Chapter 5 - The Necessity of Totality

Summary

Chapter 5 discusses the dialectic of necessity and contingency in Hegel’s logic, and explains what it means to say that the power of the totality over individuals is “absolutely necessary.” For Hegel, necessity does not exclude contingency, but rather requires contingency. Hegel’s conception of the interrelation of necessity and contingency underpins Marx’s analysis of capitalism. A capitalist economy is essentially a market economy, and the economic laws of capitalism obtain not despite but rather through the irregularities and contingencies inherent to the market. Given the lack of central economic planning, individuals have the illusion of freedom in the market, yet, Marx argues, such an illusion only contributes to the “despotism of capital.” Finally, I elaborate on the various shapes of freedom in capitalism, and argue that such freedoms are not the freedoms of self-determination, but result from contingency and randomness.