From mainstream economics to the boundaries of Marxism.

   To understand and to evaluate realistically one's adversary's
   position and his reasons (and sometimes one's adversary is
   the whole of past thought) means precisely to be liberated
   from the prison of ideologies in the bad sense of the word--that
   of blind ideological fanaticism. It means taking a point
   of view that is 'critical' which for the purpose of scientific
   research is the only fertile one. (Gramsci, 1971, p. 344)

In the following paper, we explore Marxism and critical realism by addressing Ben Fine's Addressing the Critical and the Real in Critical Realism (2002, 2004). Fine's argument is significant because he is an influential Marxist, and because it combines a powerful and trenchant critique of critical realism with a number of misunderstandings. Taking Fine's argument as a starting point also allows us to contribute to a broader debate concerning Marxism and critical realism and the relation between them. In Part I, we outline and address Fine's main arguments in two sections, in order to deal with each of his two main points--that critical realism is insufficiently critical, and that it is insufficiently realistic. His principal focus is on the work of Tony Lawson and other Cambridge-based or Cambridge-trained critics of mainstream economics.

We argue that Fine's use of the term 'critical' untenably equates methodology-without-theory with theory-without-methodology, and also relies on particular unsupported assumptions about what an effective strategy of critique vis-a-vis the mainstream is. We then assess Fine's analysis that critical realism is unrealistic in the sense that the focus is on the social theory significance of concepts such as structure (that they are real), rather than on the historical and contemporary specification of those concepts (their reality).

We argue that this is an important point, but that it is slightly misdirected in its deployment. The critique of mainstream economics derives its use of 'real' from philosophical discourse, where its meaning is different from Fine's.

Moreover, if one differentiates the Cambridge-based project--which we hereafter refer to as 'critical realism in economics'--from a broader base of critical realists, one finds that many of them are engaged in historically and contemporarily specified work. Since Fine phrases his challenge to critical realism in terms of capitalism and the relation of critical realism to Marxism, we address his challenge in those terms.

In Part 2, we argue that critical realism partly emerged out of--and has maintained a dialogue with--Marxism. In Part 3, we argue that one cannot definitively situate critical realism in relation to Marxism in a single way because both are plural in form, and there are therefore multiple locations for each. Making sense of this matter means situating the problem of their relation in terms of a broader debate about the nature of Marxist exegesis, and in terms of debates concerning changes in contemporary capitalism, as domains of argument about the compatibility of a plurality of forms of Marxism. This is because the way one draws the boundaries of Marxism has significance for the way one understands its relation to critical realism, or at least, the work of some critical realists.

1. Fine's analysis: Two arguments on critique and reality

Fine's analysis of critical realism is strongly informed by his long years of research in political economy, and his more recent interest in the imperialism of mainstream economics (Fine, 1997, 1999; Nielsen & Morgan, 2005). His analysis is organised around two main lines of argument:

* That critical realism is insufficiently critical.

* That critical realism is insufficiently realistic.

1.1 Critical realism is insufficiently critical

Fine states that critical realism:

   is insufficiently critical through divorcing methodology
   from theory, and criticising methodology alone. This is
   not only methodologically questionable--no method
   without theory and vice versa--but also strategically
   deficient as it is not the most effective way to go about
   undermining mainstream economics and 'underlabouring'
   for a more appropriate alternative. (2004: 202)

The argument Fine develops here is oriented to the relation between critical realism and its approach to mainstream economics. According to Fine, critical realists--particularly Tony Lawson and other Cambridge-based or Cambridge-trained colleagues--provide a philosophical critique of the mainstream focused on the problem of deductivism as the basis of its method (Lawson, 1997, 2003; Fleetwood, 1999). The critique explores the way deductivism is a decisive component underpinning mainstream economics. The critique is therefore methodological, i.e. of that which informs the doing of mainstream economics, with an emphasis on the problems of a deductivist approach, such as closed-system modelling and an over-reliance on mathematical formalism conducive to such modelling. Both of these, it is concluded, contribute to a basic incompatibility between mainstream economics and a realistic account of the economy. For Fine, such a critique on the part of critical realists is problematic for a variety of reasons.

Fine argues that in focusing on methodology from a philosophical perspective, critical realism effectively reproduces the split between methodology and theory that the mainstream itself enacts. Mainstream economists are notorious for their lack of training in the history of their subject, and also for their lack of awareness of the fundamental issues of what is assumed in basic theory, and in model- and concept-formation. Rumination on these subjects is deemed peripheral to the hard science of doing economics. It is a career backwater, or a diversion engaged in by those at the top of their profession, such as Kenneth Arrow or Milton Friedman, when they are not doing economics. Critical realism provides a methodological critique, but develops no specifically critical-realist theory in economics. This seems to mirror the mainstream split. For Fine, this is a strategic error:

   If the critique, as for critical realism, remains at the level
   of methodology, it cannot engage with substantive theory
   on its own terms, a particularly important omission where
   theory is itself, as in mainstream economics, particularly
   carefree about methodology. (2004: 207-8)

This is essentially a problem of effective persuasion. Critical realism can simply be ignored by the mainstream because it does not engage with it on recognisable terrain. But for Fine, it is also a deeper conceptual problem of the plausible development of methodological critique, because it raises a basic question of what it means to specify an aspect of reality:

   [A]s critical realism is part of a realist discourse of wider
   scope, its specific application to economics might be
   thought to go beyond methodological imperatives and
   address its substantive theoretical content. Otherwise, in
   what respect is it distinctively about economics? (2004:
   207)

From this perspective, critical realism is only about economics in so far as it analyses the products of economists. Furthermore, the manner in which critical realism addresses economics seems to combine critical realism's strategic error and its conceptual underdevelopment at the level of theory. As Fine notes, instead of developing a specifically critical-realist theory in economics, its practitioners seek out compatibilities between critical-realist tenets of what economic reality might entail and existing heterodox schools and theories within economics, by orienting on an additional, positive critique of those schools and theories. Fine makes two points about this. First, that in terms of particular heterodox schools and theorisations, critical realism might be perceived, and perhaps resisted or resented, as a proselytising force--perhaps because 'its proponents consider it the only secure basis on which to reject the mainstream and construct alternatives' (2004: 204). But alternatives to the mainstream got along well enough, from the point of view of their practitioners, without critical realism; and 'methodological and theoretical critique of the mainstream has not waited upon the emergence of critical realism' (2004: 203).

