of the commodity as the point of departure
presents various problems relating to its implications in the process
of theoretical production. Some of these will be dealt with later,
but at this stage it is necessary t o clarify that this point of departure (1) was reached after completion of the 1857 Introduction,
and (2) represented a marked change in Marx's previous position
with respect t o the initial term of his exposition.
The first statement has already been demonstrated here. With
reference t o the second it should be understood that the commodity as a point of departure rectifies the proposal that the
analysis should be based on abstract and general concepts. In his
exposition Marx considered the commodity as concrete. The
concrete nature of the commodity is clearly defined by Marx
when referring t o it in his systematic works. In the first lines of A
Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Marx points
out that the commodity:
in the language of the English economists, is 'any thing
necessary, useful or pleasant in life', an object of human wants,
a means of existence in the widest sense of term. ( C C P E , 27)
The first lines of Capital reiterate the same position:
A commodity is, in the first place, an object outside us, a thing
that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or
another. ( K , I, 43)
Marx clearly reiterates the concrete nature of the commodity as
a point of departure in the Notes on Adolph Wagner, written in
1879-80. The following are some of the passages in which this
concrete nature is affirmed:
neither 'value', nor 'exchange value' are my subjects, but the
commodity. ( N A W , 183)
355
According t o Herr Wagner, use value and exchange value are t o

be derived at once from the concept o f value, not as with me,
from a concretum (Konkretum), the commodity. . . .
(NAW,189)
In the first place I do not start out from 'concepts', and do not
have 'to divide' these in any way. What I start out from is the
simplest form in which the labour-product is presented in contemporary society, and this is the 'commodity'. I analyse it,
and right from the beginning, in the form in which it appears.
( N A W , 198)
. . . I d o not divide value into use-value and exchange value as
antitheses into which the abstraction 'value' splits, rather (I
divide) the concrete social form of the labour-product. (NAW ,
198)
. . . the 'commodity'
- the
simplest economic concretum. . . .
( N A W 199)
,
The commodity is concrete, but also a simple concrete. In distinction t o the position assumed in the Introduction, the identity
between the abstract and the simple is broken. However, this
invalidates the unity of the argument proposed in the Introduction
for the point of departure. Marx still asserts that concrete totality,
by being the concentration and unity of various determinations,
could not constitute the starting point of analysis. He still asserts
the need of abstraction t o effect the explanation of concrete
totality. However, it is not deduced from this that the point of
departure ought to be abstract. The same abstract concepts of
which science must make use need t o be sustained in the concrete
and derived from it. If concrete totality emerges, from the point
of view of scientific knowledge, from abstract determinations,
these in turn require concrete conditions from which they may be
extracted. Marx had previously understood that abstract concepts
are determined by concrete historical conditions. Up t o now, however, this had only been recognised from the point of view of the
practical determination of scientific categories. Now it was also
seen as a logical exigency of analysis. The global process of the
logic of exposition cannot be affirmed only on the recognition of
the concrete determination of the abstract concepts. It must reproduce this recognition in a specific logical sequence, sustaining
the abstract concepts in that concrete reality, which makes them
possible. Hegel, recognising this relation, inverted its terms and
attributed t o the concept derived from concrete reality the character of the historical and logical determinant instance. Such an
interpretation is based on the recognition that the process of
3 56
Rafael Echeverria
knowledge is capable of reproducing concrete reality within

