7. Appearance and Reality: Some Ontological Issues

It is, I suggest, remarkable that commentators have not made more attempt to study the origin of this process, although the role played by money in the process, and the influence of Hegel on the way that it is understood, have both been much discussed.

It is clear that I disagree with the Althusserian view that alienation is a concept of the young Marx which plays no part in his mature works. My own view is quite the opposite: the concept of alienated labour is of great importance in Capital. It may perhaps be used in his earlier works as a sociological concept only, but in Capital it is integrated with the economic, in the concept of the value-form. A great deal has been written about alienation (at least in its sociological sense) so that the use and development of the term in Marx’s writings is better established than is the case with fetishism. I would suggest that there are some clear parallels between the two: each becoming both more rigorously defined and more allied with the economic as Marx’s theory developed into its final form.

As discussed in Chap. 5, he sometimes seems tempted by such an argument; but he certainly does not apply this to commodityfetishism.

Elster (1985), Hayek (1942) and Popper (1961, 1966). One could go further back—to Durkheim, Comte, Vico and Hobbes—for this is a huge topic, basic to the philosophy of social science. Lukes’ “Methodological Individualism Reconsidered” remains a most authoritative source. He describes methodological individualism as the doctrine that “facts about society and social phenomena are to be explained solely in terms of facts about individuals” (Lukes 1968: 120). My interpretation puts rather more stress on actions, and even intentional actions, of individuals, in defining methodological individualism. For its opposite, I have preferred the term “methodological holism” to either “sociological holism” or merely “holism”, mainly on grounds of symmetry.

Farr cites Oppenheim and Putnam as portraying Marxist sociology as “micro-reductionist” (Ball and Farr 1984: 225) but vigorously rejects such a view.

According to Roemer (1986: 192) Elster equates it to dialectics itself; but this may be a slight exaggeration.

Precisely how they are causally effective is extremely difficult to describe, and I shall not attempt to do so in a few words. This, indeed, is the subject of much of this book. It is perhaps enough, at this point, to affirm that the behaviour of persons is influenced by a “totality” which cannot be fully captured by the sum of individual actions. For further discussion of holism see Lukes (1968). His quotations from Watkins are relevant here; indeed they roughly indicate the range I am describing: from weak holism (“social systems constitute ‘wholes’ at least in the sense that some of their large-scale behaviour is governed by macro-laws … that … are sui generis and not to be explained as mere regularities or tendencies resulting from the behaviour of interacting individuals”) to strong holism (“some superhuman agents or factors are supposed to be at work in history”) (Lukes 1968: 121).

The latter alternative is, roughly, what is commonly assumed for material reality. But even here there is scope for variations in perception—heavily influenced by the social.

Other commentators have stressed the same point; for example Sayer (1983); also Pilling:

Fetishism is not mere illusion. … Matters appear necessarily this way. The inverted form taken by man’s consciousness is a necessaryinversion. (Pilling 1980: 160, 164)

The quotation continues: “That which a particular country is for particular alien gods, the country of reason is for god in general, a region in which he ceases to exist”. Marx’s critique of capitalism owed its power to the fact that he departed the country—but only in thought. The question still remains whether the country of reason is doomed to remain only a country of thought. (It should perhaps be added, to set the passage in context, that Marx is here offering a critique of the “ontological proof” of the existence of God—not a defence of it.)