Critical realism might, therefore, be strategically ineffective within heterodoxy, since it is not itself developing a competing substantive theory. Second, in terms of its relation to heterodoxy as a whole as a means to building a persuasive alternative theorisation with which to address the mainstream, the nature of its engagement-seeking compatibilities could be deemed catholic to a degree that might be open to the criticism that it is overly tolerant of what are, after all, a series of competing positions. Not only might this dissipate the analytical force of critique; but if one considers the practical issue of mediating between competing schools, in terms of synthesising an acceptable account of what it means to focus on economy (to do economics), then simply defining the subject raises problems, because such a definition takes on a high level of generality in order to encompass them all. Fine notes, for example, that Lawson's definition of economics is perforce so open that it could as easily have been written by Gary Becker-one of the major economics imperialists of the mainstream (2004: 209-10).

Reading into Fine's argument, the combination of the points he makes might be seen in terms of a contradictory tendency within critical realism. At the level of philosophy, critical realism within economics might be interpreted as dictatorial. At the level of theory, it would seem to be liberal. But the contradiction is one that is always resolved in terms of the level of methodology, and thus on a terrain set by philosophy. This is simply incompatible with mainstream practice. Moreover, the nature of the critique--that deductivism should be scrapped--is so fundamental to the mainstream that it is difficult to see how it could be addressed without the mainstream being something that it is not (if one accepts that deductivism is fundamental--a question on which Fine is also equivocal). It is also problematic for heterodoxy, on the basis that 'good' Austrian, feminist, post-Keynesian economics, etc., should always conform to critical-realist tenets. Since critical realism lacks its own theoretical development it becomes, therefore, reliant on its acceptance and incorporation elsewhere. From Fine's perspective, the question then resurfaces--in what sense is critical realism itself about economics specifically?--as does the strategic problem. As a result, the critical-realist critique appears both marginal and prone to marginalisation.

1.11 Is critical realism insufficiently critical?

It is worthwhile considering here what thinking about critique in the way that Fine does assumes about the work of Lawson and his colleagues. To begin .with, it assumes that there is an analytical equivalence between methodology that does not develop theory, and theory that is ignorant of its own methodological implications, as in the mainstream. This is a problematic assumption. The basis of methodological analysis is to ask what different forms of theorisation presuppose, and what the consequences are of beginning from those presuppositions for the development of theory and of the field in general. Critical realists pose such questions in terms of the idea of the realism of those presuppositions. They consider it meaningful to ask whether models whose tradition emerges out of a Humean, constant-conjunction idea of causation (A always follows B)--and which create a tendency to think about the economy in terms of a closed system of idealisations, fixed patterns and predictable outcomes--are realistically founded. Exploring presuppositions at this level is meaningful precisely because there is very little formal methodological reflection in the mainstream. It is part of an 'adequate' explanation of the mainstream, which is in turn a key aspect of the process of critique.

The mainstream develops through theoretical innovation that takes existing presuppositions as a point of reference and departure. Fine is well aware of this, because it forms a major part of his argument elsewhere for the limitations of innovation in the mainstream (1997, 1999). Information-theoretic economics, for example, may well be an improvement on general equilibrium theory, but there are clear limitations to its formal mathematics and to such concepts as the equilibrium of disequilibrium or of partial rationality (Nielsen & Morgan, 2005). Not only is such innovation only meaningful in terms of the mainstream project (the relaxing of unreal assumptions, which remain the point of reference), but it is constrained by it, tending to reproduce variations of the original basic methodological problems.

Fine has argued that information-theoretic economics has a thin notion of history and institutions. One might also argue that its models create formalised; if complex, patterned behaviour that is, in the final instance, overly determined. Theory development itself can conceal this reproduction of the original methodological problems, because the focus is on innovation--more historical models; more institutional; more complex in their behaviour parameters--especially of forms of mathematical complexity. The focus is not on whether the model itself transcends the original problematic; this is not a question that theory necessarily asks. An improvement on a defective theory may still be defective in some fundamental way.

Methodology of theory is therefore quite different, rather than equivalent to, theory without methodology. This point in itself, however, is by no means a defence of Lawson and others' approach, because it tells us nothing about the further problems of separating methodology and theory. What it does, instead, is to suggest that any assessment of the critical-realist critique of the mainstream made using its own terms on the plausibility of its philosophical arguments for the nature of social reality--for this is the 'social reality' on which critical realism bases its own inquiry into the adequacy of the mainstream. How realistic those arguments are is a question various authors have raised (e.g. Harre, 2001; Groff, 2004), in more or less persuasive ways. The important point here is that Fine's understanding of the term 'critical' is about more than philosophical plausibility. 'Critical', for Fine, seems to mean an approach whose analysis is plausible, but also whose levels of analysis and development are strategically effective.

Since methodology without theory cannot get a hearing within mainstream economics because methodology is not under consideration, it seems to follow that methodology with theory must be a strategic improvement. This raises the issue of what such a correlation means for a notion of strategic effectiveness.

