Tan Yong: Examination and Reflection on the Genetic Origin of Sohn-Rethel's "Historical Materialism" from the Perspective of Marxism
Historical materialism occupies a position of paramount importance within Marxist philosophy, and the fervor with which scholars at home and abroad study it has never waned. In the view of Habermas, on the one hand, the theory of communicative action is connected to the foundations of historical materialism; on the other hand, wherever historical materialism involves evolutionary theory, it encounters "problems that need to be considered using communicative theory." Consequently, he attempted to use communicative theory to "reconstruct" historical materialism, insisting that "communicative theory can contribute to a renewed historical materialism." The German philosopher Sohn-Rethel was likewise committed to exploring historical materialism. He once claimed to have "discovered the guiding principle of historical materialism" and spent his life elucidating it, the results of which are primarily embodied in his work Intellectual and Manual Labour: A Critique of Epistemology (hereafter referred to as Intellectual and Manual Labour). Sohn-Rethel's "new" understanding of historical materialism lies primarily in "linking Marx's historical materialism with the question of 'origins' in a genetic sense." That is to say, by searching for the historical materialist origins of objects such as rational knowledge, reification, and the subject, Sohn-Rethel attempted to explain the genetic origins of historical materialism at a micro-level. Theodor Adorno summarized Sohn-Rethel's theoretical inquiry into historical materialism with the proposition that "historical materialism is the remembrance of origins." How, then, should we understand the interpretation of historical materialism made by Sohn-Rethel and Adorno on the basis of linking it to the question of "origins" in a genetic sense? Where do the rationality and limitations of such an understanding of historical materialism lie? This article will answer the first question through a detailed examination of Sohn-Rethel's investigation into the historical materialist origins of rational knowledge and reification. Simultaneously, it will answer the second question based on Marx's analysis in Capital regarding the historical materialist origins of the money-form.
I. Sohn-Rethel’s Investigation into the Historical Materialist Origins of Rational Knowledge
The investigation into the historical materialist origins of rational knowledge is, in a certain sense, one of the core contents explored by Sohn-Rethel in Intellectual and Manual Labour. It is through this theoretical exploration that Sohn-Rethel attempted to link historical materialism with "origins" in a genetic sense, thereby enabling Adorno to propose the thesis that "historical materialism is the remembrance of origins." Furthermore, Sohn-Rethel claimed that although Marx accurately judged that human consciousness arises from human social practice, he "did not establish a materialist view regarding scientific knowledge." This view is clearly incorrect.
Sohn-Rethel’s investigation into the historical materialist origins of rational knowledge was, in fact, an attempt to further explain at a micro-level an important thesis of Marx's historical materialism: namely, that social existence determines consciousness. Therefore, this article’s analysis of the proposition "historical materialism is the remembrance of origins" begins with this theoretical exploration of Sohn-Rethel. Sohn-Rethel pointed out critically that although Kant had already asked questions such as "how is pure mathematics possible" and "how is pure natural science possible" in an attempt to lay a foundation for the origins of rational knowledge, for Kant, the "original question of the real origin [of rational knowledge] became distorted into the execution of a purely immanent analysis of 'our cognitive faculty'." One could consider Kant's investigation into the origins of rational knowledge to be apriorist and non-historical materialist. Thus, Sohn-Rethel criticized Kant for merely "proving the self-established autonomy of intellectual labor." He remained dedicated to a critical reckoning with the apriorism represented by Kant, believing that "a critical refutation of apriorism must be a refutation of the idealist position at the heart of the arguments for apriorism."
Sohn-Rethel praised Marx for "from the very beginning conceiving the time that controls the origin and change of forms as historical time, the time of natural history, or the time of human history," yet he believed it was necessary to provide a further explanation of the historical materialist origins from a micro-level. The difficulty of the problem lies in elucidating exactly how people's rational knowledge, rational thinking, and established concepts emerge step-by-step from social practice. Sohn-Rethel answered this question through the following two steps.
