Abstract

Neither of the two most common approaches to the interpretation of Capital adequately address the question of what a critique of political economy is. When Capital is interpreted as a treatise of political economy, the distinction between political economy and its critique is suppressed and the question of what it means to critique political economy is bypassed. When Capital is taken to be based upon some presupposed philosophical doctrine, the question of what this text is itself supposed to accomplish is usually ignored. With the assistance of Theodor Adorno's concept of dialectical philosophy, I argue that Capital is a critique of political economy insofar as it is a model of dialectical philosophy. In light of Adorno's reflections on materialist dialectics, I then evaluate Capital by questioning whether its dialectic is consistent with materialism. The first two chapters concern dialectical philosophy and materialism. I present an interpretation of dialectical philosophy on which it is a philosophical practice. This practice subjects taken-for-granted aspects of thought and action to immanent critique. The latter is a form of criticism that assesses its subject matter by testing its coherence. The second chapter presents Adorno's materialist refunctioning of Hegel's idealist dialectic. I show that materialism requires a number of modifications to dialectical practice. The result of this refunctioning is what Adorno calls negative dialectics. Chapters three and four show that Marx's critique of political economy fits the description of a model of dialectical philosophy offered in the first chapter. I first show that Marx's early attempt to critique political economy, the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, is already a model of dialectical philosophy, and then do the same for Capital. The concluding chapter focuses on the way in which categories of political economy are introduced and developed within Capital. Marx's later critique appears to rely upon a principle which Adorno calls positive negation. But according to Adorno, this is an idealistic principle upon which a materialist dialectic cannot rely. I complete this chapter by determining whether the development of the categories in the dialectic of Capital can be saved from the charge of latent idealism.