The M ediation o f Nature through Society

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social statics and social dynamics, had the following com

ment to make:
M arx confronts the invariant natural laws o f society w ith the specific
laws o f a definite stage o f developm ent, the higher or lower level o f
development o f social antagonisms' with the natural laws o f capitalist
production.114

M arx distinguished between the laws valid in general for

a social formation and their more or less developed forms p f
appearance. Beyond this, he emphasized, in a still more
trenchant manner, the eternal nature-imposed necessity 11*
o f the metabolism between man and nature in its abstract
moments as opposed to its concrete historical forms. We
are not confronted here with a problem to be decided purely
theoretically, a problem o f the insufficiently determined
dialectic o f the particular and the general. We have rather to
deal with the fact that our historical reality itse lf under
stood at the outset as pre-history, is ruled by eternal
categories which are relatively independent o f all change, so
that according to M arx wage-labour has within it moments
o f slavery and serfdom, just as slavery and serfdom 'have
within them moments o f wage-labour: the distinction con
sists in this, that in the one case labour-power is reproduced
directly, in the other case indirectly, through the market.
There existed very well-nourished slaves in antiquity;
while at present there exist in the most highly developed
countries itinerant labourers below the poverty line.11*
W hat is decisive is that serfdom and slavery can only arise
at a certain stage o f productivity.
I f the labourer needs all his time to produce the necessary means o f
subsistence for him self and his dependants, he has no tim e left in
which to work gratis for others. W ithout a certain degree o f p rod u o
tiveness in his labour, he has no such superfluous tim e at his disposal;
without such superfluous tim e, no surplus-labour, and therefore so
capitalists, no slave-owners, so feudal lords, is one word, so class o f
large proprietors.117

M arx criticized the attempt to connect mystical

notions 11* with this naturally conceived productivity o f
labour, developing instead the view that surplus-value has
a natural basis only in the very general sense , and that
there is no natural obstacle absolutely preventing one man