It is certainly true that winning an audience for a methodological critique of the mainstream from the mainstream is a virtual impossibility. If we were to assume for the moment that this is what Lawson expects, one might still ask what additional plausibility would be gained by developing a level of analysis that moved from methodology to theory. Since innovation in the mainstream is constrained by its (usually unstated) methodological presuppositions, engagement would mean creating theorisation that is recognisable from within the mainstream. The power asymmetry between heterodoxy and the mainstream, and the difficulty of the former in being published in mainstream journals, would demand this. To draw on another example from information-theoretic economics, Akerlof's now-seminal article 'The market for lemons' had to go through numerous changes before it was deemed acceptable for publication in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 1970. Since the difference in methodology between critical realism and the mainstream is a far more basic one, the result would be unlikely to be a consistent development of critical realism in the name of constructive dialogue. It would be far more likely to translate too much into mainstream terms, in a way that undermined the original power of the methodological critique. And a heterodox- rather than a mainstream-informed theoretical development of critical realism would fare no better in the mainstream, in this strategic sense, precisely because heterodoxy has fared no better.

One might argue, therefore, that critical realism, with or without theory, shares with heterodoxy in general--rather than being separated by it--a basic strategic dilemma in critique: how should, or even should one engage with a powerful and indifferent mainstream? Clearly, should any mainstream practitioners venture to initiate such an engagement, a response is called for, since to do otherwise might indicate a lack of confidence in the plausibility of the grounds of critique. But the circumstances of that engagement are quite different from the sacrifices required in shifting into the fields of power of the mainstream. Lawson and other critical-realist critics of the mainstream are quite aware of this. For that reason, the mainstream is Lawson's subject, but his powers of persuasion and his rhetorical endeavours are mainly otherwise directed. The fact that he has remained at Cambridge--in a department that no longer appears to be overly sympathetic to either heterodoxy or to his own project--speaks volumes for his commitment, and that of some of his colleagues, to ensuring that economics undergraduates are at least made aware that there is a critique of the mainstream. If they were to bow to the kind of pressures that Harley and Lee (1998), and Clarke and Mearman (2003) have noted in these pages for heterodox economists to either go over to mainstream publication, or to defect to non-economics departments, then an important strategic avenue of education would simply be lost.

Lawson's books and articles are also 'otherwise directed' in two ways. First, written in an accessible way, they aim to lay bare the problems of the mainstream for practitioners in other fields, who are attracted by the spurious aura of science that surrounds the mainstream. This is something of which Fine surely approves, since it accords with his project, albeit from a different perspective, on economics imperialism. Second, Lawson's books and articles are also clearly intended to provide an additional perspective on the mainstream for heterodox economists. Fine is quite correct in that heterodoxy is replete with powerful critiques of the mainstream, and that rejection of its tenets has not waited on critical realism. But this does not preclude an additional contribution. Here, one cannot discount the possibility that critical realism might be hampered in its approach to other heterodox currents, and as a substantive alternative to the mainstream within heterodoxy, by its lack of theory. This is an open issue of practice, however. To assume that critical realism is strategically hampered on this basis might imply one or both of two possibilities.

First, that heterodox economists are unable to accept an argument on its merits purely because it is methodological only. This is a rather unsympathetic view of heterodox economists (reminiscent of the mainstream 'show us your theory or we'll show you the door'). Second, that critical realists are apt to become dogmatic about methodology. This may or may not be so, since any position--even one that espouses dialogue, anti-foundationalism and contingency--can become a dogma in practice. This is only evaded by the responsiveness of its practitioners to critique and dialogue. It might well be, however, that a lack of theory is conducive to ossification in methodology, as Fine argues, precisely because it fosters a position in which theory never falsifies methodology. For this to be the case, however, critical realists would have to take no consequences from the dialogue with heterodoxy. But this holds equally true for dialogue between different heterodox positions at the level of theory and empirics.

One cannot, therefore, definitively state how a critical-realist critique of the mainstream without the development of theory will affect its own strategic position within heterodoxy on the basis of practice alone. One can, however, draw the lesson that a self-critical attitude is an important component in maintaining the critical credentials of both critical realism and the rest of heterodoxy, because it affects the degree to which each is open to the possibility of a positive contribution from the other. This directs us once again to the issue of whether and in what sense critical realism makes a positive contribution. Fine's question--in what respect is critical realism as practiced by Lawson distinctively about economics?--remains a pertinent one, but its significance is relocated into his second area of analysis.

1.2 Critical realism is insufficiently realistic

Fine states that:

   Critical realism is also insufficiently realist in failing to
   situate itself in relation to key economic concepts, most
   notably those of capital and capitalism. (2004: 202)

   It is very difficult to accept that a methodology of
   economics can be of much significance unless it engages
   with that mode of production or period of history that
   has most obviously given birth to it. (2004: 214)

Here, Fine develops a line of argument that reproduces some of his previous points in a different context, and which revolves around the social nature of economy and the sociological circumstances of economics as a constitutive part of society. According to Fine, critical realism argues for the social reality and significance of structures and institutions, as well as of power, conflict and causal tendencies. As such, it is quite different from many forms of mainstream economics. However, since the basis of analysis is restricted to methodology, arguments for the 'significance' of these elements do not move beyond the development in philosophical terms that they are significant (2004: 215). Though Fine does not make the point here, there is a clear analogy in his thinking to his previous work on the thin notions of structure and history, etc. to be found in current imperialistic innovations in the mainstream (1997, 1999), such as information-theoretic approaches, in the sense that he feels that neither is the best account of those concepts available. In terms of critical realism, the problem is that the concepts remain, for all intents and purposes, transhistorical and formalistic. Since social structures--and given tendencies, for example--are historically specific, this is a notable absence that Fine sees as mirroring the lack of theoretical development he previously identifies. The real significance of structure and the other concepts is the reality of them, not simply that they are significant, because this does not tell one anything about their role in the shaping of reality. This is a problem that Fine extends to critical realism itself as a mode of theorisation (2004: 216-7), because the question arises as to why critical realism is formalistic, and what the effects of that formalism are. Though he does not pursue the point, it seems compatible with Fine's position to infer that he is thinking about critical realism precisely as a theoretical product of a capitalist society--a form of society conducive to a scholastic division of labour--aspects of which are content to remain abstract and that receive a certain degree of acceptance because they are nonthreatening, even if they are critical, precisely because they do not make the move to the historically specific with all that this might entail in terms of practical political confrontation. As such, critical realism can be accommodated by the ideological apparatus as a minor element in the necessary illusion of a free market of ideas.

