Download Reorienting Critical Realism: the Actual Essence of the Capitalist

Reorienting Critical Realism: the Actual Essence of the Capitalist Economy
Andrew Brown (University of Leeds)
ABSTRACT
Hausman (1998) questions the relevance of realism to economics, arguing that economics
does not generally posit unobservable entities (or at least entities foreign to common
sense). Lawson (1999) and Mäki (2000) offer apparently opposing respective defences of
realist economic methodology. Both deny Hausman’s conclusion but Mäki agrees with
Hausman premise, that economics generally does not posit entities foreign to common
sense, whereas Lawson strongly disagrees. This paper develops recent criticisms of
critical realism, made from the perspective of ‘systematic dialectics’ (Brown, Slater and
Spencer 2002), so as to shed light on this conundrum. The critical realist insistence that
essences constitute a separate ‘domain’ to actual events should be the true object of
Hausman’s critique. Actual regularities are essential aspects of capitalism, as recognised
by systematic dialectics. Mäki does not share the critical realist insistence that the essence
of capitalism is ‘non-actual’ and this suggests a solution to the aforementioned
conundrum.
Key words: Capitalism; Dialectics; Methodology; Realism; Systems
JEL Codes: A11, B40, B41, B50, P1
Address for Correspondence:
Economics Division,
Maurice Keyworth Building,
Leeds University Business School,
University of Leeds,
LS2 9JT
Email: [email protected]
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(1) Introduction
In response to the recent resurgence of realism within economic methodology, Hausman
(1998) has questioned the relevance of realism to economics, arguing that economics
does not, in general, posit unobservable entities. Lawson (1999) and Mäki (2000) offer
robust respective defences of realist economic methodology. However, they appear at
first sight to be directly opposing defences. Mäki agrees with Hausman that economics
generally does not posit unobservable entities (or at least entities foreign to common
sense), whereas Lawson strongly disagrees. An explanation of how Lawson’s ‘critical
realism’, on the one hand, and Mäki’s development of scientific realism for economics,
on the other, could produce such apparently robust, yet opposing, respective points of
view poses a conundrum that has yet to be addressed in the literature.
This paper draws upon and develops recent criticisms of critical realist economic
methodology (Arestis et. al. 2003, Brown et. el. 2002) and of critical realism more
broadly (Brown 2001, Roberts 2001) so as to shed light on the conundrum. Whereas
Hausman and Mäki stress that economics does not, in general, posit unobservable entities
(or non-common sense entities) in the manner of physics, the pertinent point, when
addressing critical realism, is that economics does not posit non-actual entities. Rather,
the fundamental economic structures and mechanisms of capitalism have an ongoing
presence, in actual social practices (the practices of exchanging commodities and money,
advancing capital, receiving wages, and so on). Thus critical realism proposes the wrong
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notion (a ‘non-actual’ notion) of ‘depth’ for the capitalist economy. In this light, Mäki’s
stress upon fathoming the essential workings of the economic system, given the manifold
aspects of that system, represents a pioneering reorientation of scientific realism to
embrace the actual ‘depth’, or essence, of capitalism. The paper argues that the method
of ‘systematic dialectics’ offers a remarkably similar broad orientation towards
economics as does Mäki.
The paper is structured as follows. In section two, Lawson’s response to Hausman will be
traced to a basic tenet of critical realism regarding the relationship between social
structure and human agent. It is argued that Hausman’s criticisms must be redirected and
developed very substantially in light of this tenet. This is not a basic tenet for Mäki,
partially explaining why his response to Hausman is in apparent opposition to that of
Lawson. In section three a second basic tenet of critical realism, the notion of ‘non-actual
depth’ is detailed (again, this is not a tenet of Mäki’s work). Sections four and five draw
upon ‘systematic dialectics’ in order to very substantially develop Hausman’s criticisms
so as to challenge the critical realist tenet of non-actual depth. Section six shows that
Mäki and systematic dialectics offer a remarkably similar broad orientation towards
method in economics, offering a full explanation of why Mäki and Lawson give
apparently opposing respective responses to Hausman. Section seven concludes by
urging a fundamental reorientation of critical realism in light of the actual essence of
capitalism.
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(2) Explaining Lawson’s Reply to Hausman: the Critical Realist Conception of the
Relationship between Social Structure and Human Agent
Hausman (1998) argues against the relevance of realism in economics on simple grounds.
According to Hausman, it is straightforwardly the case that economics does not, in
general, posit unobservable entities, or at least non-common sense entities, in the manner
of physics. For example, basic objects of economics such as households, firms,
commodities, wages, profits, etc. are observable. ‘Preferences’ are arguably not
observable but are nevertheless part of the common sense, or ‘folk’, ontology of everyday
life. Hausman stresses that the major anti-realist arguments in the philosophy of science
have denied the existence of a non-common sense realm of unobservable entities such as
electrons or quarks. This anti-realism has nothing to do with the radical scepticism
involved in questioning the existence of common sense entities such as tables, chairs and,
in the economic realm, money, wages, preferences and so on. Therefore, according to
Hausman, most economic methodologists are realists, making ‘realism’ a largely
irrelevant and unhelpful label for distinguishing between different positions within
economic methodology. Mäki (2000) disagrees with Hausman’s conclusion but strongly
supports Hausman’s premise that economics does not posit unobservable or non-common
sense entities in the manner of physics (see Mäki 1996).
Lawson’s critical realist view that economics should, and non-mainstream economics
does in fact, posit unobservable, non-common sense and non-actual social structures and
mechanisms, is prima facie a view in stark contrast to that of both Hausman and Mäki.
