> Well, Marx analyzed capitalism at a very high level of abstraction:
> His
> aim, after all, was to identify those features of ccapitalism which
> would characterize _any_ particular form it might assume. Hence, as
> Robert Albritton among others has pointed out, the understanding of
> any
> particular capitalist society involves what Albritton called "Middle
> Theory."
Marx means by "abstraction" the treatment of particular "internal relations" as sufficiently stable to allow them, for some analytical purposes, to be taken as "given". It's possible to "abstract" from such relations, i.e. ignore the possibility of changes in them.
This idea of "abstraction" is found in Grundrisse text on "The Method of Political Economy" and in the following text from Engels's Socialism: Utopian and Scientific elaborating "dialectics" in terms of the particular conception of "internal relations" that allows for such "abstraction".
"When we consider and reflect upon Nature at large, or the history of mankind, or our own intellectual activity, at first we see the picture of an endless entanglement of relations and reactions, permutations and combinations, in which nothing remains what, where and as it was, but everything moves, changes, comes into being and passes away. We see, therefore, at first the picture as a whole, with its individual parts still more or less kept in the background; we observe the movements, transitions, connections, rather than the things that move, combine, and are connected. This primitive, naive but intrinsically correct conception of the world is that of ancient Greek philosophy, and was first clearly formulated by Heraclitus: everything is and is not, for everything is fluid, is constantly changing, constantly coming into being and passing away.[A]
"But this conception, correctly as it expresses the general character of the picture of appearances as a whole, does not suffice to explain the details of which this picture is made up, and so long as we do not understand these, we have not a clear idea of the whole picture. In order to understand these details, we must detach them from their natural, special causes, effects, etc. This is, primarily, the task of natural science and historical research: branches of science which the Greek of classical times, on very good grounds, relegated to a subordinate position, because they had first of all to collect materials for these sciences to work upon. A certain amount of natural and historical material must be collected before there can be any critical analysis, comparison, and arrangement in classes, orders, and species. The foundations of the exact natural sciences were, therefore, first worked out by the Greeks of the Alexandrian period [B], and later on, in the Middle Ages, by the Arabs. Real natural science dates from the second half of the 15th century, and thence onward it had advanced with constantly increasing rapidity. The analysis of Nature into its individual parts, the grouping of the different natural processes and objects in definite classes, the study of the internal anatomy of organized bodies in their manifold forms — these were the fundamental conditions of the gigantic strides in our knowledge of Nature that have been made during the last 400 years. But this method of work has also left us as legacy the habit of observing natural objects and processes in isolation, apart from their connection with the vast whole; of observing them in repose, not in motion; as constraints, not as essentially variables; in their death, not in their life. And when this way of looking at things was transferred by Bacon and Locke from natural science to philosophy, it begot the narrow, metaphysical mode of thought peculiar to the last century." <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch02.htm>
Axiomatic deductive reasoning and the idea of "abstraction" associated with it - i.e. the idea of "logic" and "abstraction" Carrol and others such as Albritton attribute to Marx's treatment of "the logic of Capital" - are, however, unable to represent those aspects of a "process" to which "internal relations" remain relevant.
Marx claims the developmental consequences of the capitalist labour "process" are such aspects. He applies to this process what Hegel calls "the higher dialectic of the conception" which "does not merely apprehend any phase as a limit and opposite, but produces out of this negative a positive content and result."
"the higher dialectic of the conception does not merely apprehend any phase as a limit and opposite, but produces out of this negative a positive content and result. Only by such a course is there development and inherent progress. Hence this dialectic is not the external agency of subjective thinking, but the private soul of the content, which unfolds its branches and fruit organically. Thought regards this development of the idea and of the peculiar activity of the reason of the idea as only subjective, but is on its side unable to make any addition. To consider anything rationally is not to bring reason to it from the outside, and work it up in this way, but to count it as itself reasonable. Here it is spirit in its freedom, the summit of self-conscious reason, which gives itself actuality, and produces itself as the existing world. The business of science is simply to bring the specific work of the reason, which is in the thing, to consciousness." <http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/pr/printrod.htm>
According to Marx, the "internal relations" constitutive of the capitalist labour "process" give "the greatest impulse at once to the productive forces of social labour and to the integral development of every individual producer." This is their "positive content and result."