In terms of the effects of formalism, Fine identifies practical consequences for critical realism's catholicism at the level of theory. Critical realism is committed to the tenet that knowledge is fallible: that although there is a determinate reality, there can be competing corrigible theories of aspects of that reality. Critical realism, in other words, philosophically defends a non-vicious form of relativism. Fine does not dispute that this may be philosophically plausible; but he does make the point, again reinforcing his earlier argument about the methodology-theory split, that without a specification of the real structures of capitalism, critical realism is prone to embrace a variety of theoretical innovations, some of them at the margins of mainstream economics, that are problematic at best, such as path-dependence theory (2004: 217-8). In Fine's terms, therefore, critical realism's lack of realism makes its catholicism at the level of theory overly prone to accept what may turn out to be unrealistic theoretical projects. This is a problem that can only be resolved if methodology also develops more realistic theory. Since, according to Fine, critical realism does not do this, it is apt to shift from the consideration of one theory to another, but without any particular consequences for the basic defect in methodology that makes that shifting necessary. As a result, critical realism itself becomes tacitly infallible as a methodological practice (2004: 219).

1.21 Is critical realism insufficiently realistic?

There are two avenues by which one might respond to Fine's argument here. First, by a limited defence of Lawson's position as simply a different type of project from the one Fine has in mind; and second, by resituating Lawson and the general Cambridge project in terms of a broader group of critical realists who share Fine's approach, and whose work renders some of his concerns moot. Taking the former first, Fine's argument in terms of Lawson's work is ostensibly a powerful one, if one takes the view that realist philosophy must specify what

is substantively real in order to be termed 'realist'. But this is not what realism means in philosophical discourse.

As philosophy, it is about the plausibility of alternative ways of conceptualising reality. This level of argument cannot be neglected precisely because there are no definitive answers within philosophy, but there are plenty of problematic developments and positions that then go on to be influential within social science.

For example, for disciplinary philosophers, materialism and idealism are not about opposing the real to the unreal (Coates & Hutto, 1996; Moser & Trout, 1995), because idealism is not a refutation of reality but an argument for the basis of what it means to be real.

In metaphysics, this ranges from a radical, individualised solipsism to a broader Hegelian objective idealism, or a softer form of Wittgensteinian constructionism. In social theory, the pernicious effects of postmodernism are well known; and one reason why they are, arguably, receding is precisely that arguments have been adopted by social scientists from philosophical discourse in the name of competing ideas of realism, rather than as substantive accounts of what is real.

Of course, arguments about realism deriving from philosophy cannot be divorced from generalised experience, since part of their plausibility relies upon them striking an intuitive chord. Moreover, when they become components in methodological analysis they must also be situated in terms of particular spheres of social reality, for exactly the same reason. Thus Lawson's work is no more or less than the application of realist philosophical discourse of a particular kind to a particular sphere--economics. It is, to a large degree, what Fine states that it is--economics only in so far as it is about economics as a discipline. It is not 'real' in the sense that Fine is interested in. But this is not necessarily a problem for Lawson. Lawson's argument is focused in a different way on the assumption that analysis of the philosophical problems of economics has not been resolved to the point where the argument about the basis of realism is no longer worth having. One might go further and say that argument about philosophy and realism remains vital precisely to maintain the engagement of critical realism in its principle discursive source of authority--as philosophy--in order to forestall the kind of closed-mindedness that Fine sees the potential for in its proponents.

In terms of the above points, the charge of 'insufficiently real' in relation to Lawson's work dissolves; but it does not follow that work like Lawson's precludes theoretical development and substantive claims about reality. Fine is surely right to argue that such work is important--that it contributes to our understanding of contemporary capitalism, to the critical engagement of methodology (by providing an additional possible avenue for falsification), and to the role of theory in substantively competing with mainstream economics and in changing our world. The sociological question of why Lawson's work does not make that transition is therefore an interesting one. To ask the question is to engage in a critique of philosophy itself, from a Marxist perspective. This is philosophy read in terms of the German Ideology, such that 'When reality is depicted, philosophy as an independent branch of knowledge loses its medium of existence' (1965: 38), and in line with Marx's famous thesis that 'The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it' (1965: 662). Wilson (1991: 69-92) translates this, similarly to Fine, into the issue of how to provide a fully developed account of capitalism. Non-Marxist analyses move from the observation of empirical phenomena to abstraction in various ways, but lack a further development or concretisation of abstraction. The challenge of concretisation is to overcome the nonidentity of thought (theory) and reality (the world), while avoiding reification. The aim is to provide a powerful explanation of a socio-historically real totality that works on three conceptual levels--recognisable empirical phenomena, abstraction from them, and concretisation in order to make substantive and relational sense of abstraction. Concretisation makes sense of the other two, synthesising common-sense reality and underlying counter-phenomenal or occluded relations and principles (such as M-C-M) in order to produce a theory of capitalist society. In philosophy and in its account of mainstream economics, critical realism takes a slightly different route. Reality is differentiated into experience (the empirical), events (which may or may not be observed), and underlying structures (contributing to events that may or may not be observed). This is compatible with concretisation, but does not entail it. A concept of the reality of structure is not the same as the conceptualisation of the significance of the totality of particular structures in reality. If we think of this in terms of Fine's argument, the critical-realist accounts of the mainstream that he focuses on do not seem to involve such concretisation. However, Fine's Marxist critique does not preclude any worth in Lawson's work. It merely highlights its limitations (without necessarily acknowledging its strengths), and points one in the direction of further substantial developments concerning political economy and contemporary capitalism that Fine is interested in. This brings us to the second avenue of response.