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Following the strategy recommended in Brown (2000/01), this section will contextualise
Lawson’s response by tracing it back to the basic tenets of critical realism, first
systematised by Bhaskar (1975, 1989 – see Brown 2003). In particular, the critical realist
conception of the relationship between social structure and human agent will be
emphasised. It will be argued that the nature and significance of this conception within
critical realism is overlooked by Hausman (1998) and readily explains Lawson’s
response. The conception differentiates critical realism from other forms of scientific
realism, including that of Mäki, helping to explain the apparently opposing respective
responses to Hausman made by Mäki and Lawson.
The critical realist conception of the relationship between social structure and human
agent
According to critical realism, social structures are ‘emergent’ entities. The critical realist
notion of ‘emergence’ is very general (applicable to both the natural and social realm)
and was first systematised as part of (what is now termed) critical realism in Bhaskar
(1975). This notion can be grasped in contradistinction to the reductionist view that more
complex entities, such as cells, are ‘nothing but’ simpler entities, such as sub-atomic
structures. Critical realism argues that the ‘emergent powers’ of relevant complex entities
are not possessed by simpler entities and so ontologically distinguish the complex entities
from the simpler entities. For example, the fact that cells comprise a complex structure of
molecules, and so could not exist without molecules, does not mean they are ‘nothing
but’ molecules. Rather, cells are ontologically distinct from molecules because they give
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rise to the sui generis power of life that, outside of cellular structure, is absent from
molecules. This emergent power of life causally impacts upon molecules (and upon many
other entities). The biological ‘stratum’ is thus ‘rooted’ in the chemical stratum but
‘emergent’ from it, in critical realist terminology. Ontologically, neither strata is
privileged, both exist, and give rise to different ‘mechanisms’ or ‘ways of acting’ of
things, alongside other strata such as the atomic and sub-atomic strata, which can
likewise be characterised in terms of ‘emergence’ and ‘rootedness’, according to critical
realism.
‘Social structures’ are, according to critical realism, emergent entities, essentially
constituted by ensembles of social relationships. Examples of such relationships are those
of husband-wife, landlord-tenant or wage labour-capital. Such social relationships
typically determine the relevant nature and powers of their relata and are in this sense
‘internal’. For example, occupying the position of ‘landlord’ empowers an individual to
charge rent, and obliges that individual to maintain the property rented; reciprocal
constraints and enablements are conferred upon the tenant. There is an important analogy
with natural structures here. The molecules that comprise a cell are internally related
since, as noted above, it is only within the cellular structure that they give rise to the
emergent power of life. Likewise, the power to earn rent is conferred on an individual
only when that individual is part of the internal relationship between landlord and tenant.
Thus, for critical realism, the objects of both natural and social science are structures,
comprised of internally related aspects, giving rise to emergent mechanisms, powers and
liabilities. In this way, the aforementioned analogy grounds the critical realist argument
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for the ‘possibility of naturalism’, i.e. the possibility of social investigation that is
‘scientific’, in the same sense as natural ‘science’ (Bhaskar 1989).
As emergent entities, social structures are, according to critical realism, ontologically
distinct from the human agents that they constrain and enable. Social structures consist
essentially in relationships between social positions, rather than between human
individuals. Thus the positions of husband, wife, landlord, tenant, wage labourer and
capitalist all pre-exist the current occupants of those positions within contemporary
society. From an analytical perspective, human individuals ‘slot’ into pre-existing
positions, with associated rules and resources. This does not mean that human individuals
are denied autonomy. On the contrary, people uniquely posses the emergent powers of
‘mind’, enabling their purposeful activities. ‘Mind’, and hence human agency, is causally
irreducible to the (presumably) neurological entities from which it emerges, and in which
it is rooted, hence mind is a sui generis emergent entity, according to the critical realist
ontology. Thus the relationship between social structures and human agents is that
between two very different entities according to critical realism (Bhaskar 1989: 33).
The critical realist specification of the relationship between social structure and human
agent marks an important difference between social and natural structures, which Bhaskar
(1989) takes to entail a ‘qualification’ to the critical realist thesis of naturalism. Though
social structures are distinct from human agents, social structures are not independent of
human agents because it is only if (enough) individuals continue to ‘slot’ into the existing
social positions that the social relationships continue to exist. That is, though social
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structures are not created by human agents, they are continually reproduced or
transformed, for the most part unintentionally, by the activities of the very human agents
that they constrain and enable. As an oft cited passage from Bhaskar (1989) puts it,
people do not marry to reproduce the nuclear family or work to sustain the capitalist
economy. Yet it is nevertheless the unintended consequence (and exorable result) of, as it
is also a necessary condition for, their activity. (p. 35)
Social structures are impersonal, may be coercive upon individuals and they may entail a
very uneven distribution of resources across different social positions. But social
structures are not immutable, rather they are the product of history and so are historically
specific and subject to change. Such change is often unintentional on the part of agents
but, as a ‘very important theoretical and political limit’, it may be consciously brought
about (Bhaskar 1989: 35).
Lawson’s response to Hausman
It is now easy to grasp Lawson’s response to Hausman. The ‘naturalist’ thesis of critical
realism precisely entails that social scientists posit new, unobservable, non-common
sense social structures and mechanisms, analogous to natural structures and mechanisms,
in the qualified manner described above. These social structures are ‘emergent’ entities
that ‘underlie’ the common sense conceptions of economic entities stressed by Hausman.
Thus, to employ Lawson’s (1999) example, ‘money’ is an entity that has a ‘surface’
manifestation, which is part of the ‘common sense’ world known to human agents. But
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the prevalence of money in contemporary society entails a complex network of
unobservable, non-common sense, socially specific relationships, which must, on the
critical realist view, be uncovered (posited) by social scientists. Hausman (1998, 1999)
offers no argument (or almost no argument – see below) against this critical realist
conception. Hence critical realism appears to be entirely unscathed by Hausman’s attack.
