Simeon Guy Scott
Published: 1996
Total Pages: 277
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The purpose of this work is to apply Hegelian dialectics to political economy. I will attempt to show that the application of this way of thinking allows us to understand the highly complex phenomenon that is the capitalist mode of production in a way which is not possible using static positivist thinking. There are many aspects to dialectical thinking, but crucial to this study of political economy will be that aspect of dialectics which emphasises Hegel's distinction between fundamental processes, or what could be called the essential relationships concealed below surface appearances, and those processes which are more immediately observable empirical "facts". As so little work is available on the subject of dialectics I begin, in chapter one, with a study of dialectical thinking which emphasises its ancient beginnings. The point is made that dialectics, with its insistence on change and totality, long predates the static categorisation of the world by Aristotle which is the basis of positivist thinking. It is clear that textbooks on political economy implicitly assume either a dualist separation of humanity and nature, or a naturalistic reductionism which states that ultimately the study of social relations can be reduced to the study of physics. Therefore the second chapter involves a critical examination of a number of positivist assumptions, such as the dualistic separation of nature and society and naturalistic reductionism. I will also examine natural science and technology in this second chapter, and in this context it will be argued that whilst humans are the highest manifestation of nature, we remain organically linked to all of nature.......