In his concluding remarks (2004: 220), Fine calls for a theoretical turn in critical realism--a turn rooted in the categories of contemporary capitalism--in order to give substance and concrete explanatory value to concepts such as 'structure'. He also challenges critical realism to give 'an explicit account of where it diverges from Marxism and Marxist political economy' (2004: 220). Fine's principal target is, of course, only one project of critical realism: its study of problems of economy, which we can conveniently refer to hereafter as 'critical realism in economics' (Nielsen, 2002). In terms of Fine's concerns, it is worth noting that the 'critical realism in economics' project is increasingly distanced from Marxist-leaning political economy among critical realists (e.g. Olsen & Morgan, 2005). The involvement in Marxism of 'critical realism in economics' seems to be fading systematically. In his recent work, for example, Lawson (2003) engages with several heterodox positions, but not the Marxian and Austrian traditions. Lawson finds it reasonable to leave out these two traditions since he has dealt with aspects of the Austrian position elsewhere, and because 'theorising in connection with [the Marxian tradition] is widely covered by others taking an explicit realist orientation, especially in other disciplines' (2003: 167). A recent collection edited by Paul Downward (2003) reinforces the sense of this distance, even though it actually argues for and implements the theoretical turn that Fine calls for (Nielsen, 2004). Thus, many of Fine's points remain pertinent challenges to the limits of Lawson's work and to the Cambridge project, or 'critical realism in economics', but it is questionable as to whether they apply to a broader base of critical-realist political economists. Moreover, given Fine's range of concerns and the questions he raises, a focus on that broader base would seem to be more appropriate in terms of a fruitful engagement with critical realism.

2. Marxism and critical realism

Two points are relevant in situating critical realism in terms of Marxism in order to meet Fine's concerns. First, the work of the principal early proponent of critical realism, Roy Bhaskar, draws heavily on the scattered methodological insights to be found in Marx. Bhaskar's own work breaks new ground, in the sense that it provides a coherent critique and alternative system in philosophy to forms of positivism and postmodernism in the philosophy of science (1975) and social theory (1979). In so doing, it also provides a means of addressing the way elements of those positions had produced longstanding tensions in the methodological development of Marxism after Marx--problems that Gouldner (1980: 37), for example, identifies along the lines of nature-society, voluntarism-determinism, and freedom-necessity. One of the reasons for which critical realism gained an immediate audience among left-leaning philosophers and social theorists--particularly through the journal Radical Philosophy and the texts Issues in Marxist Philosophy--was that many of its basic concepts and insights accorded with the general thrust of Marx's methodological comments, especially in the Grundrisse (I973) and in the preface to the first edition of Capital (1954). Bhaskar's work was both new and familiar. As Marx states, 'Science would be superfluous if the outward appearance and essence of things directly coincided' (1962: 797). Social reality is therefore an open system that cannot be reduced to the experience of atomised individual events that forms of positivism entail. Abstractions are not simplifications for the convenience of method, but rather the temporary isolation of potentially significant elements of complex historical social conditions, exploring their causal tendencies (1954: 7-8, 372, n. 3). Causation is tendentious and more than merely mechanical because we are conscious agents; but it is also rooted in longstanding structures of social relations that are reproduced by our actions (1965: 665-67). Thus ideas and language cannot be free-floating, as forms of conventionalism and constructivism presuppose. One cannot simply 'eliminate all the ill-sounding terms and change the language' in order to change society (1955: 57). Explaining ideology is a key component in comprehending a material social reality:

   Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious
   existence and the existence of men in their actual life-process.
   If in all ideology men and their circumstances
   appear upside down as in a camera obscura, this
   phenomenon arises just as much from their historical life
   process ... Life is not determined by consciousness but
   consciousness by life. (1965: 37-38)

It is with this debt in mind that Bhaskar makes the typically grandiose claim that 'Marx's work at its best illustrates critical realism; and critical realism is the absent methodological fulcrum of Marx's work' (1991: 143). In any case, it was because of its deep roots in Marxism that, for example, the socialist philosopher Andrew Collier made significant use of Bhaskar's work in his Scientific Realism and Socialist Thought (1988), and in Socialist Reasoning (1990). Subsequently, one strand of Bhaskar's work (1993) has been to immanently critique the dialectic in order to continue to develop elements of the Marxist tradition. Whatever one feels about the nature of these later developments, the initial point we want to make here is that, to a large degree, critical realism has emerged out of Marxism and has maintained a critical dialogue with it (Joseph, 1998; Brown, Fleetwood & Roberts, 2002; Joseph & Roberts, 2004), when one looks beyond the 'critical realism in economics' project. That dialogue has not just been conducted in order to argue for the applicability of critical realism to Marxism, in the way that it addresses the accumulation of conceptual problems from other philosophical positions such as positivism, but has also drawn on Marxism in order to critique critical realism. For example, various critical realists (Creaven, 2002; Joseph, 2001) have argued that Bhaskar's reconstruction of the Hegelian master-slave concept lacks historical specification--an argument that is essentially a sub-set of the problem of concretisation (perhaps indicating its origins for Lawson's work) in terms of Bhaskar's dialectics and the plausibility of his concept of totality. This lack of concretisation highlights one key area of difference between Bhaskar and Marx in terms of methodological development, illustrated by the following words from Engels on the materialist conception of history:

   From this point of view the final causes of all social
   changes and political revolutions are to be sought, not in
   men's brains, not in man's better insight into eternal truth
   and justice, but in changes in the modes of production
   and exchange. They are to be sought, not in the philosophy,
   but in the economics of each particular epoch. (Engels,
   1950: 125)

From Fine's perspective, one might also maintain that methodological work on the commensuration of Marxism and critical realism precisely replicates the methodology-theory split of critical realism in economics. Rather than being a substantive development from method it is about method, in so far as it is about basic analytical problems of realism and issues of conceptual compatibility. On the basis that its proponents have a valid point in arguing that critical realism can be Marxist, Fine's critique would be even more damning here precisely because a form of Marxism cannot plausibly evade the development of a substantive account of capitalism. This brings us to our second point in meeting Fine's concerns. Many critical realists are engaged in both methodological work on Marxism and the development of substantive accounts of capitalism (Morgan, forthcoming, 2006). Jessop (1990, 2002a, 2002b), for example, combines Marxism, the French regulation school and critical realism in order to develop an analysis of the role of the contemporary state within the current environment of neoliberal discourse and globalisation.

