To the Finland Station, by Edmund Wilson (Secker A Warburg.)
Of the making of books on Karl Marx there is no end! It has become almost a business. And yet, despite this deluge of books, there is seldom anything worth reading. Few, indeed, of these pretentious authors have done more than skim through Marx's work, and their learned observations, in the main, are based on a study of the simplified and more readable “versions" of certain alleged authorities. When Marx’s works first appeared they were ignored by capitalist circles, but later on, when this silence could no longer be preserved without some embarrassment, they vented upon him all the calumny and abuse of which they were capable. Since then he has been made to suffer from every possible kind of misrepresentation. Thanks to the efforts of Labour socialites and "left-wing" literary gentlemen, Karl Marx has become almost persona grata to the “cultured" section of the capitalists. He is no longer abused; he is even praised. Edmund Wilson in his book, “To the Finland Station," is most certainly generous with his compliments, but one feels that praise given to Marx by people who do not understand or distort bis work means absolutely nothing. As a serious effort in exposition of Marxist ideas this book is utterly useless. One does not really know whether Mr. Wilson is trying to write a novel, a badly jumbled biography, or a study of scientific interest. Seemingly he attempts everything, and succeeds at nothing. He does not even trouble to make his own Aunt Sallies; he borrows them from Max Eastman. In fact, the whole book is nothing more than an elaborate piece of bluff. Here are some of the chapter headings: “Karl Marx: Prometheus and Lucifer," "Karl Marx Decides to Change the .World," “Myth of the Dialectic," "Karl Marx: Poet of Commodities and Dictator of the Proletariat." . . . Could Tod Slaughter do better?
Throughout the whole book there is a subtle and insinuating disparagement of Mark, his character and his work. On page 165 there is a particularly vicious sentence: "nor was he able to refrain for long from reminding self-educated thinkers who had lifted themselves out of the lower classes, as Proudhon and Weitling had done, that they were not doctors of philosophy like himself. . . ."
On page 311 he says, with reference to "Das Capital": "Thus, in attacking the industrial system, he is at the same time declaring his own tribulations, calling the heavens— that is, history—to witness that he is a just man wronged, and damning the hypocritical scoundrel who compels others to slave and suffer for him. . . ." There follows a string of purple quotations from various works for the purpose of proving that Marx’s criticisms of capitalist society were inspired by ill-health, poverty and carbuncles.
Says Mr. Wilson, "If we isolate the images in Marx— which are so powerful and vivid in themselves that they can sometimes persuade us to forget his lack of realistic observation and almost produce the illusion of a visible and tangible experience—if we isolate and examine these images, we can see through to the inner obsessions at the heart of the world vision of Marx." (Page 312.)
But further back, on page 151, when he feels like giving Marx a pat on the back, he remarks, “he had a character that could not be sidetracked by the threats or baits of bourgeois society."
So this man who could not be sidetracked by the baits of bourgeois society, who surrendered the rewards of a comfortable career in the law courts or the universities to keep his intellectual freedom, this man is also declaring his own tribulations to high heavens in a scientific work on political economy! It would have been more appropriate if Mr. Wilson, instead of making fantastic excursions into the realms of psychology, got down to the hard job (for him) of examining the objective import of Marx's writings. Whatever physiological or psychological reasons may explain a man's work, they cannot invalidate his ideas. Mr. Wilson admits this, nevertheless he spends many pages (half the book probably) on futile and boring "psycho analysis."
He keeps producing time-worn criticisms of Marxian theories, all of which have been thoroughly gone into by Engels, Hyndman and others, with the triumphant mien of a conjurer who is going to bring a couple of lions out of his hat. His method is to give these anti-Marxist criticisms in detail, but he takes good care not to give a full and comprehensive Marxist refutation. What he really does is to provide an unopposed platform for anti-Marxist critics, and he does it with the pose of an earnest and impartial seeker of the truth.
It is easy to see that Mr. Wilson has a rather untidy mind. There are too many bits and pieces flying round bis book. He starts on one subject and then drifts on to another before the first one is settled. The impression one gets of the book as a whole is a picture of complete mental chaos.
Mr. Wilson is so naive that it is sometimes astonishing. In the chapter, Marx—Poet of Commodities, he says : “On the one hand. Marx is telling yon in Das Capital that a certain historic development, indispensable for the progress of the race, could only have been carried out by capitalism; and, on the other hand, he is filling you with fury against the wickedness of the people who performed it.” (P. 293.)
