12-21-05, 9:05 am
Bertell Ollman’s recent book Dance of the Dialectic is a magnificent manual on the Marxist method for understanding the nature of class society, capitalism and social relations. If the accomplishments of this book could be summarized in a single statement, it would be that Ollman successfully presents Marx’s thought as a coherent unity by systematically explaining the apparent difficulties, contradictions, and various emphases in his work that have long puzzled, perplexed and even divided Marxist thinkers.
For example, Marxists have long fought (often bitterly) over the influence of Hegelian philosophy in Marx’s work. Some say that Hegel is a dominant influence and the source responsible for the best elements in Marx’s thought. Others deny this and insist that Marx ultimately rejected Hegelian dialectics and idealism, consequently discarding apparently abstract concepts such as historicism, humanism and alienation in favor of rigorous 'science.' Ollman notes that this debate among 'structuralists' and humanists, who have both made equally valuable contributions to an understanding of Marx, resulted from different 'vantage points,' 'levels of abstraction' and 'generalities.'
Ollman’s major point is that Marxist thinkers who do engage in these kinds of debate usually ignore an important feature of Marx’s work: his movement from different levels of abstraction and generality, depending on the particular investigation or focus of emphasis he is engaged in. Ollman’s book painstakingly (hence the subtitle) elaborates on and describes the various critical and analytical tools Marx employs at different points in his investigations.
Ollman charts a systematized Marxism that is capable of encompassing the different points of view, emphasis of thought, and analytical tools of the descendants of Marx, who appear to be at odds with each other or even with Marx himself. All that is missing in Ollman’s book is an easy-to-use diagram with a visual representation of this system.
The following example illustrates Ollman’s approach. There are four aspects of dialectics that Marx uses: identity, contradiction, quantity/quality, and interpenetration of opposites. On the surface, the basic meanings of these terms are different, even contradictory. Yet all are claimed to be essential in the framework of Marx’s critical method.
If a Marxist thinker employs one set of terms (at the expense of the others) to explain a particular social (or natural) phenomenon, the results may appear to differ from or even contradict the results of another thinker who employs a separate aspect of dialectics to explain that same phenomenon. This leads to debilitating in-fighting, sharp-tongued accusations that so-and-so 'isn’t a true Marxist' or such-and-such a trend of thought is 'revisionist,' and precludes bridge-building and serious engagement. In the end, we often talk past one another without sympathetically addressing our differences, using agreed upon terminology, or making an effort to understand the particular emphasis or focus the other side is attempting.
For example, famous debates over the role of the state in Marxist theory have contributed to key but apparently competing ideas: the state as a tool of the ruling class and the state as an autonomous regulatory mechanism for capitalism. In Ollman’s view, both theories have correct features, but each depends on the viewpoint of its proponents and the specific features of capitalism that have been used to form the theory.
Another important controversy has emerged over the question of determinism, such as the role of the economic aspects of life in determining the superstructure (ideas, laws, religion, etc.), as compared to the role of human agency in history. Here, too, both perspectives are important for an understanding of the nature of capitalism and class struggle, but they are formulated according to separate sets of analytical criteria.
Likewise, to touch on one last example, is it the falling rate of profit or the difficulties in realizing value that spark economic crisis? Both perspectives have validity, but both require different conceptual tools and vantage points found in Marxist thought.
In each of these examples, the levels of abstraction, generalities and vantage points 'are complementary and all are required,' says Ollman, 'in order to ‘reflect’ the double movement [history and process] of the capitalist mode of production.'
Bourgeois ideology, warns Ollman, distorts the ability to provide a full picture of capitalism by emphasizing narrow views of human experience. It effectively presents social life under capitalism as natural and ahistorical. It mystifies experience by allowing us to grasp only a small slice of reality at a time. Rarely, indeed, does it ever lie outright; in fact, ideology often 'feels' true. Sometimes it is created by the willful effort of the capitalist class; at other times it emerges as a result of alienated life under capitalist society. But, to be sure, Marxists have a special responsibility not to play into it by following its lead and limiting their representations of reality to partialities.
The Communist movement should benefit from this book, because Ollman presents the possibility of developing a rigorously comprehensive and coherent Marxism that encompasses different levels of thinking about human experience. Ollman is asking us not to narrowly reject different conclusions arrived at by means we do not advocate, but to expand the horizon of our thinking. Ollman’s instructions may be regarded as a corrective for sectarianism and an incentive to work out a fuller theoretical basis for practical action. Such an approach might encourage people who are confused by bourgeois ideology or just by limited thinking, to take better, more advanced, and even revolutionary positions.
Ollman offers the example of Critical Realism, a recent philosophical standpoint – with no relation to the literary trend of the mid-20th century – that combines the best parts of postmodern theory and positivism (both generally regarded by Marxist to be ideological) with a dialectical method, to fashion a critical tool that, while its proponents insist that it is non-Marxist, operates in a manner close to it. Ollman isn’t afraid to examine Critical Realism sympathetically, extracting what he sees as beneficial and highlighting key similarities between Marxist thought and Critical Realist thought. It is a confident, non-sectarian gesture that Marxism, recovering from serious setbacks in recent years, is strong enough to make.
In conclusion, this book will sharpen and deepen one’s understanding of the method Marx used to analyze capitalism, how it works, and where it is heading.
--Contact Vicki I. Linton at pa-letters@politicalaffairs.net.