He questions the nature of constraints on the modern state imposed by transnational capital, and also questions the nature and significance of flexible production processes and versions of Fordism, post-Fordism, etc. Dean (2003) follows quite a different track. She draws on Althusser, Arendt and Marx in order to develop an analysis of modern citizenship and its potentials. As both Lukes (1985) and MacIntyre (1966) argue, Marx alone is problematic on this subject. On the one hand, Marx does apply a consistent moral sensibility, critique and judgement to his work. According to MacIntyre:

   Marx on the one hand believed that in matters of conflict
   between social classes the appeal to moral judgements
   was not only pointless but positively misleading. So he
   tried to excise from documents of the First International
   appeals for justice for the working class. For to whom
   are these appeals being made? Presumably to those
   responsible for exploitation; but they are acting in
   accordance with the norms of their class, and although
   individual philanthropic moralists may be found among
   the bourgeoisie, philanthropy cannot alter class structure.
   But one may nonetheless use morally evaluative language
   in at least two ways. One may use it simply in the course
   of describing actions and institutions; no language
   adequately descriptive of slavery could fail to be
   condemnatory to anyone with certain attitudes and aims.
   Or one may use it explicitly to condemn, appealing not
   to some independent classless tribunal, but to the terms
   in which one's opponents have themselves chosen to be
   judged. (MacIntyre 1966: 213)

On the other hand, what Marx does not develop is a moral system focused on the role of morality within the working-class movement in capitalism or in a socialist or communist society. As Dean argues (2003: 18), this has left subsequent 'dogmatic Marxists with a politically toxic mixture of scientism and making as their model of revolutionary action'. The gap this leaves is often filled by forms of spiritualism, consumerism and doctrines of the Right.

The work of Jessop and that of Dean illustrate the relevance of a broader debate about the nature of Marxist exegesis--debates concerning changes in contemporary capitalism and arguments about the compatibility of a plurality of forms of Marxism.

The problem of what Marxism-after-Marx is and should be is a large and contentious one that cannot be comprehensively addressed here. But thinking about some of the aspects of this debate can help in contextualising the issues of how one positions critical realism and Marxism in order to meet Fine's concerns. In broad analytical terms, the way one draws the boundaries of Marxism will be significant for the way one understands its relation to critical realism--or at least the work of some critical realists.

3. Two issues on the porosity of the boundaries of Marxism

Marx's work, according to Meszaros (1996: 53), has to be

   related to his time, which does not mean we have to in
   any way abandon the framework of his theory. The
   framework of Marxian theory remains the overall horizon
   also of our activity, our orientation, because it embraces
   the whole epoch, this epoch of capital in crisis and the
   necessity of finding a way out of it.

It would be difficult to find a Marxist who disagreed with the general tone of this point. However, there are lines of debate concerning the degree to which different positions can be deemed Marxist, ranging from a classical position that claims more strongly that Marx's work remains relevant in a predominantly unadulterated form, and critics who variously argue that it does not. These lines of debate on the status and limits of Marxism tend to cut across Cleaver's (1979) differentiation of three domains of Marxism: political economy, philosophical and political readings. A distinction must also be made between non- or anti-Marxist critics who simply repudiate Marx, and those who see themselves as developing Marx as forms of new (post- or neo-) Marxism. This distinction, however, is not straightforward. Foucault, for example, is both an unequivocal critic and aware of the significance of his legacy:

   Don't talk to me about Marx anymore. I never want to
   hear about that gentleman again. Go and talk to the
   professionals. The ones who are paid to do that. The ones
   who are his civil servants. For my part I am completely
   through with Marx. (Cited by Macey, 1993: 348)

   Marxism exists in nineteenth century thought as a fish
   exists in water; that is, it ceases to breathe anywhere else.
   (Foucault, 1974: 262)

   It is impossible at the present time to write history without
   using a whole range of concepts directly or indirectly
   linked to Marx's thought and situating oneself within a
   horizon of thought which has been defined and described
   by Marx. One might even wonder what difference there
   could ultimately be between being a historian and being
   a Marxist. (Foucault, 1980: 53)

Derrida is an admirer, although his own system of deconstruction bears no traces of Marx's concerns or method:

   Upon rereading the Manifesto and a few other great works
   of Marx, I said to myself that I know of few texts in the
   philosophical tradition, perhaps none, whose lesson
   seemed more urgent today, provided that one take into
   account what Marx and Engels themselves say ... about
   their own possible 'aging' and their intrinsically
   irreducible historicity ... It will always be a fault not to
   read and reread and discuss Marx--which is to say also a
   few others--and to go beyond scholarly 'reading' or
   'discussion'. It will be more and more a fault, a failing of
   theoretical, philosophical, political responsibility.
   (Derrida, 1994: 13)

Laclau's position is more ambiguous. Together with Mouffe, he notoriously stated that 'if our intellectual project ... is post-Marxist, it is evidently also post-Marxist' (Laclau & Mouffe, 2001: 4). Consequently, he has applied many of the more controversial insights of post-structuralism and the linguistic turn to particular key Marxist concepts, such as ideology:

   What we are witnessing is not the decline of a theoretical
   object [ideology] as a result of a narrowing of its field of
   operation but rather the opposite: its infinite expansion,
   consequent to the explosion of the dichotomies which--within
   a certain problematic--confronted it with other
   objects. Categories such as 'distortion' and 'false
   representation' made sense as long as something 'true' or
   'undistorted' was considered to be within human reach.
   But once an extra ideological viewpoint becomes
   unreachable, two effects necessarily follow:

   1. discourses organising social practices are both
   incommensurable and on equal footing with all others;
   2. notions such as 'distortion' and 'false representation'
   lose all meaning.