This has implications for the project set out in Michael's intro.
Understanding the consequences of the capitalist labour process for wage labourers - the impulse it gives "to the integral development of every individual producer" - requires "the higher dialectic of the conception", a "higher dialectic" that reveals its "positive content and result" as produced "out of this negative" (which both the young and mature Marx understand in terms of the concept of "alienation"/"self-estrangement").
For the negative aspect, both Hegel and Marx sublate Smith. In particular, they sublate the following account from the Wealth of Nations of the effect of "the progress of the division of labour" on "the far greater part of those who live by labour".
"V.1.178
"In the progress of the division of labour, the employment of the far greater part of those who live by labour, that is, of the great body of the people, comes to be confined to a few very simple operations, frequently to one or two. But the understandings of the greater part of men are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become. The torpor of his mind renders him not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of forming any just judgment concerning many even of the ordinary duties of private life. Of the great and extensive interests of his country he is altogether incapable of judging, and unless very particular pains have been taken to render him otherwise, he is equally incapable of defending his country in war. The uniformity of his stationary life naturally corrupts the courage of his mind, and makes him regard with abhorrence the irregular, uncertain, and adventurous life of a soldier. It corrupts even the activity of his body, and renders him incapable of exerting his strength with vigour and perseverance in any other employment than that to which he has been bred. His dexterity at his own particular trade seems, in this manner, to be acquired at the expence of his intellectual, social, and martial virtues. But in every improved and civilized society this is the state into which the labouring poor, that is, the great body of the people, must necessarily fall, unless government takes some pains to prevent it.
"V.1.179
"It is otherwise in the barbarous societies, as they are commonly called, of hunters, of shepherds, and even of husbandmen in that rude state of husbandry which precedes the improvement of manufactures and the extension of foreign commerce. In such societies the varied occupations of every man oblige every man to exert his capacity and to invent expedients for removing difficulties which are continually occurring. Invention is kept alive, and the mind is not*134 suffered to fall into that drowsy stupidity which, in a civilized society, seems to benumb the understanding of almost all the inferior ranks of people. In those barbarous societies, as they are called, every man, it has already been observed, is a warrior. Every man, too, is in some measure a statesman, and can form a tolerable judgment concerning the interest of the society and the conduct of those who govern it. How far their chiefs are good judges in peace, or good leaders in war, is obvious to the observation of almost every single man among them. In such a society, indeed, no man can well acquire that improved and refined understanding which a few men sometimes possess in a more civilized state. Though in a rude society there is a good deal of variety in the occupations of every individual, there is not a great deal in those of the whole society. Every man does, or is capable of doing, almost every thing which any other man does, or is capable of doing. Every man has a considerable degree of knowledge, ingenuity, and invention: but scarce any man has a great degree. The degree, however, which is commonly possessed, is generally sufficient for conducting the whole simple business of the society. In a civilized state, on the contrary, though there is little variety in the occupations of the greater part of individuals, there is an almost infinite variety in those of the whole society. These varied occupations present an almost infinite variety of objects to the contemplation of those few, who, being attached to no particular occupation themselves, have leisure and inclination to examine the occupations of other people. The contemplation of so great a variety of objects necessarily exercises their minds in endless comparisons and combinations, and renders their understandings, in an extraordinary degree, both acute and comprehensive. Unless those few, however, happen to be placed in some very particular situations, their great abilities, though honourable to themselves, may contribute very little to the good government or happiness of their society. Notwithstanding the great abilities of those few, all the nobler parts of the human character may be, in a great measure, obliterated and extinguished in the great body of the people." <http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN20.html#V.1.178>
Alfred Marshall, as I pointed out recently, grasped this aspect of Hegel and Marx, though his application of "the higher dialectic of the conception" to the capitalist labour process differs radically from Marx's, involving as it does the development of "economic chivalry" on the part of capitalists and the consequent possibility of a slow evolutionary development of the "higher abilities" of the "working classes" so that "the functions of the employer pass from him one by one". (Marshall, Industry and Trade, pp. 658-660)
Ted