The Return to Marx – and thereby to Hegel
This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume II, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.
The Rediscovery of Capital
The student movement reads Marx—not as dogma, but as critique. Capital in particular becomes required reading: how does capitalism function? Why are there crises? How does exploitation arise?[1]
But to understand Marx, one must understand Hegel. Marx’s method—critique of political economy—is dialectical: the categories (commodity, money, capital) develop out of one another, each containing contradictions that drive it toward the next. This is Hegel’s method, turned materialist.[2]
Reading aids: Roman Rosdolsky’s The Making of Marx’s ‘Capital’ (1968) shows: Marx follows Hegel’s logic—being, essence, concept correspond to commodity, money, capital. The dialectic is not “turned upside down” but applied to concrete relations.[3]
Hans-Georg Backhaus and Helmut Reichelt (Frankfurt School) develop the New Reading of Marx: Marx is not an economist but a critic of economics. His categories are not empirical descriptions but form-analysis—they show how capitalist society thinks, not how it “really” is.[4]
The consequence: Hegel becomes unavoidable. Whoever wants to understand Marx must read Hegel. But which Hegel? The systematician (the Logic)? The philosopher of history (teleology)? The social philosopher (ethical life)? The movement fragments—different groups read different Hegels.
On the Marx renaissance see Iring Fetscher: Karl Marx und der Marxismus (1967). ↩︎
On the Marx-Hegel connection see Jindřich Zelený: Die Wissenschaftslogik bei Marx und ‘Das Kapital’ (1968). ↩︎
Roman Rosdolsky: The Making of Marx’s ‘Capital’ (1968). ↩︎
Hans-Georg Backhaus: Dialektik der Wertform (1997, but essays from 1969 on); Helmut Reichelt: Zur logischen Struktur des Kapitalbegriffs bei Karl Marx (1970). ↩︎