Moreover, since, for Lawson, it is only the method of mainstream economics that
precludes examination of such underlying relationships, Lawson sees in Hausman’s
position a neglect of non-mainstream economic theory.
If Hausman’s attack does not perturb critical realism in economics, what explains Mäki’s
(2000) apparently opposite response to that of Lawson? Mäki (1996: 438–9; reflected in
Mäki 2000) argues that crucial disanalogies between economics and natural science exist,
whether or not economic mechanisms, such as those underlying money, are deemed
irreducibly social (hence neither observable nor part of common sense). Thus Mäki
(1996: 439) points out that questions regarding the existence of any posited irreducibly
social mechanism could be dealt with as questions regarding the truth of statements about
that social mechanism. By contrast, questions regarding the existence of unobservable
entities posited in physics cannot be dealt with as questions regarding truth. This suggests
a partial reconciliation of Mäki’s and Lawson’s responses. Lawson can be seen as
stressing the significance of irreducible (emergent) social mechanisms, as characterised
by critical realism, whereas Mäki recognises the potential existence of irreducible social
mechanisms (however characterised) but downplays their significance for scientific
realism in economics, preferring to stress their observable or common sense constituents.
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The following critique of critical realism in economics will probe a deeper difference
between Mäki’s and Lawson’s respective philosophies, which could explain their
differing respective assessments of significance.
(3) The Critical Realist Conception of ‘Non-Actual Depth’
At one point Hausman (1998: 202–5) explicitly critiques the critical realist distinction
between different ‘domains’. He gives the example of the market as a mechanism which
fuses the ‘deep’ and the ‘actual’ (as well as empirical) domains. However, Hausman does
not follow through on this line of criticism and instead continues to stress the observable
nature of the market, rather than its actuality, so his specific critique seems not to perturb
critical realism in economics any more than does his general point discussed above
(Lawson 1999: 279–80). The critique of critical realism in the remaining sections of this
paper, below, can be read as a very substantial development of Hausman’s
aforementioned brief remarks so as to emphasise the actuality of the market mechanism,
and of many other economic mechanisms. This actuality contradicts the basic critical
realist tenet that ‘deep’, or essential, social structures constitute a ‘non-actual domain’ of
social reality. The critical realist tenet of a ‘non-actual domain’ will be detailed in this
section. Subsequent sections will develop the critique.
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Deriving ‘non-actual depth’: Bhaskar’s analysis of experiment
Social structures, as analogues of natural structures, constitute a ‘non-actual domain’,
underlying the ‘actual domain’ of events, within the critical realist ontology. This notion
of ‘depth’ stems from Bhaskar’s (1975) analysis of natural scientific experiment.
According to Bhaskar (1975), an experiment is a human intervention into nature that
produces a recorded pattern (or ‘constant conjunction’) of events, i.e. an event regularity.
Outside of the experimental set up, the recorded event regularity does not, in general,
occur, on pain of irrelevance of the experiment. Yet, the ‘laws’ arrived at through
experimentation are applied outside the experimental situation, on pain of irrelevance of
those laws for all but the special case of the experimental set up. Bhaskar concludes that
the referents of scientific laws cannot therefore be actual events, whether the event
regularities of the ‘closed’ experimental system, or the flux of events in the ‘open’ system
outside of experiment. There must be an ‘ontological gap’ between laws and actual
events. This ‘ontological gap’ is precisely that between the ‘actual’ domain of events and
the ‘deep’ domain containing the referents of laws, emphasised by critical realism.
What are the referents of scientific laws, if not actual events? They are the ‘deep’
structures, mechanisms, powers, tendencies, etc. of nature. These deep structures
constitute the ‘real essences’ of things (Bhaskar 1975: 178–4). There are two related
reasons for the ‘ontological gap’ between laws and actual events. Firstly, a ‘power’ (and
hence mechanism) can exist without exerting any influence on the flow of actual events,
it can exist without being exercised (e.g. a lamp has the power to give off light, even
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when not switched on). In this sense reality is structured, according to critical realist
terminology.1 Secondly, a power can be exercised but not realised (not ‘actualised’)
because more than one power may be in play at any one moment and location. For
example, a lamp may be switched on but the light that it generates may be invisible on a
bright day due to the countervailing power of sunlight. Thus even where a power does
take effect, the relationship between it and actual events remains contingent on all other
powers that may be in play. In this sense, reality is differentiated as well as structured, in
critical realist terminology.
The non-actual conception of depth carries, for critical realism, epistemological and
methodological corollaries. According to this conception, the natural or social scientist
must ensure the ‘exercise’ of a power (due to the structured nature of reality) and
somehow ‘control for’ other ‘competing’ powers (due to the differentiated nature of
reality). Given such exercise and control, then a pattern of events may be observed,
enabling the hypothesis of the underlying ‘deep’ mechanism that accounts for it. Such a
hypothesis is termed a ‘retroduction’ within critical realist terminology. Without the twin
requirements of exercise and control, there could be no empirical access to the deep
structures (which in the social realm are essentially unobservable relationships),
mechanisms, powers, etc., hence no empirical science, according to critical realism.
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The spectrum from ‘open’ to ‘closed’ systems
Whilst there is continuing disagreement concerning the details, it is possible, in the wake
of Lawson (2003) and of other recent critical realist work in economics (see Downward
2003), to spell out some agreement on the implications of the notion of ‘non-actual
depth’ in terms of the distinction between ‘open’ and ‘closed’ systems. This distinction is
now conceived of as referring to a spectrum that runs in degrees of closure from, at the
extreme open end, a chaotic flux of events, to, at the extreme closure end, absolutely
strict event regularities. Though the existence of such a spectrum is at root an ontological
matter deriving from the notion of ‘non-actual depth’, this ontology has been developed
in the literature largely in response to methodological concerns (Downward 2003). At
least four distinct positions on this spectrum, four degrees of closure (and, conversely, of
openness), are identified in Lawson (2003).
