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Marx's Conception of Dialectical Contradiction in Commodity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2019

Arash Abazari
Arash Abazari*
Affiliation:
Sharif University of Technology Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM), Tehran, Iranarash.abazari@gmail.com
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Abstract

In this paper, I clarify the structure of dialectical contradiction in Marx in order to show how it is influenced by Hegel. To this aim, I focus on the only place where Marx systematically develops the concept of dialectical contradiction, namely, in his analysis of commodity in the first chapter of Capital. Here Marx claims that the commodity is the contradictory unity of use-value and exchange-value. To make this claim intelligible, I first discuss Hegel's conception of ‘the thing’ [Das Ding] in the Science of Logic and demonstrate how for Hegel ‘the thing’ is the contradictory unity of matter and form. With this Hegelian machinery, then, I turn to Marx to show how use-value and exchange-value constitute the matter and the form of commodity, and argue how they contradict each other.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hegel Bulletin , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , August 2021 , pp. 180 - 200
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Copyright
Copyright © The Hegel Society of Great Britain 2019

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