The Marxian Philosophy, as has been frequently stated is the outcome of German Philosophy, socialist Utopian doctrines and English Political Economy.
There are many prominent men to-day who sniff at Marxism; a doctrine formulated in the nineteenth century cannot in their opinion be valid to-day. The last eighty years have certainly brought about remarkable progress in the development of productive forces; electric trains, aeroplanes, radio and much modern machinery did not exist at the time that Marx formulated his theories. This profound development of the material means of production can certainly not be held as an invalidation of the Marxian ideal (i.e. Socialism); it must on the contrary be regarded as fulfilling much more adequately the prerequisite material foundation which Marx considered to be a preliminary for the construction of a classless socialist society. The invectives hurled against the Marxian ideal from this standpoint are therefore unwarranted. The utmost charge that can be made is against the Marxian analysis itself, which is in the opinion of its rebutters unsound. In face of the much more modern development of society “historical materialism” and “surplus value” in their opinion no longer hold water as scientific theses, even granted that some justification may have been held for these concepts in the “Victorian Epoch.”
. . . The question arises: Can one honestly subscribe to a doctrine, or body of doctrines, which is unsound in its essence.
The Marxian “ideal” may be cherished, but then it is the ideal of predecessors of Marx (Bray, Thompson); but for that idealistic vision Marx deserves no special merit, nor even for his consistent devotion to the workers’ cause—if one may add this factor too. It is his theories which constitute his “contribution” and which enable us to understand modern capitalism. The entire ideological phenomenon is to be elucidated through an explanation of the economic conditions of man. This is historical materialism. The religious thoughts, the changes of ideas, intellectual life have their grounding in the economic structure of society—and one may add the political and juridical life. That Hitler, Bolshevism and Labour Government can be explained in terms of the economic structure and that they are satisfactorily explained are factors which leave no doubt in our minds of recent events. Neither Hitler, nor Bolshevism, nor Labour Government could have arisen in Feudalism, in a previous economic building of society.
The perennial incomes of the capitalist class are a deduction from the total labour of the working class; the result of the excess produced by the workers over their own income, i.e. the value of their labour power.
This is the doctrine of surplus value. The value of a ware is the sum total of labour contained within it. What do we mean by value? We mean just that which we use in colloquial conversation, viz., a treasurable estimation. But this treasurable estimation only arises in exchange societies or where exchange of goods has arisen or taken place. In a Socialist community two children in a Kindergarten may very well exchange their toys, but they will not do so with a concept of value. Nor will value be a factor of their articles for them, as it must necessarily be for them to-day behind their backs, namely, some sort of treasurable estimation. The value of a thing is then to-day some sort of qualitative estimation of it, even if the factors behind that estimate are not grasped. . . . money, too, has value, i.e. gold, silver, copper. The exchange of a commodity for money is the exchange of one for another value. It has been said that the proportionally determining factor in the exchange of values is their usefulness. This is pure nonsense! It cannot mean estimation as to whether a fur coat contains a thousand times more usefulness than does a chair. This is a purely subjective estimation —the utility of a commodity. But if the degree of usefulness is impossible to fathom, it is possible to gauge the socially necessary labour in an article, which Marx holds to constitute the value of the thing. That the total value of goods is estimated in terms of labour; exchanges on an average for a total of money estimated in terms equivalent of labour is Marx’s thesis, viz., the labour theory of value, and he has shown that although his thesis is that of Ricardo, Smith and other economists too his special contribution is that it is not “labour” which the worker sells to the capitalist but his labour power. The pervading thought in my mind is the applicability of the doctrine of Marx to the progressive industrial 1950 capitalism.
G.
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