   This does not mean, of course, that ideological critique
   is impossible--what is impossible is a critique of ideology
   as such; all critiques will necessarily be intra-ideological.
   (Laclau, 1996: 203)

Writing generally on such scholars as Foucault, Deleuze, Derrida and Lyotard, Peters (2001: vii) claims that 'poststructuralism is neither a form of anti-Marxism nor antithetical to Marxism ... Indeed, these philosophers view themselves in some kind of relationship to the legacy of Marx. They either have been Marxist or still christen themselves as Marxist and invent new ways of reading and writing Marx'.

Likewise, Landry (2000: xi) notes--in relation to much the same set of writers and problematics, but under the alternative heading 'postmodernism'--that 'There are implicit and explicit references in the literature to Karl Marx's work as relevant, and possibly central, to the postmodernism debates', and argues that 'the postmodernism debates can be seen as fueled, to a greater degree than is cursorily thought, by complex responses to Marx's lagacy' (2000: 141).

Others such as Jameson (1999), Hardt and Negri (2000, 2001, 2004) and Harvey (1999a, 1999b) place themselves unambiguously, in the tradition of Marx, as systematic innovators. The question then arises, what does it mean to claim a position within Marxism? In a recent interview (Morgan, forthcoming), when asked how he would compare his work with classical Marxism, Michael Hardt replied:

   I'm not sure what you have in mind by classical, but both
   Toni [Negri] and I feel extremely close to, and are
   constantly working with, Marx's own texts and we see
   our work as closely in line with that. Of course, when one
   talks about Marx's work one cannot think of it as a bible
   to be followed to the letter, and also one cannot think of
   it as a body of thought that is fixed in its own historical
   time. This is Toni's own thesis that one must take Marx
   beyond Marx [Negri (1991)]. In other words, take Marx
   beyond the limits of his own time and thinking but
   recognise the continuity with Marx's own thinking within
   our own historical situation. Without feeling that anything
   in particular is at stake, in terms of holding the banner of
   'true Marxism', we do both feel our work is a continuation
   of, and within the tradition of, Marx's thinking. It strikes
   me as odd when dealing with such questions that we are
   also really dedicated Spinozans but nobody asks us that
   question, nobody cares if we are really in the classical
   Spinozan model or if we are heretical Spinozans.

Hardt is well aware that claiming a position on Marxism has no normative equivalent in any other aspect of social theory. It is one over-burdened with political and sociological significance in ways that claiming to hold a position on Spinoza is not. To claim a position on Marxism is to lay claim to more than a useful body of work--it is a claim on a particular heritage that also implies, tacitly at least, the right to inherit a certain radical identity. To claim a position on Marxism is to place a claim to shaping a significant world-view. At the same time, there are at least two underlying issues that have relevance to the way one views the boundaries of Marxism. First is the issue of whether and to what degree Marx's work contains internal flaws that require conceptual reconstruction or otherwise. Second, there is the question of whether and to what degree changes brought about by contemporary capitalism require us to rethink the basic framework of Marx. The two issues are distinguishable because the first does not imply the second, although the second tends to imply a particular need for the first. This is because the first issue simply implies, for instance, conceptual error irrespective of time and place, while the second implies, for instance, conceptual reconstruction because of time and place. Both are issues worthy of substantial argument rather than simple matters of internecine struggle concerning who has the right to lay claim to Marxism. No Marxist materialist can deny, without falling into paradox (in the sense that it would contradict basic tenets of Marxism), that there is some way the world is that makes a theoretical account of it more or less tenable. This is the absolute baseline of realism in Marxism. The flipside of this, as Sayer (1987) argues, is that a tradition of innovation is central to Marx's work itself, and to that of Engels. Citing from various sources, he states:

   [Engels] underlines the limitations of any general theory
   or model when it comes to analysing particular historical
   events, processes or societies ... These quotations amount
   to a general warning against a certain pre-emptive use of
   theory, and a plea for empirical, and in particular for
   historical, study. This is a more general theme in Marx's
   work, and not just an afterthought on the part of an ageing
   Engels. (Sayer, 1987: 10-1)

However:

   This is not to argue for an interpretive free-for-all. As
   Max Weber once remarked, Marx is not a taxicab one
   can drive where one will. It is, I think, often possible to
   demonstrate that Marx did not adhere to positions
   commonly ascribed to him ... Precisely because Marx's
   name is so often invoked to authorize and legitimate
   contemporary doctrines and practices to know what he
   did and did not say, and what can and cannot be fairly
   said in his name, becomes important. (Sayer, 1987: ix-x)

Anderson (1983: 11-2) draws on the Eighteenth Brumaire in order to make much the same point. If Marx were alive today, he too would be an innovator. This, however, is not paradoxical, since it does not imply that Marx would deny the relevance of his own work and thus refute classical Marxism in favour of a position somewhere on the spectrum between it and the outer edges of post-Marxism. It is simply to acknowledge that it would be non-Marxist to see Marx's work as inviolable, because it is a central tenet of Marx's work that social reality is mutable, and that theory and the world cannot be conflated.