First, Sohn-Rethel proposed a concept of "real abstraction" (Realabstraktion) that is distinct from thought abstraction. He noted: "In order to properly understand the work Marx did in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, as far as the phenomenon of commodity abstraction or value abstraction revealed in the analysis of commodities is concerned, its aforementioned characteristics must be judged as a kind of real abstraction." As for real abstraction, although it "exists only in human thought, it nonetheless does not originate from thought. It is directly of a social nature, and its origin exists in the spatio-temporal sphere of exchange between persons. It is not people, but the actions of people—the reciprocal actions between people—that produce this abstraction." We need to perform a two-point analysis of this discourse by Sohn-Rethel: 1. A distinction can be made between two kinds of abstraction—thought abstraction and real abstraction. That which originates from thought itself is thought abstraction, while that which originates from the actions of people or the reciprocal actions between people is real abstraction. 2. Although real abstraction also exists in human thought, its primary source is not thought, but social practice. Perhaps elucidating real abstraction in this way remains somewhat abstract; however, we can further grasp it with the help of the typical representative of real abstraction: commodity abstraction. According to Sohn-Rethel, commodity abstraction is a typical real abstraction; "it is not created by thinkers; its origin is not in human thought, but in human action." Commodity abstraction actually refers to the abstraction of the commodity-form—that is to say, the commodity-form is abstract, and "abstractness envelops it entirely." In fact, the commodity-form is a composite of the natural form and the value-form. It is precisely the value-form that makes the commodity-form abstract; in Marx’s words, "not an atom of matter enters into the objectivity of commodities as values." The natural form of a commodity means that the commodity itself is first a sensible, graspable thing, while the value-form of a commodity means it is an embodiment of an abstract human social relation. Furthermore, the magnitude of value involved in the commodity-form is also an abstract quantity opposed to the commodity as a quantity of natural matter. Moreover, the magnitude of a commodity's value is, in the final analysis, determined by the abstract human labor congealed within it. Therefore, the commodity is abstract. The key to the problem is that commodity abstraction—this typical real abstraction—is not an abstraction that people first grasp in thought and then put into practice; rather, it originates directly from people's social practical activities. Regarding this, Marx pointed out: "When they bring the products of their labour into relation with each other as values, it is not because they see these objects merely as the material receptacles of homogenous human labour. Quite the contrary: whenever, by an exchange, we equate as values our different products, by that very act, we also equate, as human labour, the different kinds of labour expended upon them. They are not aware of this, but they do it." From this, it is evident that the formation of commodity abstraction (i.e., real abstraction) proceeds as follows: first, it is produced within people's exchange activities, which is to say, within their concrete practical activities; second, the production of this abstraction is something people are unaware of—it is completed in a state of unconsciousness. This proves that so-called commodity abstraction or real abstraction indeed does not emerge directly from people's thinking; it is therefore an abstraction distinct from thought abstraction. Thus, Sohn-Rethel judged real abstraction to be an abstraction different from thought abstraction and believed it to be directly produced by human actions and the reciprocal activities between people.
Next, after proposing the concept of real abstraction, Sohn-Rethel further proved that real abstraction can transition into thought abstraction and thereby influence human thinking. Sohn-Rethel recognized that not all thought abstractions come from real abstraction, but he also recognized that some thought abstractions must originate from real abstraction. However, how exactly does real abstraction transition into thought abstraction? Prior to Sohn-Rethel, no one had investigated this question. In Sohn-Rethel's view, "there is a serious deficiency in the transformation of social real abstraction into thought abstraction: for the thinker, the concept as a result is and remains inconceivable because they lack access to its origin." This discourse implies that people have not yet successfully established the connection between thought abstraction and real abstraction—that is to say, they have failed to find the historical materialist origin for thought abstraction. Therefore, Sohn-Rethel sought to elucidate "in what manner real abstraction transitions into thought, and what role it plays in thought." Sohn-Rethel identified the answer to the problem in money. In his view, the reason money can become the key for the transition from real abstraction to thought abstraction lies in the following three points: First, money itself is a special commodity. In Marx's words, "money is itself a commodity, an external object capable of becoming the private property of any individual." Thus, commodity abstraction applies equally to money; that is to say, money is also abstract and is a kind of real abstraction. Second, it is precisely this real abstraction of money that can bring about "socio-synthetic" results even when people stay entirely ignorant of what it is. Meditated by this abstract object of money, an abstract social network formed beneath people's consciousness envelops them. Consequently, people's production, life, and thinking activities are all carried out under the influence of this abstract network. Therefore, Sohn-Rethel asserted that "the social function of money, through its formal determinacy, created the thinking that Hegel called 'metaphysical' thinking." It can be seen that money itself represents real abstraction, and it is precisely able to realize social synthesis and form a universal abstract network, thereby influencing human thinking. Thus, money is indeed the key to the transition from real abstraction to thought abstraction. Third, in Sohn-Rethel's view, the theoretical subject—that is, the thinking subject—"emerges from the identification that humans perform with the help of money." In this way, Sohn-Rethel also linked the theoretical subject with money, which is equivalent to saying that the subject’s thought abstraction is directly influenced by the real abstraction of money. Thus, through money and its social synthetic function, Sohn-Rethel elucidated the manner in which real abstraction transitions toward thought abstraction.