thought. This is the inversion that Marx must reverse. To do this
it is not sufficient to affirm the independence of concrete reality
from the process which is able t o know it. Neither is it enough to
assert the determination of theoretical knowledge with respect to
concrete reality. It is necessary that the logic of thought should be
capable of expressing the priority of the concrete with respect t o
those variants of thought which do not find a direct reference in
reality. This logical priority is affirmed in a determinate sequence
between concrete and abstract concepts.'
The rectification introduced by Marx after 1857 does not entail
the adoption and return to the point of departure criticised in the
hypothetically constructed argument offered in the Introduction,
i.e. the population. As concrete reality, the population is expressive of a concrete totality and, as such, can only be the point of
termination for a theoretical process. Neither is it possible, however, to depart from abstract and general determinate which, as
Marx maintained in 1857, should belong t o every form of society.
The disjunction is no longer between concrete totality and
abstract generality. The commodity as a point of departure is a
concrete unit of a particular stage of production, i.e. capitalism.
As such, as an economic constituent of a particular society, it does
not belong to all forms of society. This does not mean that the
commodity is exclusive t o the capitalist mode of production and,
thus, nonexistent in previous modes of production, but, as Marx
himself argues in the Introduction with reference t o money, in
these less developed modes of production the commodity has not
attained its full development (intensive and extensive) and did not
represent the basic unit of production in these societies. This particular character of the commodity is recognised by Marx in the
opening sentence of Capital :
The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of
production prevails, presents itself as 'an immense accumulation
of commodities', its unit being a single commodity. Our investigation must therefore begin with the analysis of a commodity.
( K , 1,43)
The point of departure is therefore the concrete economic unit of
a particular mode of production. It is the simple and particular
concrete expression (in opposition t o the concrete totality) of a
particular phase (in opposition t o belonging t o all forms of society).
It is also in this sense that the 1859 Preface, in rectification of the
Introduction, establishes the need t o ascend from the particular to
the general, from the concrete unit t o the concrete totality, via the
necessary course of abstraction.
357
Surprisingly, the delayed resolution of the problem of the point

of departure has remained unnoticed in the analyses of Marx's
thought. Jindrich Zeleny, who offers an interesting study of the
logical structure of Capital, points out:
Throughout all the changes of plan for his work Marx maintains
the solution made in the first years of his economic studies, that
is, that the secret of the capitalist production of commodities is
contained in the identification of the commodity as a specifically economic form.'
This position results from the failure to recognise the problematic
nature of the Introduction and the later rectification made by Marx
of the solutions offered there. Hence, whilst Zeleny is obliged t o
recognise the concrete nature of the commodity, he confuses this
aspect with its capacity to take on an abstract dimension. This is
expressed as follows :
In the intellectual reproduction of a complex reality rich in

determination Marx does not depart from the analysis of
concrete abstractions, but from another simple reality which,
from the point of view of everything later developed, is abstract.
With this reduction of the concrete t o the abstract Zeleny accepts
the flawed formulation of the Introduction in the sense that Marx
effects 'an elevation from the abstract to the concrete'.16 With
this, the previous important recognition that the commodity is
concrete, is completely dissolved.
For Marx, objects of knowledge of social reality are objects constituted by social practice. It is their capacity to embody and express determinate social relations that defines the objects of
Marxist analysis. Commodity, money, capital, etc., are not thingsin-themselves, but practically constituted objects. Commodity is
not a mere thing with an external existence which can be perceived
in itself or apprehended as the result of simple and direct observation (apart from being perception and observation, one of the different possible ways of sensible apprehension). The form of commodity is given by determinate social relations of exchange which
constitute determinate things into commodities. The same can be
said in connection with capital, which Marx defines not only as
the expression of material elements, but also as a social relation.
This is the nature of the social objects. It is within this framework
that Marx introduces his distinction between the concrete and the
abstract. While the concrete alludes t o real objects constituted by
social practice, the abstract refers to objects which, not being alien
to that practice and in that sense being real, are only recognised
3 58
Rafael Echeverria
through scientific practice. The distinction between the concrete

and the abstract is correlative with the terms spontaneous consciousness and science. The bearers of spontaneous consciousness
are the individuals, not as indeterminate subjects, but as agents of
a determinate practice. Abstraction is defined as an adequate recourse of the knowledge of the real, first in its capacity to be derived from the objects constituted by social practice and directly
expressed in the consciousness generated by such practice. Second,
in its capacity to reproduce the concrete in thought, to explain its
actual movements, which the spontaneous consciousness cannot
account for. However, one of the main features of the Marxist
concept of the abstract is the assertion that abstraction, as an
operation of scientific practice, produces abstract concepts or
again abstractions, this time as the results of such operation, which
have a problematic relationship with the concrete (and its correlative, the spontaneous consciousness). It is this problematic distance
between the appearance of the movement of social practice and its
essence which justifies the necessity of scientific practice.
It is important to distinguish this theory of abstraction from the
concepts of abstraction used by empiricist philosophy. Asserting
observations as the basic recourse to establish the validity of the
supposed scientific results, empiricism oscillates between two
different concepts of abstraction. On the one hand, following
Hume's position, abstraction is negated as a recourse for knowledge; on the other, developing Locke's standpoint, every concept
is defined as abstract, different layers of abstraction being postulated according t o the corresponding levels of generalisation of the
concepts with regard to what is directly observed. In Marx's case,
the process of scientific knowledge is considered to have some
break points within itself, some concepts cannot be accounted for
by means of an alleged generalisation, and the categories of the
concrete and the abstract express such discontinuities.17
It could be argued that, despite the fact that Marx considered
the commodity as a concrete point of departure, this could not be
so. This criticism could be made from different positions. One of
them consists of arguing that Marx could not start with a real and
concrete commodity but, of necessity, with the concept of the
commodity in that the concept is distinct from that which it
designates and cannot be considered as concrete. Apparently Marx
did not deny the distinction between the concept and that which
it designated, but this distinction can only be established as an
impugnative weapon in the sense that it expresses a problem of
knowledge which accounts for a problematic distance between the
concept and the 'thing-in-itself'. This problematic distance, affirmed
in principle, represents the essence of Kant's philosophy and is one
359
of the expressions of his philosophical dualism. This is completely