Firstly, there is the extreme open end of the spectrum, denoting a system characterised by
a chaotic flux of events. If such a degree of openness prevailed in the social world, then
there would be little hope for social science, given the critical realist view that social
scientific experiment is in general impossible. Lawson (1997) argues that the social world
is not such an extreme open system by reference to, and explanation of, ‘partial’ or
‘demi’ regularities (‘demi-regs’ for short). These, in effect, constitute a second point on
the aforementioned spectrum from extreme openness to strict closure.
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‘Demi-regs’ occur because of the presence of two groups alike in all relevant respects,
except that one contains a mechanism absent from the other. Because the groups are
otherwise similar, there is a good chance that the exercise of the mechanism will lead to a
contrast in manifest outcomes between the group that contains the mechanism and the
group which does not. In effect, the requirement of controlling for countervailing
mechanisms is met through the spontaneous existence of groups similar in all relevant
respect but one. The requirement of exercising the mechanism cannot be guaranteed and
is met spontaneously. According to Lawson, such situations are spontaneously occurring
analogues to experiments in plant breeding where the difference in respective outcomes
between a control group and a target group can be attributed to the administering of a
‘treatment’ to the target group but not to the control. Lawson (1997) details two
illustrations: Kilpatrick and Lawson’s (1981) defence of the hypothesis that the structure
of British industrial relations is an underlying cause of the manifest ‘demi-reg’ of
differential productivity between the UK and Germany; and David’s (1986) explanation
the surprising ‘demi-reg’ of prevalent QWERTY keyboards, via the notion of path
dependence.
The third point on the spectrum from extreme openness to strict closure, much closer to
the ‘closure’ end, arises through a recent development and clarification of Lawson’s
work. Lawson (2003: 79) states that ‘demi-regs’ generally occur ‘where the phenomena
concerned are highly concrete’, thus allowing that his previous discussion of method
based on ‘demi-regs’ may be inapplicable to more abstract and fundamental levels of
social reality. He often characterises such abstract levels as an area of ‘rule-governed’
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and ‘routinised’ forms of behaviour (Lawson 2003: 14–15, 40–43, 79, 81, 83). The
regularities present at more abstract levels are far stricter than Lawson’s original notion
of ‘demi-regs’, though not absolutely strict. Lawson (2003: 41) ‘admits’ to not giving
such abstract patterns explicit attention in his previous work. Making good that oversight,
he recognises that where
empirical patterns are the more abstract, the greater, very often, is their space-time reach
or stretch. And a necessary condition of (the possibility of) this is that the more abstract
patterns pick out (are manifestations of) those more sedimented, deeper and fundamental
features of a society. (Lawson 2003: 42)
Lawson explicitly includes ‘certain structures of market capitalism’ as examples of such
fundamental features of society (2003: 42).2
Lawson stresses that such regularly actualised practises ‘rarely’ (if ever) entail strict
event regularities (2003: 42). For example, commodity exchange can be abstained from
indefinitely by any one individual (who perhaps has decided to become self-sufficient). It
is this lack of strict event regularities that serves as Lawson’s premise for his argument
that ‘deep’ social structures, mechanisms, powers, etc. constitute a ‘non-actual domain’,
albeit they happen to be very regularly actualised at the level of abstraction of the
fundamental social structures definitive of capitalism (Lawson 1997: 159–63; 2003: 35–
8). Only a social example of the fourth point on the spectrum referred to by Lawson, a
‘strictly closed system’, would challenge the notion of ‘non-actual depth’. This end point
is defined by the presence of absolutely strict event regularities, hence is the opposite end
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point to that of absolute openness. Lawson continues to stress that such absolutely strict
regularities are more or less absent from the social world. Therefore it remains the case
that the experimental system is the paradigmatic example of a ‘strictly closed system’ and
the notion of ‘non-actual depth’ remains central to social as well as natural science, on
the critical realist view.
(4) The Strictly Regular Reproduction of Capitalism
The ‘common sense’ character of economic entities, stressed by Hausman and Mäki,
arises because they are encountered in ongoing, everyday activity such as buying or
selling, earning a wage, producing for the market, making profit, accumulating capital,
advertising commodities, paying or earning interest, and so on. These are also the
‘abstract’ activities indicative of ‘fundamental’ structures of capitalism, referred to by
Lawson, because their prevalence marks a historically specific social system, viz.
capitalism. Accordingly, they are located at the ‘historical’ level of abstraction (Brown et.
al. 2002). This level of abstraction refers to structures or activities that are prevalent
within, but only within, a historically specific social system. In the case under discussion,
this social system is capitalism (rather than, say, the feudal or slave systems). Thus the
prevalence of these activities and structures is the differentia specifica of the capitalist
system. It will be argued below that, contra the critical realism, the abstract activities
definitive of capitalism are strictly regular, and that they are ‘organically necessary’
activities for the (self-)reproduction of the capitalist system.
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When wishing to stress that such abstract activities are not absolutely strict, Lawson often
gives examples of events that refer to single individuals, such as that of a single
individual’s non-participation in commodity exchange (Lawson 2003: 42). However,
Lawson also allows that ‘events’ can be defined over a collection of individuals, rather
than referring to just one individual (Lawson 1997: 17). At the abstract and fundamental
level definitive of capitalism, such events include, for example: ‘many wage labourers go
to work for a wage’, ‘many capitalists produce in order to make profit’, ‘there is
ubiquitous buying and selling’, ‘there is widespread setting of a broad spectrum of
interest rates’, and so on. Collectively defined events, so formulated, might also be
termed ‘states of affairs’. Such collectively defined events are actual but (usually) not
empirical. Thus it cannot be empirically (immediately) evident that commodity exchange
is socially ubiquitous because such a large collectivity cannot be observed. Statements
regarding the collective level can of course be inferred from observations at the
individual level but this is by inference rather than immediate observation.