In summary, Sohn-Rethel explored the historical materialist origins of rational knowledge through two steps (first, posing the concept of real abstraction; second, elucidating the manner of transition from real abstraction to thought abstraction through money and its social synthetic function), locating the origin of rational knowledge in human social existence and practice. Therefore, by investigating the historical materialist origins of rational knowledge, Sohn-Rethel attempted to link historical materialism with "origins" in a genetic sense at a concrete and micro-level, thereby making the "historical materialism" he understood into a "historical materialism" that performs a remembrance of the origin of a given object.
II. Sohn-Rethel's Inquiry into the Historical Materialist Origins of Reification
Sohn-Rethel linked historical materialism with "origins" in a genetic sense and attempted to make a new elucidation of historical materialism. The realization of this goal was completed not only through the investigation into the historical materialist origins of rational knowledge, but also with the help of an investigation into the historical materialist origins of reification and subjectivity. Sohn-Rethel specifically arranged a section in Intellectual and Manual Labour to explore the origin of reification, taking as his point of departure the claim that "the historical origin of reification (Verdinglichung) is exploitation." We can analyze this by answering two questions: First, what is the meaning of reification as understood by Sohn-Rethel? Second, through what kind of argument does Sohn-Rethel elucidate that reification originates in exploitation?
Regarding the meaning of reification, Sohn-Rethel argued: "Reification issues from the root of exploitation. In this root, identity, thing-form (Dingform), and determinate being (Dasein) have their historical, human, and practical origins." This discourse demonstrates that the reification understood by Sohn-Rethel contains three levels of content.
The first dimension is identity. This layer of reification’s connotation is present in the works of Marx, Lukács, and Adorno; it essentially means that humans, who possess rich thought and individual independence, become highly identical individuals akin to cloned robots. For example, when discussing "Machinery and Modern Industry" in Capital, Marx pointed out the reification that the capitalist application of machinery brings to workers—namely, that rather than liberating the worker from labor, the machine robs the labor of all content, and a dead mechanism exists independently of the worker, who is incorporated into it as a living appendage. It is evident that Marx believed the reification of identity occurring within the worker means that in capitalist society, due to the large-scale use of machinery, workers become appendages to great machines. Their rich personality, spiritual freedom, and other human characteristics are destroyed, and they are degraded into identical "things" serving localized machinery. The concept of reification proposed by Lukács, following Marx's elucidation of alienation, also contains this level of meaning. He pointed out that workers must confront individual machines, entrepreneurs must confront specific types of mechanical development, and technicians must confront the state of science and the profitability of its technical application in such a way that the differences between them mean only quantitative differences, rather than direct qualitative differences in the structure of consciousness. Here, Lukács emphasized not only the reification of workers in capitalist society but also that of entrepreneurs and technicians. Because the "reified structure sinks deeper, more fatefully, and more decisively into human consciousness," they become identical "persons"—possessing only quantitative differences without qualitative differences in their conscious structures.