alien to Marx's position. Without denying the possibility of a
problematic distance between determinate concepts and reality,
Marx rejects the assertion of a problem in principle and asserts the
full capacity of thought to apprehend reality. The distance between
thought and reality can be resolved first theoretically and then
practically. The problem of the truth of knowledge held no sense
whatsoever for Marx as a problem prior and independent to the
act of knowing itself. It is on this basis that the distinction may be
made between concrete and abstract concepts. These do not refer
to the problem of truth. The distinction is made within the process
of true knowledge. Whilst the first refer to a direct apprehension
of immediate reality, the second alludes to a necessary recourse of
knowledge in problematic relation to concrete and immediate
reality; but the process of knowledge itself confers validity upon
them and reveals the manner in which concrete reality confirms
them. In this sense, they represent a necessary supersession of the
immediate, of appearances, yet denote the essence of this same
reality. Without them, not only would immediate reality be inadequately known, but the scientific endeavour itself would remain unjustified.
The importance of having a concrete point of departure, in
Marx's terms, is given as a way of initiating the analysis from the
firmest possible base. If, as Wagner suggested,18 Marx had started
from the abstract concept of value, all his subsequent theoretical
development would have remained subject to the discussion of
such an initial concept. This seems to explain Marx's concern to
oppose Wagner's interpretation and to emphasise the concrete
character of his starting point. The abstract concept of value that
Marx undoubtedly uses, finds its basis in the analysis of concrete
reality from which it has been derived. This is an important position
in Marx's logic of investigation. If this were not the case, science
becomes inevitably suspended in mid-air, as Marx was to criticise
in Ricardo. Rectifying the logical project proposed in the 1857
Introduction, Marx simultaneously breaks with the logical design
followed by classical economy, which appeared to be vindicated in
that text.
Having affirmed the concrete character of his point of departure,
it is necessary to pose the problem of the transition from that concrete to the abstract. This again brings us his discovery of commodity as an adequate starting point. It is important to examine
the way this was accomplished. Marx does not proceed with the
application of certain methodological criteria capable of indicating
that the commodity is an adequate starting point. Conscious of
the fact that this concrete is necessary, the particular resolution of
360
Rafael Echeverria
the problem and, therefore, the choice of the commodity is

affirmed in the nature of the object, for which it must serve as the
starting point of analysis. If the commodity is shown to be
adequate, this is due to the fact that, being concrete, it is able to
extend to basic abstract categories, through which the movement
of capitalist production can be theoretically reconstructed. Thus,
the methodological justification of this point of departure rests in
its particular capacity to allow a necessary opening from the concrtte to the abstract, given a determinate object of study.
This itself, representing the principal theoretical advantage of
the commodity, is simultaneously the reason for multiple difficulties, although the commodity is concrete, and was chosen for
precisely this reason, at the same time it proves to be abstract,
thus confirming it as the correct choice. The simultaneously
abstract and concrete nature of the commodity is one of the most
important aspects of what Marx calls 'the fetishism of commodities'. The importance of its discovery is that, through its
concrete nature, the commodity leads to the abstract concepts
necessary to explain capitalist production.19
As has been pointed out, Marx examines in the final paragraph
of the Grundrisse, the two aspects of the commodity (use value
and exchange value) and concludes precisely that it could attain
the level of abstraction to the extent that 'exchange value appears
as the simplest, most abstract expression'. The concept of exchange
value refers to the concept of value and this to the concept of
abstract labour. With this Marx shows that the two aspects of the
commodity are in correspondence, respectively, with concrete
labour and abstract labour, enabling the strict theoretical correspondence between value and labour, the equivalence between both
terms, in which not only value, but also labour is considered as an
abstract concept. There is an explanation to this relation between
value and abstract social labour just after the beginning of the
analysis of the commodity in the first pages of A Contribution to
the Critique of Political Economy (pp. 30-1). The possibility of
this transition from concrete to abstract presented by his chosen
starting point leads Marx to maintain that:
A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and
easily understood. Its analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very
queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties. (K, I, 76)
This had also previously led him to state that a commodity is 'a
concrete and at the same time an abstract thing' (CCPE. 42).
Despite the difficulties imposed by this problem, which have
been treated in detail elsewhere,20 Marx considered that it con-
36 1
tained one of his most important scientific accomplishments. In a

