For example, when Marx analyzes wages conceptually as an economic form (as a
social institution) in Capital, Volume I, he emphasizes very explicitly that
"All the notions of justice held by both the worker and the capitalist, all the
mystifications of the capitalist mode of production, all capitalism's illusions
of freedom, all the apologetic tricks of vulgar economics, have as their basis
the form of appearance discussed above, which makes the actual relation
invisible, and indeed presents to the eye the precise opposite of that
relation" (Penguin ed., p. 680).
He explains how the market relationship by its very nature inverts the real
social relationship involved, so that it appears as its very opposite. He
applies the same kind of argument in Capital to many different economic
"forms", in order to demonstrate how the very nature of an institutionalized
practice itself causes a misapprehension of its true significance, so that
things appear other than they really are. The real significance becomes
apparent only when, through an historical study of the origin of the "form",
one becomes clearly aware of what is actually involved in the emergence of the
form, i.e. the conditions necessary for its existence and perpetuation. Marx
presents this argument not as a metaphysical "philosophy of essentialism", but
as a scientifically testable argument with explanatory and predictive power.
J.
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