The second dimension is the thing-form. This level of reification means that human characteristics and social relations take on the form of things. Regarding this meaning of reification, Marx pointed out that some things are not commodities in themselves, such as conscience or honor, but can be sold by their possessors for money and, through their price, acquire the commodity form. This discourse clearly demonstrates that Marx had already observed that human characteristics in capitalist society—including conscience and honor—take on the form of things. Furthermore, Marx pointed out that the social relations of the private labor of producers appear to them as what they are: as material relations between persons and social relations between things. Clearly, Marx simultaneously observed here that the social relations between people in capitalist society also take on the form of things.
The third dimension is Dasein (determinate being) [10]. Sohn-Rethel stated that Dasein is the negation of the historical origin of reification. It is not difficult to discover that the reification expressed by Dasein refers to regarding a certain object as a constant existence, thereby ignoring the historical origin of that object. In fact, Marx also discussed this level of reified connotation. In the Communist Manifesto, when criticizing the bourgeoisie, Marx said that their selfish misconception causes them to transform their relations of production and property relations from historical relations, transitory in the process of production, into eternal laws of nature and reason. This discourse precisely demonstrates the reification of bourgeois consciousness—that is, the bourgeoisie regards the capitalist mode of production and its property relations as eternal, as a kind of Dasein. Therefore, the reification understood by Sohn-Rethel and that understood by Marx possess certain similarities, though the two also differ.
How, exactly, does Sohn-Rethel argue that reification originates in exploitation? In fact, we can already grasp from Marx’s critique of the reification existing in capitalist society that the production of reification is closely related to developed commodity production and its specific mode of production—or rather, its mode of exploitation. To say that Marx emphasized developed commodity production as one of the preconditions for the emergence of reification is because, when discussing reification in Capital, Marx explicitly pointed out that the splitting of the product of labor into a useful thing and a value-thing only actually occurs when exchange has already become sufficiently extensive and important. What is referred to here as the "splitting of the product of labor into a useful thing and a value-thing" actually refers to the transformation of the product of labor into a commodity, because commodities possess the dual attributes of use-value and exchange-value, and this transformation can only be completed when exchange is sufficiently extensive and important. Only when this splitting of the product of labor is complete can the social relations of people be gradually replaced or masked by material relations and relations between commodities, which is precisely the basis for the emergence of reification. Therefore, from this dimension, it is not without reason that Marx believed the emergence of reification is highly correlated with developed commodity production. Of course, for Marx, the emergence of reification was also closely related to the specific capitalist mode of production; we will not discuss this at length here, but rather follow the first condition pointed out by Marx for the emergence of reification to further analyze how Sohn-Rethel locates the origin of reification in exploitation.
In fact, Sohn-Rethel acknowledged that the emergence of reification summarized by Marx is highly correlated with developed commodity production. In his words, "developed commodity exchange is related to reification—which is characterized by identity, the thing-form, and Dasein." However, he simultaneously believed that before the means of subsistence could be exchanged as values—that is, before commodity exchange could become a form of social intercourse—exploitation must have already arisen. Commodity exchange developed out of exploitation, not the other way around. Here, we see that Sohn-Rethel believed "commodity exchange developed out of exploitation." In Sohn-Rethel's view, there is no problem with the argument that reification arises from developed commodity production, but the origin of developed commodity production itself is exploitation. Thus, he believed the historical materialist origin of reification should be exploitation. Sohn-Rethel further pointed out that reification is the result of the split in identity between the human right to produce and the right to consume, and this split occurs due to exploitation. To better understand this discourse, we need to know that the stage corresponding to the "identity of the human right to produce and consume" not being separated is the primitive community without exploitation. This community is a human group linked by blood ties that obtains means of subsistence only from its own labor. In Sohn-Rethel's view, only in this community are the "human rights of production and consumption" truly identical; here there is no exploitation and no reification. Once this true identity is broken, reification follows. Clearly, Sohn-Rethel believed that exploitation breaks this identity: reification can be explained by the fact that when the connection between production and consumption necessary for life is no longer linked within the identity of these people, then it must seek its link in the identity of these things—in other words, in commodities. The cause of this destruction is exploitation. In short, Sohn-Rethel believed that exploitation destroyed the "identity of human production and consumption," and once this identity was destroyed, people had to rely on the "thing" of the commodity to achieve a "new" connection, at which point reification emerged.
