Kommentar zu Hegel und Marx, Chapter 18
Form and Substance
At this point a distinction is necessary, without which one cannot speak of Marx’s Hegelianism.
At the level of form, Marx is a Hegelian, without qualification. The development from the commodity to capital follows the structure of the logic of essence: essence must appear and cannot appear immediately (developed in [[kleine-logik:5]] through [[kleine-logik:8]], optional). Value first appears inadequately, then in an external shape as money, and finally in its own form as self-valorizing value. The circuits of the second volume form a system of syllogisms. The analysis of the fetish applies this structure to consciousness: what appears as a property of things is a social relation — the same movement by which Hegel dissolves sense-certainty.
At the level of substance — the question of what value consists of — the case is different. Marx’s thesis that abstract human labor is the sole source of value was contested already in his own time and has remained so. The problem shows up in his own work. The presentation of the first volume is self-contained as long as one disregards the competition among many capitals. Once the third volume brings competition into view, Marx has to concede that prices are not governed by the substance of value, and the relation between the two becomes a question he does not resolve. It remains unresolved to this day.
The distinction makes it possible to appreciate the methodological achievement without adopting the substantive theses. The analysis of form — that behind apparent immediacy lies a social mediation — remains valid. What that mediation consists in can be determined otherwise than through a substance of value. Part V returns to this; it is worked out in [[kapitalismus-einfuehrung:6]], where exchange value is developed out of the cost items as positions of appropriation, in [[kapitalismus-einfuehrung:10]] on the question of where the surplus comes from, and in [[kapitalismus-einfuehrung:10a]], where it is decided what follows from renouncing the substance.