Consider the following collective event regularity: ‘whenever the events definitive of
capitalism occur during one month in the UK, they occur during the next’. To put it more
formally, let the collective events, definitive of capitalism, that occur in the UK, at any
given month, t, be denoted by Ct . Then this event regularity is simply ‘whenever Ct then
Ct+1’. This event regularity is a causal relationship between events (defined collectively)
because capitalism is a self-reproducing system. Once capitalism is established, then
through the great changes and upheavals entailing the ongoing transformation of
capitalism, the abstract and fundamental activities and structures of capitalism reproduce
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themselves.3 Furthermore this event regularity, ‘whenever Ct then Ct+1’, has been
absolutely strict for the entire duration of developed capitalism in the UK. The regularity
is a statement of actual fact, rather than a theory or prediction for the future. It is unlikely
that capitalism will last for all eternity. More pertinently, it is a tenet of critical realism,
as of other projects supportive of human emancipation, that choice is real and conscious
change of social structures such as capitalism is therefore possible. This is a major reason
why critical realism stresses that the social world is inherently ‘open’. The fact, however,
remains that the fundamental event regularity, ‘whenever Ct then Ct+1’, has been
absolutely strict, thus far.
Thus by focusing on the system-wide or collective level it becomes apparent that what
exist as strong tendencies, at the level of the individual, are absolutely strict event
regularities at the collective (or system-wide) level. Lawson’s (1997, 2003) view that
most abstract regularities associated with fundamental social structures are not strict,
should therefore be qualified with the clause, ‘at the individual level’. Once the collective
level is focused upon then capitalism is a ‘strictly closed’ system, on the critical realist
definition of ‘closure’, contra the critical realist view that society is an inherently open
system.
Organic Necessities
Recall that the non-strictness of abstract social event regularities is Lawson’s premise for
the argument that deep social structures constitute a ‘non-actual domain’ of social reality.
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The strict regularity defined above would appear to deny that premise, as regards the
capitalist system. Could Lawson’s conclusion, that fundamental social structures belong
to a ‘non-actual domain’ of reality, be upheld for the case of capitalism, notwithstanding
the falsity of this premise? Logically it may be argued that these social structures could
exist un-actualised even if, as a matter of fact, they have been continually actualised thus
far. However, this continual actualisation is a signal that capitalism cannot survive
without strictly regular activities at the system-wide level. Capitalism cannot survive
without ongoing commodity production, without ongoing monetary exchange, without
ongoing wage labour or profit making, and so on. These activities are essential to the
existence and reproduction of capitalism. Such necessities are the focus of a method in
economics and social science termed ‘systematic dialectics’ (Arthur 2002, Reuten 2004,
Smith 1990). The following examples are developments of, in particular, Brown (2004).
Consider the example of ‘purchasing power’. For any individual commodity, to be sure,
the purchasing power that it confers upon its owner need not be actualised, i.e. the
commodity may not be sold. But if commodities in general did not exchange at
appropriate ratios, for more than but a few days, then the distribution of resources that
must occur if the necessities of life are to be maintained, in a commodity producing
economy, would not in fact occur and the social system would collapse, the purchasing
power of commodities along with it. Similar considerations apply, of course, to the
phenomenon of hyperinflation. Or consider wage labour. There is a strong incentive of
structural origin, hence strong tendency, for any individual member of the working class
to undertake wage labour, but this need not be a strict regularity at the level of any one
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individual. However, wage labour is, of necessity, a strictly regular activity of the
working class as a whole, if the existence of the system is to be maintained, the individual
tendency along with it. Similar considerations apply to the activity of profit making.
In all such cases, a single instantiation of a power cannot exist in isolation, and instead
belongs necessarily to the system – a system which generates many other instantiations of
this power across society. At the collective level, the power cannot exist unexercised, nor
be exercised unrealised (un-actualised). The power must be continually actualised by, or
through, a relevant collection of individuals if the system itself, and hence the power in
question, is to be reproduced. Strict event regularities are thus a necessity for the
reproduction of the system. Such actualities are analogous to the necessary activities for
the continuing life of an organism, such as the activities of eating and drinking of an
animal (Benton 1981 suggests this analogy). They might therefore be termed ‘organic
necessities’. The fundamental, essential and in this sense truly ‘deep’ level of capitalism
necessarily has a strictly regular actualisation, at the collective level, for the duration of
capitalism’s existence.
(5) Reorienting Critical Realism
This section will develop three major implications of the above discussion for the critical
realist study of capitalism. Firstly, the critical realist conception of the relationship
between social structure and human agent has to be revised. Secondly, the critical realist
interpretation of the notion of a ‘structured’ and ‘differentiated’ social reality has to be
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replaced. Thirdly, the relevance of the critical realist ontology of powers as tendencies
has to be located at a new level, emphatically not the ‘deep’ or ‘essential’ level of the
capitalist system. The critical realist ontology must be recognised as a reflection of reality
at relatively concrete levels but not at its abstract essence.
Social practices, social relations and social structures
It has been established above that the social relations of capitalism entail ongoing actual
practises of collections of individuals.4 By the same token, these ongoing practises entail
the relevant social relationships. In fact, at this abstract and fundamental level, what are
related are not just social ‘positions’ but actual social practices. Social practices are in
part identified through their relations. In their turn, social relations are unique to, and
cannot be specified outside of, the social practices that they relate and help to identify.