letter to Engels dated 22nd June, 1867 he wrote:
the simplest commodity form, in which its value is not yet expressed as a relation to all other commodities but only as something differentiated from the natural form of the commodity
itself contains the whole secret of the money form and with it,
in embryo, of all the bourgeois forms of the product of l'zbour.
(MESC, 177)
On 24th August of that same year Marx commented to Engels:
The best poincs in my book are: (1) the two-fold character of
labour, according to whether it is expressed in use value or exchange value. (All understanding of facts depends upon this). It
is emphasised immediately, in thefirst chapter; (2) . . .
(MESC, 180)
In a letter to Engels of 8th January, 1868 Marx indicated:
. . . the three fundamentally new elements of the book: (1) . . .
(2) That the economists, without exception, have missed
the simple point that if the commodity has a double character

- use value and exchange value - then the labour represented
by the commodity must also have a two-fold character, while
the mere analysis of labour as such, as in Smith, Ricardo, etc.,
is bound to come up everywhere against inexplicable problems.
This is, in fact, the whole secret of the critical conception.
( 3 ) . . . (MESC, 186)
These explanations clearly demonstrate the profound alternation made by Marx to the point of departure of his systematic exposition given in the 1857 Introduction. The next problem to be
examined refers to the logical order proposed for the treatment of
capital, wage labour and landed property. In this respect, it has
already been shown that between the end of 1857 and the beginning of 1858 Marx located the first section of the project proposed
in the Introduction within the analysis of capital. During this
period, however, Marx still maintained the necessity of treating
capital and then wage labour and landed property independently,
although this inverted the order of the last two terms proposed in
the Introduction.
It is known that Marx's approach to the analysis of these three
categories in Capital was substantially diffeient from that which
he had proposed in the 1850's. In this work, as its title suggests,
the analysis of wage labour and landed property are effected as an
integral part of his global analysis of capital and, therefore, within
it. The analysis of capital, in consequence, not only comprehends
362
Rafael Echeverria
the introductory section proposed in 1857, but is also identified

with the complete analysis of capitalist production.
It is difficult to ascertain the exact moment in which Marx
identified the general analysis of capital with that of capitalist production as a whole and the particular reasons which brought about
this change. R o ~ d o l s k yl, ~who examined this problem - drawing
also on the interpretations of H. Grosmann and F. Behrens - dated
the modification between 1865-66, also indicating that Mai-Xhad
begun to show a movement in the direction of this change in his
letter to Engels of 15th August, 1863. However, even Rosdolsky
had doubts on the interpretation of this letter, since it only expresses Marx's awareness that he had made a profound alteration
writing Capital. This change could refer as much to the results of
political economy as to his original plan of work. If it referred to
the latter, it would not necessarily affect the logical sequence in
the treatment of the three categories mentioned. It is also known
that at this point other important modifications were introduced
with respect to the original project.
In all events, by 1866 Marx had already decided to concede
capital the totalising character conferred upon it in Capital. Marx
stated his definitive structure in a letter to Kugelman dated 13th
October of that year.
The whole work is divided as follows:
Book I. The Production Process of Capital.
Book 11. Circulation Process of Capital.
Book 111. Form of the Process as a Whole.
Book IV. Contribution to the History of Economic Theory.
(Vygodski, 1974, p. 119.)
Although it is neither possible to ascertain the time of this
modification, nor to be precise about Marx's particular reasons for
effecting it, its character may be evaluated. There is basic agreement here with Grossman, who noted that, whereas in 1857 the
project adopted a more empirical, and thus vulgar perspective, to
the extent that it was largely influenced by the expressions of
immediate reality, conferring upon its forms an independent
nature, the later project demonstrates a greater distance with respect to phenomena, with the domination of an essential dimension which results in the totalising nature of the analysis of capital.
It should also be recognised that this is consistent with the direction registered in the transformation of Marx's concept of science,
particularly after the re-appropriation of Hegel in 1858.
The necessary analysis of capital causes Marx to treat within it
wage labour and landed property. This is so because there can be
no fully developed capital without wage labour, and because
capital determines the specific nature of landed property in capita-
Critiaue of Marx's 1857 Introduction
363
list society. Marx realised that capital constitutes a social relation