Taken together, Sohn-Rethel identified the origin of reification as exploitation. It must be clear that his understanding, especially regarding the question of which factor—commodity production or exploitation—determines the other, deviates from Marx’s elucidation and contains misunderstandings. Here, this article's examination of Sohn-Rethel’s analysis of the historical materialist origin of reification merely intends to show that Sohn-Rethel attempted, at a micro-level, to link historical materialism with "origin" in a genetic sense, thereby attempting to expand the understanding of historical materialism.
III. Marx's Analysis of the Historical Materialist Origin of the Money-Form
Is the understanding of historical materialism that Sohn-Rethel produced by linking it with "origin" in the genetic sense entirely unrelated to Marx's historical materialism? The answer is no. In fact, Marx applied the method of historical materialism to trace the origins of the money-form, primitive accumulation of capital, fetishism, and so on. That is to say, Marx indeed linked historical materialism with the question of "origin." This is based on the following four reasons: first, since its emergence, money has always occupied an exceptionally important position in human society; second, in the current world, money remains an important bond connecting relations between people; third, with the development of money into virtual currency, the mysteries surrounding money have become increasingly complex, thereby affecting people's perception and grasp of it; fourth, Marx explicitly pointed out that his revelation of the origin of the money-form was something bourgeois economists had never done. Accordingly, we can find that at a micro-level, the historical materialism understood by Sohn-Rethel and Marx's historical materialism are, in a certain sense, correlated.
Marx conducted a detailed analysis of the origin of the money-form in Capital. In the section "The Value-Form or Exchange-Value," Marx pointed out that commodities possess a common value-form, namely the money-form, which stands in stark contrast to the motley natural forms of their use-values. However, here we shall do something that bourgeois political economy has never even attempted: namely, to point out the origin of this money-form—that is, to trace the development of the expression of value contained in the value-relation of commodities from its simplest, most inconspicuous form to the dazzling money-form. In this way, the mystery of money will vanish along with it. From this discourse, we can grasp the following three points. First, Marx clearly stated here his intention to specify the origin of the money-form. Considering that by the time of writing Capital Marx had already mastered the method of historical materialism, his analysis of the origin of the money-form was naturally situated upon a historical materialist foundation. Thus, from this level, Marx's tracing of the origin of the money-form exactly demonstrates that his understanding of historical materialism possesses a dimension of "recollection" regarding the origin of an object. Second, tracing the origin of the money-form is something bourgeois economics never intended to do; therefore, this is also an unexplored territory. Third, in Marx's view, as the origin of the money-form is revealed, the mysterious nature of money is solved. Thus, properly revealing the historical materialist origin of the money-form is of great significance.
Marx once stated that once the origin of money is understood to lie in the commodity itself, the main difficulty in the analysis of money is overcome. The key question is: how exactly does the money-form develop from the commodity itself? Regarding this, Marx provided a detailed elucidation through four forms of value. The first is the most original form of value—namely, the "simple, individual, or accidental form of value," whose more graphic expression is "x amount of commodity A = y amount of commodity B." In Marx's view, the analysis of this simple form of value is the most difficult because the secret of all value-forms is hidden within it. In fact, the reason why understanding this simple form of value is difficult is that it is accompanied by the following questions: first, what meaning does each of the commodities on either side of the value equation represent? Second, by what means can an equal sign be drawn between two commodities with completely different functions and properties? Third, is the quantitative proportion of exchange between two commodities accidental, or does it have its corresponding laws?
To accurately grasp the simple form of value, Marx provided detailed answers to these three questions. Regarding the first question, Marx argued that the commodity on the left side of the equation...