Thus it does not make any sense to consider the prevalence of ‘commodity exchange
relations’ without also considering the prevalence of ‘the activities of commodity
exchange’; or the prevalence of ‘monetary exchange relations’ without the prevalence of
‘the activities of monetary exchange’; or the prevalence of ‘wage labour-capital relations’
without the prevalence of ‘the activities of wage labouring’. Social relationships and
social practices are just ‘flip sides’ of one another, at this level. It follows that, at this
level, the term ‘social structures’ can be taken to refer both to social relations and to
social practices (and vice versa). There are not two ‘domains’, with ‘social relations’ in
the ‘non-actual’ domain and ‘social practices’ in the ‘actual’ domain. Rather, there is one
21
single domain to which ‘social relations’, ‘social practices’ and ‘social structures’ all
refer, albeit with differences in emphasis.
It is stressed within critical realism that social ‘whole’ is constituted by relations of
‘positioned-practices’ (Bhaskar 1989: 41). Indeed, Lawson continually emphasises that
‘practice … is the key to social being’ (2003: 117). However, the ‘analytical dualism’ of
critical realism requires that positions, relations and other constituents of social structures
are to be analytically separated from actual practices, reflecting the separate respective
ontological ‘domains’ into which they are allotted (Archer 1995). Social structures and
social practices are to be brought back together subsequent to their analytical separation,
for the analysis of society as a ‘whole’ (Archer 1995: esp. 135–61).5 Such
recommendations may make perfect sense when studying levels of social reality that are
relatively autonomous from the abstract and fundamental social structures specific to, and
definitive of, capitalism. For example, Archer (1995) draws examples from her work on
education provision. The ‘teacher-student’ relationship, as such, does not necessitate any
specific social practices, and so the study of education provision may well employ
‘analytical dualism’. And Lawson (2003: 79) clarifies that his development of method
(involving ‘demi-regs’) applies at a ‘highly concrete’ level (see section three, above).
However, such separation of relations and practices is illicit when, as at the abstract and
fundamental level definitive of capitalism, socially specific practices are the relata of the
social relationships under study.6
22
The ‘Whole in Essence’
The above arguments establish that the most fundamental powers of essential social
structures must be continually actualised, at the system-wide level, as a condition of their
continued existence. But how is it that these powers are continually actualised at the
collective level? How does capitalism reproduce itself? The continual exercise of relevant
powers is easy enough to explain. Individuals face basic biological needs and within
capitalism they are heavily constrained in how these needs can be met (see Lawson 2003:
20, on the role of biological need in this context). Thus the strong incentives for
capitalists to make profit, wage workers to continue to work, all individuals to continue to
participate in exchange and so on. Moreover, it is only at the collective, not the
individual, level that powers must be exercised. So the fact that any one individual might,
by chance, not have an incentive to, say, go to work (they might win the lottery) is
immaterial, just as long as the general level of incentives across the collection of relevant
individuals remains intact. However, this explains how the powers in question are
continually exercised but not how they are continually actualised. Recall that, owing to
what critical realism terms the ‘differentiation’ of reality, an exercise of a power need not
result in an actualisation of that power due to the existence of countervailing powers.
What prevents powers from countervailing one another within capitalism?
In order to answer this question, it is necessary to recognise that the ontological notion of
a spectrum from ‘strict closure’ to ‘open system chaotic flux’ (see section three, above)
has a new dimension when events are collectively defined. Collective event regularities
23
do not entail myriad separate individual event regularities, corresponding to myriad
separate isolated ‘mechanisms’, separable from one another. At the collective level, event
regularities are not analogous to lots of separate experiments, constituting separate
‘closures’, underlain by separate ‘essences’. Social structures cannot be in contingent
relationships, countervailing one another, rather, they must be co-ordinated, or
interconnected, if they are to reproduce a vast patterning of events across the area, and for
the duration, of capitalism. In short they must constitute one single essence, not multiple
essences. Drawing from ‘systematic dialectics’, they can be said to constitute a ‘whole in
essence’ or essential totality where, on this view, an ‘essence’ is defined by the ability to
reproduce itself (Reuten 2000).
Critical realism also stresses that society is a ‘totality’ or contains ‘totalities’ (Bhaskar
1989: 44, Lawson 2003: 117). However, recognition of such a totality of internal
relations is, within critical realism, taken to imply that the actual events of the social
world manifest more flux, than they would otherwise, rather than less. According to the
critical realist ontology, the internal relationship between mechanisms entails that a
pattern of events is much less likely to occur than otherwise because a host of
(potentially) countervailing mechanisms must necessarily be in play together. This is one
of the ways in which the social world differs from the natural world (Bhaskar 1989: 38)
and why the social world is ‘quintessentially open’ (Lawson 1997: 21) (a second reason
being the presence of human choice). Critical realism thus overlooks the notion of a
‘whole in essence’ where there is strict co-ordination of collectively defined events.
24
Social powers and tendencies
The emphasis on actual practices may seem bazaar to the social theorist or economist
who is aware of the importance of the notion of powers as ‘tendencies’ when studying the
contemporary economic system. It is therefore important to stress that, at the system-wide
and collective level, there are, or could conceivably be, powers able to exist unexercised
or be exercised un-actualised, in the sense stressed by critical realism. These would be
powers defined at the system-wide level, the actual outcome of which is not necessary to
the reproduction of the system. Such, for example, would be one possible interpretation
of the tendencies and countertendencies associated with the Marxian ‘tendency for the
rate of profit to fall’. Similarly, Minsky’s theory of financial instability could be
interpreted in this way (nothing in the argument here tells for or against any such
interpretations). However, the existence and reproduction of such tendencies depends
upon the ‘organically necessary’ actual practices continuing to function as a ‘whole in
essence’. Any ‘non-actual’ tendencies exist only in virtue of these ongoing actual
practices and their relations. This point is explored further below, by way of an important
disanalogy between natural structures and the ‘whole in essence’ that constitutes
capitalism.