which must consider wage labour as one aspect of its own character.
Unless the specific form of appropriation and subjection of labour
by the objective conditions of production in the capital form is
considered, the concept of capital itself cannot be adequately disentangled. Moreover, this relation expresses within it the distinction between constant and variable capital. This discovery is central
t o Marx's contribution. Behrens is correct when he indicates that
the first 1857 plan is developed from exterior viewpoints, in
accordance with previous economic tradition. This was also clearly
expressed in relation t o other aspects in the Introduction. Although
Rosdolsky's analysis is interesting, his principal deficiency lies in
his failure t o consider, even after having posed the problem, the
debatable and problematic nature of the 1857 I n t r o d u c t i ~ n . ~ ~
3. Method of investigation and method of exposition

In this attempt t o examine the problematic aspects of the 1857
Introduction, it has also been found that the existing order of the
resolution of theoretical problems does not correspond with the
order presented in Capital. For example, the resolution of the
problem of the point of departure was arrived at after the theoretical resolution of the character of surplus value, which constitutes the central theoretical nucleus of Marx's conception of
capitalist production. Whereas the first was only resolved at the
end of Grundrisse, the second was already developed within this
text. However, form the point of view of the exposition, it is
evident that the analysis of the commodity should be treated first.
These displacements in the sequence of discoveries with respect t o
the logical order in which they should be placed, is manifest in
various other problems and forced Marx's recognition of the differences between the order of investigation and the order of exposition. This recognition, absent in the 1857 Introduction, clearly
emerged, as was foreseeable, in A Contribution t o the Critique of
Political Economy, expressed as follows:
. . . the historical progress of all sciences leads only through a

multitude of contradictory moves t o the real point of departure. Science, unlike other architects, builds not only castles
in the air, but may construct separate habitable storeys of the
building before laying the foundation stone. (CCPE, 57)
The full significance of this assertion is made clear by Marx's
arduous progression towards the resolution of the problem of the
point of departure for his exposition.
Based on his own theoretical research towards the explanation
364
Rafael Echeverria
of capitalist production, Marx asserts that the order of the effective process of investigation did not necessarily correspond to the
logical order demanded by these results. The movement of investigation is not equivalent to the logic of investigation. The latter
needs to be constituted at a later stage, after disposing of its components. Marx recognised this in 1873 :
Of course the method of presentation must differ in form from
that of inquiry. The latter has to appropriate the material in
detail, to analyse its different forms of development, to trace
out their inner connexions. Only after this work is done, can
the actual movement be adequately described. (K, I, 28)
Therefore, the adequate logic of investigation of a determinate

object of study is only realised at a later stage of the investigation
and must express itself in the logic of exposition. It follows that
the logic of exposition is the perfected and superior expression of
the logic of the whole investigation.
Ilienkov is correct when he indicates:
the 'process of exposition' in Capital is only the rectified process
o f investigation, not arbitrarily but in a strict correspondence to
the exigiencies of the laws dictated by the process of investigation itself. But, in another way, the process of exposition is
purged, in this case, of all accesory moments: it responds
rigorously to the objective laws of investigation. (Ilienkov,
1971, p. 57.)
Althusser adopts the same position when he states:
The 'mode of investigation' is Marx's several years long concrete
investigation into the existing documents and the facts they
witness to: this investigation followed paths which disappear in
their result, the knowledge of its object, the capitalist mode of
production. The protocols of Marx's investigation are contained
in part in his notebooks. But in Capital we find something quite
different from the complex and varied procedures, the 'trials
and errors' that every investigation contains and which express
the peculiar logic of the process of the inventor's discovery at
the level of his theoretical practice. In Capital we find a systematic presentation, an apodictic arrangement of the concepts in
the form of that type of demonstrational discourse that Marx
calls analysis. (Althusser and Balibar, 1975, p. 50.)
Despite the emphasis which both Ilienkov and Althusser place on
the 'dispensation of accessory moments' or the 'paths which disappear', and therefore, the suppression of certain previously developed elements, and their cursory reference to the changes of
order of the results obtained, they both rightly recognise that
365
Marx's logic of exposition constitutes the superior expression of