Commodity A occupies the relative form of value, expressing its value in terms of another, while Commodity B, on the right side of the equation, occupies the equivalent form, serving as the equivalent. In Marx’s view, "the relative form of value and the equivalent form are two inseparable moments, which belong to and condition each other... but at the same time they are mutually exclusive or opposed extremes, i.e., poles of the same expression of value; they are always distributed between different commodities that the expression of value brings into relation with one another." Because Commodity A and Commodity B occupy the relative and equivalent forms respectively, the roles they play are distinct. That is to say, in this form of value, the value of Commodity A is reflected by Commodity B; in Marx's words, "the physical body of commodity B becomes a mirror for the value of commodity A." Regarding the second question, the answer Marx provides is that the human labor congealed in the commodities constitutes the basis upon which the equation "x amount of commodity A = y amount of commodity B" holds true. In other words, two different commodities can be regarded as equal precisely because they both contain human labor. Regarding the third question, Marx points out that the quantitative proportion of exchange between two different commodities is not accidental, but is determined by the socially necessary labor time expended upon them. Simultaneously, Marx notes that the necessary labor time required to produce a commodity changes with "every variation in the productive forces." Therefore, the quantitative proportion of exchange between two different commodities is not fixed—and it is precisely this point that has created difficulties for many economists in studying the value of commodities.
"Historical materialism highlights the foundational, processual, and conditional nature of production (material production)." After elaborating on the simple form of value in detail, Marx moves to the analysis of the second form of value: the "total or expanded form of value." The expanded form of value is not complex; in fact, compared to the simple form of value, it differs only in that the commodity in the position of the relative form of value remains fixed, while the commodities in the position of the equivalent form constantly change. To express this more figuratively: "x amount of commodity A = y amount of commodity B, or = z amount of commodity C, or = m amount of commodity D, or = n amount of commodity E..." Subsequently, Marx transitions from the second form of value to the analysis of the third: the general form of value. In fact, the general form of value can be seen as a reversal of the expanded form; this is because, in direct contrast to the expanded form, within the general form of value, the commodities in the relative form position constantly change, while the commodity in the equivalent form position remains fixed. Furthermore, in the general form of value, the commodity occupying the equivalent form position "acquires the character of a universal equivalent." Finally, Marx discusses the transition from the third form of value to the fourth: the money form. The only difference between the money form and the general form of value is that the universal commodity occupying the equivalent position in the general form is replaced by a specific commodity such as gold or silver. In Marx’s words, the only progress of the money form relative to the general form of value is that "the form of direct general exchangeability, or the general equivalent form, has now by social custom become finally identified with the specific natural form of the commodity gold."
In summary, via these four forms of value—the simple, the expanded, the general, and the money form—Marx precisely delineates the mode of transition from the commodity form to the money form, thereby concluding that "the simple commodity form is the germ of the money form." In doing so, Marx successfully reveals the origin of the money form. Since Marx had already fully mastered the method of historical materialism by the time he wrote Capital, his analysis of the origin of the money form proves that the historical materialism he understood indeed possesses a dimension of "recollection" [12] regarding the origin of a given object. Therefore, in this sense, the "historical materialism as the recollection of origins" studied by Sohn-Rethel and summarized by Adorno maintains a certain correlation with the historical materialism elucidated by Marx.
IV. Conclusion
Marx once said: "Human anatomy contains a key to the anatomy of the monkey." This statement demonstrates that Marx had long recognized the difficulty of grasping certain questions of "origins." It is a consensus that humans evolved from apes; our grasp of the anatomy of the monkey—that is, our grasp of the biological origins of man—can be aided by human anatomy itself. Thus, Marx had in fact already attended to the connection between historical materialism and "origins" in the genetic sense [13]. Consequently, Sohn-Rethel’s attempt to link historical materialism with the question of "origins" at a micro-level—by examining the historical materialist origins of objects such as rational knowledge and reification, thereby understanding historical materialism as "historical materialism as the recollection of origins"—offers a certain degree of reference value for understanding historical materialism. However, because Sohn-Rethel's understanding of historical materialism focuses too heavily on its micro-foundations and overemphasizes the dimension of the "recollection of origins" while neglecting the grand vision and rich connotations of historical materialism, it remains fundamentally distinct from the historical materialism elucidated by Marx. We must maintain a clear understanding of this distinction.