A natural structure does not reproduce itself, on the standard critical realist account
(Bhaskar 1975: 169). Rather, according to critical realism, the reproduction of a natural
structure must be explained by reference to the stratum in which it is rooted. For
example, the reproduction of the H2O molecule must be explained by reference to the
25
theory of atomic number and valency, not by reference to the emergent powers of H2O.
The exercise and actualisation of the emergent powers of a natural structure are therefore
irrelevant to the continued existence (reproduction) of that structure. For example, H2O
retains the power to boil at 100 degrees centigrade whether or not it is actually boiling.
The powers of natural structures can exist unexercised or un-actualised, which is why
natural structures constitute a ‘non-actual domain’, according to critical realism (even
though structures such as H2O are actually existing and potentially observable). By
contrast, the definitive characteristic of the essence of capitalism is that it reproduces
itself. That is, the myriad practices and relations that constitute the essence of capitalism
form a self-reproductive system.
It follows from the disanalogy described above that, unlike the powers of natural
structures, the fundamental powers of capitalism are continually actualised in the selfreproduction of capitalism (so long as capitalism continues to exist). In addition to these
fundamental powers it may well be that the capitalist system gives rise to powers which
are tendential (non-actual) in the critical realist sense of being able to exist un-actualised,
even at the system-wide or collective level. But precisely because the outcome of their
influence (if any) on the course of actual events is immaterial to the reproduction of
capitalism, these powers must be considered inessential to capitalism; secondary to the
essential totality of ongoing practices and their relations. Thus the ‘deep’ level of
capitalism, its abstract essence, must have a strictly regular actual presence. There is a
reversal of critical realist ontological priorities here. For critical realism the deep and
essential level is non-actual, there being no necessary actualisation of ‘deep’ powers in
26
events. Whereas, in capitalistic reality, the deep and essential level necessarily generates
strict event regularities at the collective level, and it is only inessential powers, or
individual instantiations of powers, which need not generate strict event regularities.
It follows that capitalism is certainly ‘structured’ and ‘differentiated’ but the critical
realist appropriation of these terms must be wholly rejected, where capitalism is
concerned. In opposition to the critical realist version of the ‘structured’ character of
reality, by which critical realism refers to the non-actuality of deep mechanisms, powers,
etc., it must be recognised that the essential level of society is inherently actual. Against
the critical realist version of the ‘differentiated’ character of reality, by which critical
realism refers to different ‘essences’, it must be recognised that the diverse actual events
are fundamentally unified as one single essence. Not non-actuality but actuality; not
difference but unity. The essence of capitalism is, then, precisely the unity of actuality: an
actual diversity-in-unity, or unity-in-diversity. This is the actual essence of capitalism.
(6) Mäki and ‘Systematic Dialectics’
The very general conception, or orientation towards, method in economics that arises
through Mäki’s pioneering development of scientific realism (especially Mäki 1996, as
reflected in Mäki 2000) is remarkably similar to that arising from the arguments of this
paper, above, developed from systematic dialectics (see Arestis et. al. 2003), despite the
differences in the respective philosophies developed. According to the common
conception of both, economic science reconstructs or reorders the already familiar
27
common sense economic practices, relations, forms (such as money), etc. in thought, so
as to fathom their role or function in the self-reproducing system that they constitute.
Practices, relations and forms initially appear in a confused and partial manner within the
common sense notions of everyday life. Economic science must go beyond the initial
confusion in order to comprehend how the manifold common sense entities constitute a
single, self-reproducing system. Economic theory thus reveals that, and how, ongoing
actualities are ‘causally relevant’ to the workings of the economic system, as Mäki puts
it. Entities confusedly given in common sense are to be grasped as they truly are: an
essential totality or ‘whole in essence’, to employ the terminology of systematic
dialectics.
Mäki does not make the critical realist mistake of confusing a non-common sense and
unobservable characterisation of the essence of the economy with a non-actual
characterisation. He is happy to allow that the essence of the economy may be irreducibly
social but does not thereby entertain the critical realist notion that the essence of the
economy should be cleaved from the actual practices that are necessary to essential selfreproduction. This may explain why Mäki and Lawson differ so strongly in their
respective assessments of the significance to realism in economics of irreducibly social
mechanisms (see section two, above). For Lawson, the irreducibility or ‘emergence’ of
social structures is enough to locate them in a ‘non-actual deep domain’. This is the same
domain as that of natural structures, a finding which is necessary in order to establish the
‘possibility of naturalism’, according to critical realism. Mäki’s approach, on the other
hand, is compatible with the argument elaborated above that the essential totality of the
28
capitalist economy unites actual practices, the self-reproduction of this essence being a
strictly regular actual outcome of the fundamental powers that it possesses.
It is beyond the scope of this paper to pursue the relationship in detail but two differences
between Mäki’s pioneering reorientation of scientific realism for economics and the
perspective of systematic dialectics are especially relevant. Firstly, Mäki does not stress
the ‘abstract and fundamental’, or ‘historical’, level of abstraction. This is the level where
capitalism is defined, a level focused upon by systematic dialectics. By not stressing this
level, Mäki (1996) is able to embrace both mainstream and non-mainstream economics
within one common conception of economic science. By contrast, a stress on the
historical level invites the criticism of mainstream economics that it elides the transhistorical level of abstraction, applicable to all societies, with the historical level specific
to capitalism (Murray 1997, Sayer 1983). Secondly, systematic dialectics can claim to go
further than Mäki’s pioneering reorientation of scientific realism, in specifying a method
to aid comprehension of the essential totality of capitalism. For example, Brown et. al.
(2002) offer a ‘fourth dimension’ of abstraction, present in systematic dialectics, yet
absent from critical realism and from Mäki’s discussions of the ‘method of isolation’
(e.g. Mäki 2004).
