A methodological interpretation of the circuits of capital

Abstract

This article investigates Marx’s method in the analysis of the circuits of capital, as it is carried out in Capital vol. 2, in an attempt to clarify some key aspects of the well-known problem in Marxist literature on the relation between the logical and the historical. The central question on this topic is whether Marx’s analysis is logical/structural or historical. The approach elaborated upon in this article extends beyond the one-sidedness of both views which deny any kind of correlation between logical and historical sequences and the views claiming that the articulation of Capital’s argument exposes a set of historical stages. We will argue that dialectic, namely, the method of ascent from the abstract to the concrete, represents, first and foremost, the inner articulation of the structure of a given self-developing object, and at the same time implicitly represents its historical development. Hence, taking Marx’s analysis of the circuits of capital as a case study, this article aspires to identify the fundamental movement of the systematic dialectic, which characterizes the entire Capital and explains the fundamental function of the relation between the logical and the historical.