Systematic dialectic is distinguished from historical dialectic and its logic explored. As a strategy of exposition designed to articulate the forms of a given whole it orders the relevant categories in a linear development. The dialectical justification of the transitions is the central question addressed. What is given progressively as the further determination of the abstract beginning should be read retrogressively as a grounding movement validating the earlier categories from the perspective of the concrete whole.

For a century now Marxists have been searching for a 'rational kernel' of Hegelian 'dialectics' inside the 'mystical shell' of the Hegelian system. As against this entire tradition, Rosenthal insists that Hegelian philosophy is mysticism all the way through. He argues that Marx's supposed 'dialectic method' is simply a myth and proposes the provocative thesis that it is not, after all, Hegel's 'method' of which Marx made use in Capital but rather precisely Hegel's mysticism.

To make abstractions hold good in actuality means to destroy actuality.

Systematic dialectic is distinguished from historical dialectic and its logic explored. As a strategy of exposition designed to articulate the forms of a given whole it orders the relevant categories in a linear development. The dialectical justification of the transitions is the central question addressed. What is given progressively as the further determination of the abstract beginning should be read retrogressively as a grounding movement validating the earlier categories from the perspective of the concrete whole.

In a step-by-step progression through Marx's three volume work, discovers a systematic theory of socio-economic categories ordered according to the dialectical logic derived from Hegel.