To begin with, Marx did not set out to fill his readers with "fury" at the “wickedness" of the capitalists. He regarded them as a product of social evolution. Nor were they more "wicked" than the workers were more "good.” Quite obviously, they can only live one way, the capitalist way—on the profits made by exploiting the workers. It is true that Marx described the poverty of the workers with lavish detail, but he did this in order to establish the existance of their poverty as a FACT. In answer to the men who said that capitalism could be reformed in the interests of the working class, he showed that with every advance in industry there must be a relative deterioration in the workers' position. The real point at issue is not so much that the workers are poor, but that they have to keep poor as long as capitalism exists.
For example, Mr. Wilson says (page 321): "Here in the United States, our social groupings are mainly based on money, and the money is always changing hands so rapidly that the class lines cannot get cut very deep.”
What piffling rubbish! In America, the concentration of wealth is simply staggering. How the Morgans, Rockefellers and Mellons must be trembling at the fear of losing their money! . . . Yes, it is true that money changes hands, but it very seldom gets into the hands of workers in any quantity. Indeed, why shouldn't Marx stress the hopelessness of working-class life if Mr. Wilson himself is seemingly oblivious?
Elsewhere, in dealing with Value, he says (page 296): "Thus the value that was supposed to be derived from labour appeared as a purely abstract conception which had nothing to do with prices and relative profits, and which indeed exhibited a character almost mystical inasmuch as it was an essence inhering only in farm and factory labour. ... In order to prove that this value of labour had any objective reality, it would have been necessary to show that the total profit realised at a given moment was equal to that part of the combined prices on the market of the total amount of goods produced which was appropriated by the manufacturer after he had paid his workers—a calculation that Marx never attempted."
Really, he might just as well have invited Marx to stand on his head or climb the Eiffel Tower. It would have proved just as much. What the manufacturer appropriates after he has paid his workers represents only a portion of the value of the goods. Some of the surplus value finds its way to merchants, agents, exporters, etc.
As Mr. Wilson appears to understand little or nothing about Value, a simple lesson might do him some good. Commodities, as we know, are goods produced for sale at various and varying prices. The question that Marx set out to solve was, what determines the rate or proportion in which they exchange? He showed how their value is determined by the socially necessary labour embodied in their production.
We can see that commodities, whatever the different uses they perform, have one very important quality in common— labour. Labour, therefore, is their common denominator. But sooner than admit that labour is the source of value, the economists point to demand as the determinant of value. Marx showed that the interplay of supply and demand merely causes prices to fluctuate, and that these fluctuations eventually cancel one another. The point about which the price of an article turns is not determined by supply and demand, but by its value. This value is not altered by supply and demand, though the price is: therefore price and value do hot always correspond—things may sell above or below their value. Even when goods sell permanently above their value or permanently below, labour-time is still the governing factor, as the capitalists show by their efforts to keep reducing it. Looking at the matter more closely, we can see that it is value that exercises a powerful influence upon demand. It is no mere whim which induces a hard-headed capitalist to part with £2,000 in exchange for a Rolls Royce car when he could buy a Ford car for a £100.
Whatever the subject he handles, whether economics, philosopby or history, Mr. Wilson betrays the same slip shod thinking. He is evidently convinced that the people who read his book are not likely to study Karl Marx for themselves. In a hundred and forty-nine pages on Lenin and Trotsky he tells you as much useful information about the Russian Revolution as you could learn from any popular Labour journal.
It would be difficult to give a systematised criticism of such a ribald mish-mash, but here are certain passages which effectively illustrate Mr. Wilson's abysmal ignorance of the subject he is trying to handle:—
Marx was incapable of imagining democracy . . . (p. 324).. . . the government which Marx imagined for the welfare and elevation of mankind—though he sometimes spoke of democratic institutions inside the new dominant class—was an exclusive and relentless class despotism directed by high-minded big-wigs who had been able to rise above the classes, such as Engels and himself (p. 325).He was closer than ho could ever have imagined to the imperialistic Germany he detested (p. 197).
Mr. Wilson seems very fond of using the word "imagine.” He, too, can imagine things
He is almost desperate in his effort to give the impression that Marx and Engels failed to reply adequately to their critics, but, strange to say, he nowhere exerts himself to prove why and how they failed. He says on page 337: "It is ironic and characteristic that Engels should in the end have been left holding the bag, as we say, for the two most questionable features of Marxism: the Dialectic and the Labour Theory of Value."
Well, we have been also holding the bag for quite a time, and, what's more, we are prepared to defend the contents against Mr. Wilson whenever he feels more qualified to touch them.
An insight into Mr. Wilson's mentality can be gathered by his remark on page 209: "In any case, there is no question at all that Marx's antipathy to writing for money was bound up with almost maniacal idealism."
Kaye.
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