At the same time, it does not follow that the world has necessarily significantly changed in degree. Again, these are matters of substance; but at the same time they indicate something about the nature of the boundaries of Marxism, and the way the very idea of 'classical', 'neo-' and 'post-Marxism'--in other words, its status as a living tradition of theorisation--can obscure what is essential to Marxism, drawn from Marx.

Illustrating the way Marx's work and the boundaries of Marxism have always encompassed innovation allows us to highlight the fact that those boundaries ought to be porous and broadly conceived, but not relativised or deconstructed. Heilbroner (1981: 20) is right in pointing out that

   there is a recognizable identity to Marxist thought--or,
   more accurately, to the thought inspired by Marx's writings
   to which we give the portmanteau description of
   'Marxism'. This identity comes from a common set of
   premises that can be discovered in all such writing, no
   matter how strict or iconoclastic the viewpoints to which
   the writer subscribes or how inconsistent such views may
   be with each other.

But at the same time, we must assign another innovative Marxist, Offe (1993: 254), and indeed everyone else the right to 'challenge anybody's right to monopolise definitions of Marxism and its limits'. Relating to our contemporary historical situation, Laffey and Dean (2002: 91) articulate such a view on Marxism when they find that we need 'a flexible Marxism for flexible times'. Following this, methodological work by critical realists with an interest in Marxism, and the more substantive accounts of capitalism by critical realists who align themselves with Marxism, can be placed somewhere along the spectrum from classical to post- in a non-pejorative way. The challenge to them is a slightly different one from that which Fine's comments imply. The challenge is not so much to establish that they are Marxist, but rather a question of in what sense we are to initially categorise them within the plurality of Marxism--in terms of, for instance, the degree to which they claim that there are either internal flaws in Marx's basic concepts, or a need for reconstruction of them due to fundamental changes in capitalism. There can be, therefore, no position that might be classed as definitively critical realist.

The recent main stances in the debate on critical realism and Marxism highlight this lack of a definitive stance. They are exemplified by the pro, contra and mediating voices of Brown, Fleetwood and Roberts (2002: ch. 1). Fleetwood locates critical realism's main contribution to Marxism at the philosophical level primarily via Bhaskar's philosophy of science. Work on concretisation thereafter is seen as having been done by Marxist critical realists, rather than as necessarily uniquely critical-realist work. Roberts acknowledges that critical realism has generated some useful insights for Marxism in philosophy, but argues that Marxism does not require an additional systematic philosophical position, and that it has at least as much to learn from Hegel. Brown provides a mediating position, noting--contra Gunn (1989) and with reference to Joseph (1998)--that 'There are simply too many genuine Marxist adherents to, or sympathisers with, critical realism for the extreme rejections of critical realism recommended by some of its detractors to be wholly accepted' (2002: 17).

Whatever position one takes in that debate, the point remains that both critical realism and Marxism are multiple, and have increasingly become so during the last two decades (Nielsen, forthcoming). Thereafter, the issue becomes the question of in what sense and to what extent the substance of the arguments made are plausible as a form of Marxist account of contemporary capitalism. This implies the need to avoid misguided arguments about boundaries in order to concentrate on more fruitful matters of content. Marsden's comment that 'With few exceptions, realists use Marx to illustrate and legitimize the philosophy, rather than use the philosophy to rethink and further the work Marx began' (1999: 40) seems relevant here. (1)

4. Conclusion

Fine's critique of critical realism is an important one for a number of reasons. Narrowly, it provides an opportunity to clearly define the parameters of the Cambridge-based critique of mainstream economics. This is important because if Fine is capable of misconstruing elements of that project, then so are others. What is more, and importantly, it provides the opportunity to highlight both the principal weakness of that project (that it lacks concretisation) and the need for other critical realists to address this problem. This in itself allows us to make the point that critical realism is an increasingly plural source of theory and research. More broadly, a number of points that can be generalised emerge from addressing Fine's comments. The most important of these is the significance of the formation of discursive boundaries for the way we challenge conceptual credentials and claims.

Fine, for example, seems to implicitly assume a lack of relation between Marxism and critical realism as the starting point for his demand that critical realism in general--and 'critical realism in economics' in particular--specify its relation to Marxism. This both assumes that explicit specification is the basis of any relation, and that critical realism stands outside such specification--i.e, that Marxism is narrowly defined in classical terms.

As we have argued above, both points are problematic because the relations are multiple and overlapping. What is perhaps more interesting is the way in which time can compress plural challenges and innovations to the point that the question is no longer 'are they Marxist?' but rather, 'are they substantively correct?'

One might argue that the work of Gramsci is an innovative progression from Marxism, and that the work of neo-Gramscian international political economy (Cox, 1987; Bieler & Morton, 2004) occupies multiple locations along a spectrum of broad-based Marxism and beyond. But the recent conceptual debate has not been about boundaries per se, but rather about the nature of specific concepts, notably hegemony and a transnational capitalist class as a source of world order.

It is perhaps true that critical realists have contributed to a focus on boundaries precisely by engaging in methodological work that accepts the problem of definition as significant in these terms. In so doing, one might argue that the focus of books like Critical Realism and Marxism has contributed to the notion that critical realists only engage in methodological work, when the majority of contributors to the text do far more--as Joseph's work on hegemony (2002), and the consequent discussion between him and Jessop in Journal of Critical Realism, exemplify (Jessop, 2003a, 2003b; Joseph, 2003). (2)

Illustrating that this is the case provides a platform for moving beyond this debate in a way that does both Marxism and critical realism justice, in that it refuses to reduce either.

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Notes

(1.) Marsden seeks to combine the work of Marx, Foucault and critical realism in order to develop a new understanding of contemporary capitalism. Joseph (2004) has also argued that aspects of Foucault's work, such as 'governmentality', can provide useful insights within a Marxist perspective.

(2.) One might also note Andrew Brown's (e.g. 2005) work, which combines Ilyenkov and a critique of the Cambridge project in terms of the problems of contemporary capitalism.