(7) Conclusion
The distinction of the ‘actual domain’ and the ‘non-actual deep domain’ is arguably the
most characteristic feature of critical realism. A host of connected terms and concepts are
29
associated with it: social reality as an ‘open’ system; mechanisms as ‘transfactual’; the
‘deep domain’ as ‘out of phase’ with the ‘actual domain’; the ‘deep’ domain as
‘underlying’ the ‘actual domain’; reality as ‘structured’ and ‘differentiated’; economists
as ‘retroducing’ non-actual essences. This paper has argued, contra critical realism, that
capitalism has been, thus far, a strictly closed system, given the critical realist definition
of closure, and a collective definition of events. The essence, the truly ‘deep’ level of
capitalistic society, embraces ‘organically necessary’ activities, i.e. strict event
regularities necessary to capitalistic reproduction. This essence is therefore factual, not
transfactual; in phase with actuality, not out of phase with it; constitutive of actuality
rather than underlying actuality. The capitalist economy is ‘structured’ and
‘differentiated’ but in not the critical realist sense that it contains multiple ‘non-actual’
essences. Rather, the capitalist economy manifests a single essence, uniting the diversity
of actuality. The economist does not ‘retroduce’ entities at the ‘non-actual deep domain’
simply because capitalism possesses no such domain.
There is an urgent need for critical realists to recognise and broadcast loudly the actual
depth, or essence, of capitalism, if the above argument is accepted. It is not just a matter
of the current vulnerability of critical realism to criticism from within economic
methodology. The critical realist conception of the ‘deep’ as a ‘non-actual domain’
serves, quite contrary to the intentions of critical realists, to reinforce the illusory
appearances of capitalism. It is a conception which resonates with the individual, specific
and local perspective, where ‘powers’ are not necessarily actualised. But by the same
token it misrepresents the abstract and fundamental ‘whole in essence’ of capitalism,
30
where powers must continually be actualised. This is despite the oft repeated claim that
critical realism accords with Marx’s aim of revealing the true essences underlying the
surface appearances of capitalism (see Brown et. al. 2001).
Absent critical realist ‘baggage’, Mäki pursues a pioneering development of scientific
realism for economics. There is a striking parallel between the results of Mäki’s (1996)
development and the basic conception of systematic dialectics as presented in Arestis et.
al. (2003). In short, economists fathom the actual interconnection of given entities within
the self-reproducing system that they constitute. They do not posit a whole range of new
entities, at a ‘non-actual domain’ of reality, as critical realism would have it. That such
similar notions should be arrived at by two very different philosophical sources –
scientific realism and systematic dialectics – is remarkable. By the same token it must be
stressed that many differences between the two positions are inevitable, given the
different philosophies involved. The specificity of capitalism and the issue of abstraction
are potential areas to explore in this regard. It is hoped that this paper has encouraged
such a future exploration and galvanised a fundamental reorientation of critical realism
whilst clearing away potential misunderstandings of systematic dialectics.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This paper was presented at the August 2004 INEM conference, University of Amsterdam, and at the
November 2004 seminar of the Stirling Centre for Economic Methodology, University of Stirling. The
31
author wishes to thank the participants at these events for very helpful comments. The paper has been
inspired by ongoing discussions with Clive and Tony Lawson, to whom the author is very grateful.
NOTES
1. In addition to the distinction between ‘deep’ and ‘actual’ domains, there is a third domain, termed the
‘empirical’ domain. This refers simply to the distinction between an ‘actual’ event (thus the ‘actual’
domain) and the ‘empirical’ observation thereof (thus the ‘empirical’ domain). The three-tiered structure of
reality into ‘deep’, ‘actual’ and ‘empirical’ also implies the critical realist distinction between the
‘intransitive’ and ‘transitive’ dimensions of science (Bhaskar 1975). The critical realist distinction between
the between the ‘actual’ domain and the ‘deep’ domain is the target of the critique, below.
2. Lawson (2003: 41–2) also introduces a new category of closure termed a ‘closure of concomitance’.
However, this category is not relevant for this paper because causal rather than concomitant closures are the
sole focus of attention as will be made plain below.
3. In critical realist terms, such reproduction occurs through a tensed causal process analytically conceived
of as running from agents to social structures to agents and so on (Archer 1995).
4. ‘Social practices’ can be taken simply to be socially prevalent ‘activities’. Focus on the precise meaning
of terms such as ‘activities’, ‘practices’, ‘production’ and ‘labour’ is extremely important but beyond the
scope of this paper (see note six for relevant references).
5. It is not ‘social practices’ as such that are analysed as the ‘analytical dual’ of social structures but the
motivations of the agents who undertake social practices. In general, practices are indeterminate resultant
actualities, according to critical realism.
32
6. Though the topic is not central to this paper, this ‘monist’ conception of structure and agency applicable
to the abstract and fundamental (historical) level of abstraction, can be complemented by a monist theory of
mind and body at the trans-historical level of abstraction (Brown 2001, Ilyenkov 1977; 1982, Roberts 2003:
30–57). For Ilyenkov (following Spinoza): ‘There are not two different and originally contrary objects of
investigation – body and thought – but only one single object, which is the thinking body of living, real man
(or other analogous being, if such exists anywhere in the Universe), only considered from two different and
even opposing aspects or points of view. Living, real thinking man, the sole thinking body of which we are
acquainted, does not consists of two Cartesian halves – “thought lacking body” and a “body lacking
thought”. In relation to a real man both the one and the other are equally fallacious abstractions, and one
cannot in the end model a real thinking man from two equally fallacious abstractions’ (Ilyenkov 1977: 31).
This is strikingly similar to the inseparability of ‘social relation’ and ‘social practice’ as two sides of ‘social
structure’ depicted above.
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Andrew Brown is a Lecturer in Economics at the University of Leeds
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