his logic of investigation. The analysis is only rightly constituted
through this rectified logic, giving consistency to each result and
producing a smooth emergence of each new category. Without this
last order, the analysis would be deficient.
In this way, Marx's distinction between the method of exposition and the method of investigation does not represent an obstacle
to the deciphering of his logic of investigation on the basis of the
exposition of Capital, i.e. the path proposed by Lenin. The conditions have now been given for the avoidance of a mistaken reading
of Capital based on the deficiencies of the 1857 Introduction.
Notes
1.
In Hook (1971) p. 61.
2.
See Lenin (1973) p. 361.
In Althusser and Balibar (1975) p. 86.
3.
4.
Cf. for instance Lukdcs (1971) pp. 5-15; Hook (1971) p. 63; Althusser
and Balibar (1975) pp. 40-56; Colletti (1973) pp. 113-38; Mandel (1975)
p. 14; Vygodski ((1974) p. 121; Della Volpe (1969) pp. 190-99; Kosik
(1967) p. 48; Zeleny (1974) p. 55); Ilienkov (1971) pp. 33f; Rosdolsky
(1976) pp. 54-7; Henry (1976) pp. 435-79; Luporini (1971) and (1975)
pp. 300-1; Rovatti (1973) pp. 101-20; Carver (1975); Cutler, Hindess, Hirst
and Hussain (1977) pp. 107-24.
5.
The importance of Marx's second appropriation of Hegel in 1857-58
has been discussed in my doctoral thesis (1978) Ch. 3.
6.
An analysis of the logic of Capital has been developed in Echeverria
(1978) Ch. 5. The conclusions there drawn are complemented by my study of
the methodological criticism of political economy that Marx develops in
Theories o f Surplus Value in Ch. 6.
7.
By 'antithetical definition of production' Marx understands production as different from the moment of distribution, exchange and consumption, as contrasted with a more general concept of production that embraces
all these moments. It is the primacy given t o this first definition of production that enables a transition to be made t o the concept of production as a
totality.
This point has been discussed in Echeverria (1978) Ch. 7.4.
8.
SeeHege1(1975)p.29.
9.
10. See Echeverria (1978) Ch. 3.2.1.
11. See Schumpeter (1962).
12. Carver (1975) p. 32.
13. Vygodski (1974) pp. 118-9.
14. Echeverria (1978) Ch. 7.4.
15. Zeleny (1974) p. 55.
16. Zeleny ibid.
17. See Echeverria (1978) Ch. 5.3.1, 5.3.3, and Ch. 7.4.
18. See Notes o n Wagner pp. 183,189, 198.
19. See Echeverria (1978) Ch. 5.3.1.
Rafael Echeverria
20. Echeverria ibid.

21. Rosdolsky (1976) pp. 5 1-4.
22. Rosdolsky, when dealing with the logical sequence of Marx's project
in t h e 1857 I n t r o d u c t i o n , is led t o ask: should one not conclude that there is
a certain lack of consequence o r failure of methodological maturity in the
original plan? His answer is in the negative (1976) p. 57.
References
Althusser, L. and Balibar, E. (1975)
Reading Capital. London: New Left Books.
Carver, T. (1975) Karl Marx: Texts on
Method. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Colletti, L. (1973) Marxism and Hegel.
London: New Left Books.
Cutler, A., Hindess, B., Hirst, P. Q., and
Hussain, A. (1977) Marx's Capital and
Capitalism Today Vol. I. Routledge and
Kegan Paul: London.
Della Volpe, G. (1969) Logica come
scienza storica. Rome: Editori Riuniti.
Echeverria, R. (1978) Marx's Concept of
Science. University of London, PhD thesis
(unpublished).
Hegel, G. W. F. (1975) Hegel's Logic.
London: Oxford University Press.
Henry, M. (1976) Marx Vol. I. Paris:
Gallimard.
Hook, S. (1971) From Hegel t o Marx.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press.
Ilienkov, E. (1971) 'La dialtctica de 10
abstract0 y 10 concreto en "El capital"
de Marx'; Communicacibn 9 ,
Problemas actuales de la dialictica,
Madrid: Alberto Corazbn.
Kosik, K. (1967) Dialectica de 10 concreto. Mexico: Grijalbo.
Lenin, V. I. (1973) 'Philosophical Notebookc' in H. Selsam. H. Martel (eds.)

