#backhaus

When we say that a moment of conceptuality [Begrifflichkeit] lies in the object, this should not be taken to mean that society is based on something conceptual [auf etwas Begrifflichem]. One cannot arrive at relationships of exchange without a moment of conceptuality. It is a process of abstraction, which relates the same with the same to the same. Otherwise, irrationality would reign in society. It is the moment of calculatory equation which has founded the difference between bourgeois society and feudalism. Even if a single human being [Mensch] had not had the idea of this absolute exchange, there would objectively still be a process of abstraction in the objective reduction to the same, a process of abstraction which amounts to the objectivity of the conceptual moment, regardless of whether human beings [Menschen] reflect on it or not. On the contrary, the greater the power/violence [Gewalt] of this conceptual moment, the less it is thought by human beings but lies within the object itself. Therefore, the concept is the object itself and not the subjective unity of features [Merkmalseinheit] of the object comprehended under it.

Entrepreneurs strive for absolute surplus-value — but not because they are bad people. Psychology is as alien to Marx as it is to Hegel. Marx’s theory of ‘character mask’ contains the concept of role [Rollenbegriff]. Only that it is here derived from objective conditions; the role is imposed on the subject by the structure.

Is it really the case that the concept is something the knowing subject adds to the material, or is there something like a concept in the object with which we are dealing? I here raise the central problem. Our answer on this issue distinguishes our Frankfurt School from all other traditions of sociology. Exchange itself is a process of abstraction. Whether human beings [die Menschen] know it or not, by entering into a relationship of exchange and reducing different use-values to labour-value they actualise a real conceptual operation socially. This is the objectivity of the concept in practice. It shows that conceptuality lies not only in the minds of the philosophers but also in the reality of the object itself such that, when we speak of essence [Wesen], we refer precisely to that which society, without knowing it, already has in itself. If we stick to the facts, then we ourselves encounter the concept. We are forced to recur to the concept in the object itself instead of retroactively subsuming the object under ordering concepts.

Natural science has objects that do not have consciousness. If it were not for subjects who realise abstraction, that is, if subjects were not also thinking sub- jects, objective conceptuality would not come into existence. Objects are not immediately subjects, but there is something subjective within objects in the sense of what is necessary for abstraction. The object is nothing self-sufficient [nichts Autarkes]. However, one should not posit it as absolute because there is the moment of second nature, which, towards us, tends to harden into something opaque. The superiority of the social is so strong that society appears as if it really were first nature.

What makes commodities exchangeable is the unity of socially necessary abstract labour-time [Arbeitszeit]. Abstract labour, because through a reduction to unity one abstracts from use-values, from needs. When a businessman calculates, he can recur neither to conditions under which a commodity came about nor to whatever a commodity is good for, but focuses on labour-time, profit, material. This is what a commodity is composed of, but this is what makes it a kind of sum of something solid, thing-like [Dinglichem]. Through abstract labour-time one abstracts from living opponents. On the face of it, this abstraction makes what is exchanged a thing-in-itself. What is in fact a social relation appears as if [erscheint als ob] it were the sum of objective qualities of an object. The concept of commodity-fetishism is nothing but this necessary process of abstraction. By performing the operation of abstraction, the com- modity no longer appears as a social relation but it seems as if value were a thing-in-itself.