Reader in Marxist Philosophy. New York:
International Publishers.
Luporini, C. (1971) 'El circulo concretoabstracto-concreto'; Comrnunicacion 9 ,
Problemas actuales de la dialectica. Madrid:
Alberto Corazbn.
Luporini, C. (1975) 'Reality and Historicity: Economy and Dialectics in
Marxism'; Economy and Society Vol. 4
nos. 2 and 3.
Lukacs, G. (197 1) History and Class Consciousness. London: Merlin Press.
Mandel, E. (1975) Late Capitalism.
London: New Left Books.
Rosdolsky, R. (1976) La genese du
Capital' chez Karl Marx. Paris: Maspero.
Rovatti, P. A. (1973) Critica e scientificita in Marx. Milan: Feltrinelli.
Schumpeter, J. (1962) Capitalism,
Socialism and Democracy. New York:
Harper Torchbooks.
Vygodski, V. S. (1974) The S t o y of a
Great Discovery. Tunbridge Wells: Abacus
Press.
Zeleny, J. (1974) La estructura ldgica de
'El Capital' de Marx. Barcelona: Grijalbo.
Abbreviations:
The following abbreviations are used throughout this work:
- Karl Marx, Grundrisse, Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy,
G
Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1973.
CCPE - A Contribution t o t e Crrtrque of'Politica1 Economy, London, Lawrence
& Wishart, 1971.
K,I
Capital, Vol. 1, London, Lawrence & Wishart, 1974.
K,II
- Capital, Vol. 2 , London, Lawrence & Wishart, 1971.
- 'Notes on Adolph Wagner', in T. Carver, Karl Marx: Texts on Method,
NAW
Oxford. Basil Blackwell. 1975.
MESW - Karl ~ H r x& ~rederick Engels, Selected Works (one volume), London,
Lawrence & Wishart, 1968.
MESC - Selected Correspondence, Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1975.

Critique of Marx S 1857 Introduction Rafael Echeverria

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Critique of Marx's 1857 Introduction

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Economy and Society V o l 7 No 4 November 1978

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1 . Definition of the problem

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2. Critique of the 1857 Introduction

Critique of Marx's 1857 Introduction

I am omitting a general introduction which I had jotted down

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2.1. Analysis o f the Introduction

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is accepted, it means that while Marx posited material production

. . . all epochs of production have certain common traits,

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Critique of Marx's 1857 Introduction

merely avoid repetitions. It should be pointed out that the concept

of the general concept of production, from which they derive

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Critique of Marx's 1857 Introduction

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i.e. the politico-economic analysis of a determinate country, he

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A close examination of Marx's argument is necessary. First, it

Critique of Marx's 1857 Introduction

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ment. As concrete, it is differentiated within itself; but by

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in the necessity t o move 'from the particular t o the general', Marx

Critique of Marx's 1857 Introduction

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simple and abstract categories in an apparent identification of the

also allows insights into the structure and the relations of

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Once Marx has decided with respect to the options opened in

. . . nothing seems more natural than to begin with ground

Critique of Marx's 1857 introduction

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(1) the general, abstract determination which obtain in more or

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It is undeniable that this point of departure does not refer either

Considering what has been said above, it is not surprising that

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Critique of Marx's 1857 Introduction

tion in the Preface is not the result of conclusions he had reached

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represent Marx's complete position in relation t o the problems of

Critique of Marx's 1857 Introduction

economy, this is only a restricted aspect of a broader concern

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2.3 Problems o f the Introduction and their resolution

The project of logical sequence presented at the end of the third

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continuing t o detail the already known project of the Introduction.

Critiaue of Marx's 1857 Introduction

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To develop the concept of capital it is necessary to begin not